31. May 2026

Flexible working isn't a favour you're doing her. It's how you keep her.

I'll never forget the "half day?" comment.

I'd been at my desk since 7:30am (literally on a few hours broken sleep...). I was leaving at 4:30pm to make the 6pm nursery pickup, having forced through a flexible schedule that I delivered against every single day. And as I packed up, someone said it - at LEAST once a week - in the days when working from home wasn't 'a thing' so I was in 5 days a week. Light. A joke, supposedly. "Half day?"

I smiled. I always smiled. But what that comment told me and told everyone in earshot, was that my flexibility was being read as a discount on my commitment rather than a different shape to my output.

This is the single biggest framing error I see organisations make and it's costing them their best people. Flexibility is treated as a perk you're generously handing out, when it's the mechanism that keeps experienced talent in the building at all.

Why the framing matters more than the policy...

Most businesses I work with have the policy. Flexible hours, hybrid days, return-to-work conversations, the lot. The policy is rarely the problem. The culture around the policy is.

Because if flexibility is framed as a favour, three things happen:

• The person using it feels they're in permanent debt, so they overcompensate or stay quiet
• Managers subtly track the hours instead of the outcomes
• Everyone learns that taking up the flexibility carries a reputational cost

So the policy sits on the intranet, technically available, practically radioactive. And your experienced returners quietly conclude they'd be better valued somewhere else.

What good actually looks like

Flexibility done well isn't about lowering the bar. It never has been. It's about enabling performance in a different context. A senior person delivering full value across reshaped hours is not a concession. It's a smart use of talent you've already invested years in developing.

The shift is small but it's everything: stop measuring presence, start measuring output. Agree what success looks like, explicitly, and then trust the adult in front of you to deliver it. They almost always do. Often better than before, because the margin for waffle has gone.

For the working mum reading this

You do not need to earn your flexibility back every single day. You are not on probation for becoming a parent!! The hours you've agreed are PART of your contract, not a kindness you must repay with guilt and over-delivery.

Hold the boundary. Deliver the work. Let the results speak and stop apologising for the clock.

For the HR leaders and managers reading this

If you want to know whether your flexible working is real or decorative, ask one question: does taking it up carry a cost to someone's reputation or progression? If the honest answer is yes, your policy is a poster, not a practice.

Fixing this is not expensive. It's a shift in how managers are equipped to lead, and it's one of the highest-return retention moves you can make.

If your flexibility looks great on paper but your returners still leave, that gap is exactly what I help organisations close. Let's talk. I am so passionate about making sure working parents and their managers are supported and remain productive and proactive in your organisation.