Rachel speaks
Rachel, I have two young ones at home
By Rachel
Aug 21, 2009 - 1:01:10 AM

Dear Rachel,
I believe I have a problem that's pretty common in media departments. Maybe you can help me. I've been here five years and it's a small department so I do a bit of everything. My problem is that I have two young ones at home--the younger is just 13 months--and I want to spend more time with them. As it is, I work long hours, and I would like to figure a way to work from home at least several days a week. My question: How do I sell this idea to my bosses?-- Time-pressed mom

Dear Time-pressed,
You have some things going for you, and one is that you are in a field where a lot of women are in your situation, so agencies have gotten more open to working out flexible hours, certainly more open than in industries that are male-dominated.

Also working in your favor is the sad state of the ad economy. With agencies feeling pressed, and with far fewer raises to hand out, bosses will be more inclined to look at flex hours as a way of rewarding good workers that carries no cost.

But as yours is a small agency, this may be a first for them, so you have to sell it smartly.

Obviously, you are valued, guessing by the range of work you do and your time there. So it's more than likely management will work with you rather than risk losing you, should you decide one day to go elsewhere or look for part-time work.

The key thing to keep in mind is that you need to make it so that your bosses see no downside in whatever deal you propose.

They may well respect you and respect the job that you do, but managers are very keen to sniffing out situations that could lead to trouble.

Say you come up with a plan that looks good on paper, and you and management agree to give it a try. But early on it turns into a problem.

You really like the time at home and don't want to give it up. They are unhappy. A battle erupts, words go back and forth, and you end leaving. Or you stay but you're unhappy and so are they.

They then say to themselves, look, we tried to do something for her and it's backfired on us.

To avoid that situation, you need to set things up so that if a snag does develop, you can come back together and craft a schedule that does work for both sides.

One approach may be to try a limited flexible schedule that has you working at home one day, or even a half day. Then you can always go back and tinker with it to get more time at home.

It might make sense to set up a one-month trial.

The important thing is that whatever plan you come up with has a built-in comfort level for management.

If you create the right plan, you win and management wins.