Flexibility and Trust

What do you need? I want to particularly address this question for women who are mothers. Are your first thoughts: ‘what do my children, my partner, my employer and my clients need?’ If so, take a breath and ask yourself, ‘what do you personally need right now?’

My job gives me an incredible window into people’s lives as they confide in me, sharing their wants and needs for their next role. But, when you talk to a mother, there are many more layers to add and people to consider. Often it becomes a conversation around ‘what do I have to do’ or ‘what do I need to compromise’ to be employed now that I have children?

Imagine if we lived in a world where employers would say ‘What do you need?’ The answer from the majority of employees would be surprisingly easy to accommodate: flexibility. And flexibility manifests itself as Trust. When people are trusted, and given autonomy over their work, their motivation, their work rate and their commitment to that company increases.
So much so, that a 2014 survey conducted by Linkedin and Citigroup, found that nearly half of employees would give up a 20% raise for greater control over how they work.

Interior Design is a project driven industry, designers have clear deadlines for phases of

a project and deliverables. There is already a structure in place, therefore if an employee says ‘I need flexibility’ , what’s to say it can’t happen? People, especially mothers, would
be incredibly thankful for the flexibility to work around school pick-up and drop-off, or to leave early for a child’s assembly, sports day or even to go to a doctor’s appointment themselves. I guarantee deadlines would be met/exceeded. How do I know this? More and more women are starting their own businesses because

they know they can produce the work but not necessarily within the traditional 9am-5pm working hours.
Stress, balance and burnout have become

the biggest career challenges. Paul J.Zak produced a paper for Harvard Business Reviews ‘Neuroscience of Trust’ (Management behaviors that foster employee engagement) and found: “Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report: 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement,29% more satisfaction with their lives, 40% less burnout”.
The facts speak for themselves. Let’s make
the interior design industry a role model in ‘Trusting their employees’ and allow women with children not to be asking me ‘what do I have to compromise?’ but ‘which job offer shall I accept as they all offer great flexibility?’