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?

return to work

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#dadsflextoo - A blog by Patrick Alleyne

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My name is Patrick Alleyne and I am not a stay at home dad but very much employed in a busy and demanding role. I work flexibly but not for family/caring reasons unless caring for yourself and looking after your own wellbeing counts? I work for London regional government and my organisation is hugely supporting of flexible working.

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#dadsflextoo - A blog by Phil Farr

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Hi, my name's Phil and I work as a Senior Project Officer for the Greater London Authority and have done for 20 years. Yes, really! I have a partner and a lovely daughter who is 7. We live in the Home Counties and due to being able to work flexibly, I am able to balance the commute to work in London with some work from home days and this suits me because I can be there to do the school run and take my daughter to after-school activities.

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#dadsflextoo - An interview with Tom Briggs | Diary of the Dad

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My name's Tom and I'm a dad of three. I've been a full-time blogger for the last three and a half years. This makes me more of a work-at-home dad than a stay-at-home one in the truest sense, but I've enjoyed the best of both worlds as a result.

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#dadsflextoo - An interview with Andy Philip

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Hi, I’m Andy Philip; self-employed freelance musician; Dad to six year old twins. My work involves live performance, recording sessions, arranging, composing and some teaching. Performance-work always tends to be in the evening which means leaving home around the kids’ dinner time to make the commute into the West End (I’m the contracted guitarist on the musical Wicked).

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Flexible working is just for Mums, isn't it?

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Actually no, it really isn’t and it’s something that we often challenge businesses with when we talk to them about the wonderful benefits of flexible working. We talked to Jackie C Whittingham, Special Projects Senior Manager at Grant Thornton UK LLP who gave us an insight into what life is really like for those seeking flexibility within the company (and you guessed it, it isn’t just Mums making this work for them)…

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How technology facilitates flexible working…with Flex IT

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If you're wondering if it's possible to implement flexible working within your team...but you keep getting that niggling feeling that it would just be too time consuming and expensive, we can assure you that it's not the big task mountain that you think it is. …

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Build Your Confidence by Anna Morris of First Focus Consultants

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Confidence is a funny thing, we can be super confident in one area of our lives, yet crumble and feel nervous, or worse, terrified at the prospect of facing other situations.  The key thing to being confident is EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE…