Helpful Ideas For Negotiating Flexible Working With A Stubborn Boss
When you find out that a new arrival is on the way, there is little to match that feeling of ecstasy or exuberance that your whole family will share with you. You will be beside yourself with joy as an expectant mother and you can be sure that this will be one of the finest moments of your family’s life.
Friends and acquaintances will also be over the moon and will all look forward to the big day with much anticipation.
You could be forgiven for thinking that the whole World would be happy for you and while this is largely the case, sometimes you may encounter an element of negativity.
Surely, your boss is happy for you, but he or she may not be on quite the same level as everyone else and be particularly concerned with the operation of the business. In fact, in this case the business may come squarely in first place and you may have to be particularly persuasive if you are considering flexible working hours for your busy times ahead.
You may come to find that your boss is really a dinosaur and can be very inflexible, unfortunately, so you will have to call on all your powers of creativity and persuasiveness.
Seek out a co-worker or friend who has been in the position that you are in now and sit down to have a heart-to-heart conversation with her, to see how the two-way communication with her boss was initiated and how the situation panned out. While you are at this research stage, talk to other friends in other industries or professions and see what solutions they were able to come up with.
This is the time to be very creative and forward thinking and consider telecommuting or working from home. As companies around the World realise that they need to save on their overheads, this concept is becoming more and more acceptable. If the kind of work you do supports this, all the better.
Above all else, you must first decide what would be the absolutely ideal situation for you. In other words, be careful what you wish for!
Look for an ideal scenario and come up with options for less-than-perfect deals. Look at your home commitments first before asking for something you might not be able to accommodate.
Be strategic, yet careful when you discuss ideas and options with colleagues. If you all collectively share a workload, see how you could come up with ideas to divide the work accordingly, giving you a more flexible schedule. You must be willing to pull your weight in other areas and above all else make sure that you are confident it would be a win/win/win situation for the colleagues, the employer and yourself.
Some of us have jobs that expect us to complete certain tasks as part of a “job and finish” approach, regardless of the time that it takes and as part of your new schedule idea, contemplate whether you will be able to achieve this goal during your personal time.
The more you can show your boss that you would be equally as productive, if not more productive by working a flexible schedule, the more the dinosaur is likely to stop chewing the vegetation and listen to you!
In most situations, online life coaching can be another excellent source of research for you. Luckily, coaching for women can generally help by suggesting various options for a variety of situations. This is far from being the private domain of executives or sports players and you should turn to professional coaching, as well!
Amanda Alexander, Director of Coaching Mums, helps pressure-cooked, stressed working mums who long for more hours in the day. Through her coaching programmes and online life coaching courses, Amanda shows mums how to create fulfilling and successful lives. For your simple 5 step guide to balance as a working mum, download our free eBook today!
Tags: (coaching, business, Family, Parenting, work life balance)