Since becoming a parent, I’ve had to make quite a lot of important decisions, between choosing how to feed, what vaccinations are needed, and deciding the best nursery and school to go to. But one of the decisions I was faced with was easy. Financially, I need to work, but I also love my job and so there was no question about me coming back to work. However, I was also aware that I didn’t want to sacrifice precious time with my son. So flexible working was something I was keen to explore.

I considered several options, including reducing my days, but finally settled on compressed hours. In other words, I worked the equivalent of 5 days but did so over four long days. I’d come in early, work through to pick-up, spend time with my son and then return to work in the evening after he was asleep. In return, I had Fridays off to spend some quality time with my son. I did this for four years, during which time I was a both a people manager and a sales person.

If you’re considering how flexible working could work for you or your employees, here are a few things you might want to consider:

1. Know your rights

Employees can apply for flexible working if they’ve worked continuously for the same employer for the last 26 weeks. It’s known as ‘making a statutory application.’ All employees also have the right to request flexible working – you also don’t need to be a parent or carer. Hopefully your employer has a documented policy but there’s a great guide to your rights and different types of flexible working on

the government website.

2. Talk to others, but remember one size doesn’t fit all

Are there others you know that work flexibly? If so, talk to them about what works for them. Find out what they’ve found easy, any barriers they’ve faced, and how it’s affected them – both at home and work. Then consider your own circumstances. Do you have childcare restraints? Are there certain times you have to be in the office or at customer sites? Does travel time reduce your productivity, and how could working remotely eliminate that? Whilst I took guidance from others, ultimately I chose a way of working that suited my personal circumstances. My circumstances have since changed and I’ve therefore had to adapt my working practices to suit which is worth keeping in mind when you’re looking at how flexible working could work for you.

3. Set up a trial period

My manager and I agreed an initial six-month trial period, after which we reviewed the arrangement to ensure it was still working for both parties. This was beneficial; although it seemed amazing to have a three day weekend (and it was!), it was also very hard. I underestimated the impact it would have on my own personal time as I worked every night for at least two hours, starting at 8pm. The trial period allowed me to try this system with a get-out clause if it didn’t work for me. It also meant my manager could assess the impact on my work and the team over a reasonable time period. Together we could review if it was negatively impacting either of these.

4. Make sure you have the right technology

Technology is critical to flexible working. Flexible working doesn’t work if you don’t have access to email, systems, and the other tools you need to be effective. Fortunately I work for a company that provides this technology, but it’s important that you think about what tools and systems you need. Will these be provided by your company, and how can you access them? The investment in systems and tools is more than paid for by the effectiveness and loyalty of flexible workers.

5. Ensure you openly communicate to build trust

Trust is a critical part of flexible working, on both sides of the fence. My manager trusted me to do what was needed to be impactful in my role, regardless of the days or times I worked. If at any point they had questioned my commitment or my outputs, the whole thing would have come crashing down. In return, I trusted the business to support my working practices and to respect my time with my son.

I was of course flexible; there were times I would take phone calls on a Friday or change my working day to accommodate a business-critical meeting. But all changes were agreed in advance and with respect of each party. I would also review the system in my one-to-ones with my manager. So even after the trial period we continued to discuss how it was working and whether we needed to change anything from either side. This was great as it meant I still had the support of the business to help me make it a success. Flexible working isn’t always easy so having the right support is key.

6. Stay organised and aware of your priorities

I’m lucky to have a supportive husband, but he also works full time. When I first returned to work after maternity leave, I tried to take on too much and quickly felt overwhelmed. After discussing this with my husband, we agreed that every Sunday night we’d sit down to review our diaries for the week, and organise pick ups and drop offs accordingly. We also talked about housework. According to a recent study, woman still take on 65% of the housework load, but when you both work full time, sharing the load is vital to keep both parties sane. So, we also divided the household chores equally and contracted a cleaner to help once a week which helped massively.

I stopped trying to do everything. Instead, I decided on the three most important priorities for me to feel I was still being a great mum, and 3 priorities for feeling I was being a great employee. Everything else became secondary. It meant I dropped some of the mental load of those “I really shoulds”, and focussed my time on the priority tasks which ultimately helped me feel less guilty and more in control.

Flexible working is an important part of making modern family life work. There is no right or wrong way – just what’s right for you at each stage of your life. By talking more about this topic and sharing our experiences and tips, hopefully we can make work easier for families. That can only be a good thing!

Learn more

5 tips to use AI to achieve a better work-life balance

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Improve your team’s mobile productivity

About the Author

As Customer Programme Manager, Alison Wright is responsible for helping high growth businesses and start-ups get the most out of their Microsoft technologies; however, she considers her most important role to be a mother to her son. As a result, Alison is passionate about helping working parents use technology to be more effective in their day jobs, so they can achieve that all-important work-life balance.

The post 6 tips to make flexible working work for you appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

One of the many reasons I work for Microsoft is our fundamental belief that AI augments human capabilities, rather than replacing them. I’m not technical in any sense of the word. When I hear Java I think coffee, not coding. I do recognise that AI is already infused into the products I use every day and enhances my capabilities as a result. With a busy work and home life to balance, AI helps me manage my time more effectively. I can communicate more clearly. It also helps me improve my skills with using tools like PowerPoint.

