Essential Tips For Negotiating Flexible Working With A Stubborn Boss

When you find out that a new arrival is on the way, there is little to match that feeling of ecstasy or exuberance that your whole family will share with you. You will be beside yourself with joy as an expectant mother and you can be sure that this will be one of the finest moments of your family’s life.

Friends and acquaintances will also be over the moon and will all look forward to the big day with much anticipation.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the whole World would be happy for you and while this is largely the case, sometimes you may encounter an element of negativity.

While your boss might be a relatively happy person normally, he or she may be particularly concerned about the business operation and may not be as enthusiastic as you might think. You may soon come to realise that the business is classified squarely in first position in the eyes of your boss and if you want to consider flexible working hours as you go forward, you are going to have to be really persuasive.

You may come to find that your boss is really a dinosaur and can be very inflexible, unfortunately, so you will have to call on all your powers of creativity and persuasiveness.

Seek out a co-worker or friend who has been in the position that you are in now and sit down to have a heart-to-heart conversation with her, to see how the two-way communication with her boss was initiated and how the situation panned out. While you are at this research stage, talk to other friends in other industries or professions and see what solutions they were able to come up with.

This is the time to be very creative and forward thinking and consider telecommuting or working from home. As companies around the World realise that they need to save on their overheads, this concept is becoming more and more acceptable. If the type of work that you do can be handled in this way, this may well be an option for you.

Above all else, you must first decide what would be the absolutely ideal situation for you. Be sure of what you are doing, as after all, remember that you must be careful what you wish for!

At the top of your list should be an ideal scenario, but you should also have options available in a less-than-perfect situation. Look at your home commitments first before asking for something you might not be able to accommodate.

Be strategic, yet careful when you discuss ideas and options with colleagues. If you all collectively share a workload, see how you could come up with ideas to divide the work accordingly, giving you a more flexible schedule. You must be willing to pull your weight in other areas and above all else make sure that you are confident it would be a win/win/win situation for the colleagues, the employer and yourself.

Some of us have jobs that expect us to complete certain tasks as part of a “job and finish” approach, regardless of the time that it takes and as part of your new schedule idea, contemplate whether you will be able to achieve this goal during your personal time.

The more you can show your boss that you would be equally as productive, if not more productive by working a flexible schedule, the more the dinosaur is likely to stop chewing the vegetation and listen to you!

Contemplate online life coaching as a valuable source of research. Thankfully, coaching for women can always help by looking at a variety of situations and suggesting options. This is far from being the private domain of executives or sports players and you should turn to professional coaching, as well!

Amanda Alexander, Director of Coaching Mums, helps pressure-cooked, stressed working mums who long for more hours in the day. Through her coaching programmes and online life coaching courses, Amanda shows mums how to create fulfilling and successful lives. For your simple 5 step guide to balance as a working mum, download our free eBook today!