Work flexibility

I’ve been fortunate to work for two companies that have embraced work flexibility. My first job at PwC is a company with flexibility ingrained in the culture by nature. A lot of the firm that did auditing or consulting would either be traveling or at the client site. Other service lines would be in the office, but we were always able to work from multiple locations. By nature, the firm had to embrace flexibility in order to work.

At Secfi, we’ve been very flexible from the start as our offices are all over the world in San Francisco, New York, Amsterdam or remote. My personal stance is that I prefer to be in the office, but greatly support work flexibility. With that said, I believe flexibility is a two way street.

In order to be able to do things like take care of personal needs during normal work hours, you also need to be flexible outside of work hours. At Secfi, we may take calls starting at 7am to ensure face time with our Amsterdam office, but I may also take an hour break in the afternoon to go workout. I hate 7am calls, but I love being able to take a break in my workday.

Not everyone is cut out for this type of schedule though. I’ve dealt with a lot of employees at PwC who would take flexibility to a new level and not really work when needed. It was brutally obvious to others when that would happen.

Whenever we get a new person on my teams, I tell them the same thing: I don’t care if you take an hour or two during the workday to handle personal things, but you need to understand flexibility goes both ways. You may work early mornings or late nights sometimes. There may be weekend work to make up for the lost time.

I love this schedule and I know others do as well, but it’s not for everyone.