Here are a few ways that I use AI every day to be better.

1. Make presentations pop with minimal effort

“PowerPoint slides are like children; no matter how ugly they are, you’ll think they’re beautiful if they’re yours,” – Scott Adams, ‘The Joy of Work’

If, like me, you end up delivering quite a few presentations but lack inspiration at times, here are a few easy tips to make you look like a PowerPoint pro. Firstly, there are some great plug-ins you can use for royalty-free stock images. Pexels and Pickit are two that I regularly use and they provide a fantastic range of images. Once you’ve added some images to your slide, click the ‘Design Ideas’ button under the ‘Design’ ribbon. It will give you some excellent suggestions for how your slide could be laid out for maximum visual impact.

‘Design Ideas’ is powered by AI. It understands the focus of each image and makes appropriate recommendations for how they should be arranged on the slide in seconds. Much easier than faffing around yourself!

‘Design Ideas’ is powered by AI. It understands the focus of each image and makes appropriate recommendations for how they should be arranged on the slide in seconds. Much easier than faffing around yourself!

2. Recycle slides to reduce workload

When I first joined Microsoft, I was surprised by the sheer volume of PowerPoint presentations everyone had. Over the years I’ve adopted the practice of having a walking deck for each of my projects. I often re-use slides, however. This meant opening various decks and copying slides into new decks. But not anymore, thanks to AI. Now I simply click on the ‘Reuse Slides’ button in the ‘Home’ ribbon. The AI knows which presentations I’ve been working on recently, brings them up on a side panel. I then can simply select which slide I want from the various presentations and insert it with a click of a button. Easy.

3. Never forget another thing

Between managing my day job and remembering which day my son needs his PE kit, I’ll admit that I sometimes forget things – much to my frustration. Integrity is one of my core values, so when I let someone down, I feel terrible. AI helps me avoid that. Shared a presentation in a meeting? Outlook now prompts you to see if you want to share the presentation as a follow-up.

Even better, if you refer to an attachment in an email but haven’t attached anything, an alert pops up reminding you that you may have forgotten to attach something. No more repeat emails with ‘oops, I forgot to actually attach this’. Genius.

I also love Cortana. She helps me remember truly mundane things like picking up bread from the supermarket or putting out the bins on a Monday night. The reminders are contextual, so she knows when I’m at the shops and reminds me. She also works across my Windows 10 laptop and Android phone.

4. Manage your precious time

We all have the same 24 hours, whether you’re a CEO or a stay-at-home mum. It’s our choice to decide how we use those precious hours. I use a handy little tool called MyAnalytics to help me manage that time and, more importantly, protect it. Microsoft has a culture of meetings, and while that’s great for collaboration, at times you just need to get your head down. MyAnalytics uses AI to help me understand how I’m using my time and makes suggestions for using that time more effectively.

For example, if I’m emailing during meetings, do I really need to be there? It highlights who I’m spending time with so I can see if I’m spending too much time with colleagues, and not enough time with customers. Slots in my diary are identified and can be blocked out for focus time. It also flags if I’m working outside office hours to help me maintain a positive work-life balance.

5. Find the insights you need, fast

Nowadays most businesses rely on data in some shape or form, but data alone isn’t that helpful. It’s the insights you can extract from that data that helps businesses make better decisions, based on fact instead of opinion.

I predominantly work with small businesses where cash flow is key to survival. It’s vital for them to have insights at the tips of their fingers, like profitable customers. Many of the customers I meet use Xero to manage their accounts and it provides incredible data.

However, turning that data into actionable insights without resorting to speaking to a bookkeeper or accountant is important if they want to save time and money. Using a free service like PowerBI can help. It can help visualise data and bring it to life.

It also uses AI to help you query data, so you get the insights you need as fast as you can type! For example, if I connect PowerBI to my Xero account (very easy instructions here), I can ask PowerBI to show me all my overdue invoices by customer, so I can easily chase up those payments. I simply type “show my overdue invoices by customer”. By using natural language processing, it understands I want to see overdue invoices and that I want to see that data by customer. It then searches all my unstructured data and only shows me what I want to see.

Get back your time

As someone who really values time with my family, I use the tools mentioned above every day. They help me get more done during my working hours. This means I don’t miss school pick-up times or have to work late into the evenings. Whilst you may not have been aware of it, core products that you use daily already have AI infused into them to help you connect better with others, get more done and improve your decision making. I, for one, am wholly up for that.

Learn more about how you can achieve more with technology

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About the author

As Customer Programme Manager, Alison Wright is responsible for helping high growth businesses and start-ups get the most out of their Microsoft technologies. However, she considers her most important role to be a mother to her son. As a result, Alison is passionate about helping working parents use technology to be more effective in their day jobs, so they can achieve that all-important work-life balance.

The post 5 ways to work smarter and improve your work-life balance appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.