Helen Wright
Pulling together

The festive period is often a time of reflection.  As December rolls around, we're sometimes haunted by the ghosts of Christmasses past.  Of years when the office was festooned with tinsel and the wistful tones of Mariah Carey echoed around the departmental kitchen.  This can go either way, of course.  You might feel a touch of nostalgia for the years when reindeer sweaters were de rigueur at your Friday morning accounts meeting.  You may, on the other hand, shudder at the memory of an office Christmas lunch of lukewarm turkey and soggy sprouts.  Either way, this time of year has a habit of focussing the mind on the issue of RTO - the "Return To The Office".

Pulling together
Helen Wright
The Big Cheese

What makes a good leader?  How much impact do our senior managers really have on our day-to-day experience of work?   And is the movement towards equality and flexibility for all really dependent on great chiefs?

The Big Cheese
Helen Wright
Bright Sparks: Top Tips for Returning To Work ...

In an attempt to smooth the path of our friends in the 9-2-3 community, we've put together some top tips to help you to return to work with confidence, and bag the best flexible jobs on the market in 2024.  Read on for more details...

Bright Sparks: Top Tips for Returning To Work After a Career Break
Helen Wright
All Four One

Ah, September.  Month of blustery mornings.  Of afternoons where the leaves crunch satisfyingly under your feet.  Of endless confusion about the day on which PE kit is required.  Don't you just love it?

 We can't help but feel a flutter of excitement at this time of year.   Possibly it's because of the sudden silence at home, or the reduced demands for snacks and screen time.  Maybe you're celebrating the excuse to dig out cosy sweaters and to retreat inside with a book.  Or perhaps it's the fact that the air is just that touch fresher, the colours that fraction richer.  Everyone I pass is walking with a little bit more purpose in their steps.  However old we are, as the new academic year rolls around, I think we all feel a little more driven - that it's time to set ourselves some new goals, and that we finally have the bandwidth and the space to achieve them.

All Four One
Helen Wright
Who cares?

Here at 9-2-3, we often talk about the challenges of balancing childcare with careers.  Of how flexible working can help people with disabilities to access the workplace.  About how flex can help older employees extend their working lives.  But there's another group of employees out there whose place in the world of work is also increasingly under threat…

Who cares?

shift work

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#dadsflextoo - A blog by Greg

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Written by Greg, dad to two, husband to one...doing the best he can!

I spent last weekend with my family, enjoying the weather ( a lot) and the cut and thrust of Chessington World of Adventures (a lot less...). This weekend, however, I am working late shifts both days and will be home from work long after my two young children have gone to bed. And so it goes with shift work…

 

When most people hear that I work 6 on, 3 off shifts, they normally comment on working six consecutive days. Usually, it goes something like this:  “You work SIX days per week?! I couldn’t do that.” But it doesn’t take long for people to soften their view. As a result of my shift pattern, I work fewer days per year than someone on a more ‘standard’ Monday to Friday pattern and my leave goes further too. These two revelations get people’s attention but there are other benefits too… 

 

I’m sitting on my sofa, it’s a Thursday, and in addition to shoehorning in a bit of NETFLIX I have done half the school run, taken my son to his swimming lesson, enjoyed a meal out with my family, helped with homework, read a bedtime story, put the bins out and worked a 7.5 hour shift. Oh, and cobbled together this badly written diatribe... A good example of how you can make shift work...work, and work well. 

 

I have had a number of jobs over my relatively short working life most of which have maintained what you would call normal business hours, apart from the odd temp job in retail-there is definitely therapy in stacking shelves.

 

You know when the best time to do almost anything is? On weekdays. Everything is a touch less crowded, which makes the shops nicer, the roads quieter and taking my daughter to the park a little bit more peaceful (sometimes). Admittedly I quite like spending time by myself and also seek quieter environments with my family so perhaps I am a little biased but I find I spend less time in competition with others for space, or jostling for my place in the queue... 

 

I don’t know how people get to the doctor or dentist or get their car serviced etc when at work during the traditional work pattern, I find an awful lot more flexibility in my work rhythm despite essentially being contracted to the same number of hours a week. These more mundane tasks tend to be far easier to sort with my current regime.

 

If there is a downside, perhaps sleep patterns are one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I get enough sleep, but the timing can change depending on work. Some people probably benefit from greater routine on that front. Also, the rest of the world arranges many things for the weekend (obviously) which means I can regularly miss them unless I deem them vital enough to take annual leave... 

 

Work-life balance. I will finish with this as this is what most people strive to achieve when it comes to their lives. I certainly have it and consider myself very lucky as a result and get this, it certainly doesn’t involve a 9-5.