Flexibility at work scores big points with time-pressed parents

Your four-year-old will be starting kindergarten in a few weeks. Now would be the perfect time to talk with your boss about the company's flex-time policies?so you could meet the school bus after school and then work from home for the rest of the day.

Or maybe not.

You see, there was that rumor about that guy in accounting really messing up once he started working from home. Anyway, he almost got fired.

It's no wonder the world of flexible work arrangements suffers from what work-life experts call "the implementation gap"?the gap between what's available to employees on paper (as spelled out in the sparkling brochures distributed by HR departments) and the uptake rate (the rate at which employees take advantage of the availability of those very same programs).

The policies that look great on paper don't always get implemented in real life because people either don't know they exist (the HR brochure went AWOL) or they've heard through the grapevine that actually taking advantage of flexible working arrangements can do terrible things to your career.

Sometimes there's some truth to these rumors. Other times, they amount to the workplace equivalent of urban legends.

So what should you do if you're interested in finding out what types of flexible working arrangements are available in your workplace?
 
Find an ally at work. Look for someone who has had a very successful experience with flexible working arrangements, either within the company or at a previous job. Ask that person to help you find out what options have been made available to other employees in your workplace and then start thinking about what you'd like to ask for when you sit down to have The Big Talk with your boss. (If you're looking for some inspiring ideas about what is possible in terms of flexible work arrangements, download a copy of Overcoming the Implementation Gap: How 20 Leading Companies Are Making Flexibility Work from the Boston College Center for Work and Family website).

Remind yourself that your employer has as much to gain from agreeing to a flexible workplace arrangement as you do. A study conducted by the Center for Work & Family in 2000 found that 70 per cent of managers and 87 per cent of employees reported that working a flexible work arrangement had a positive or very positive impact on productivity. What's more, employees who are employed by companies that offer flexible workplace options tend to reward their employers with loyalty and hard work. So it's a win-win all around.

Now over to you: How important is it to you to have flexibility in the workplace (flexible hours, flexible working locations, ability to bank time to take a leave of absence in future, etc.)? Does your employer offer any of these types of benefits? Would you change jobs to gain more control over your schedule or working environment?