Celebrating the impact of flexible working: Meet Georgie

Having the flexibility with working hours to keep up with all things thrown up by family life is important to ensure equity in the workplace. Georgie, Early Careers Specialist, has shared how important a flexible working pattern is to her and her family.

“Originally, my husband did the school pick-up and I did the drop-off, but now he has a new job, I’ve swapped to doing both. Specsavers has been amazing at giving me the flexibility to do that – I don’t start until 9am now, and I work on a Tuesday evening to make up for finishing early on Fridays. They’ve also been really understanding about my routine changing at different times of the year – as my husband now gets school holidays off, I go back to working normal hours those weeks, which has worked really well for us. Without this support, I’d definitely have had to go part-time, which I really didn’t want to do.

“In previous jobs, I’ve always felt like I’ve had to justify having flexible hours, and had this in mind when I first approached my Specsavers manager about it. I wrote out a whole proposal for my work pattern, but they took one look and said it wasn’t needed – they completely trusted me to have autonomy over my hours, and to get the job done however best suited me and my family. They’ve also been so flexible with things like meetings – little things, like booking them at times when I don’t have to worry about being back from the school run by a certain time, have made such a big difference. There’s no such thing as one size fits all here, and it’s brilliant to be so trusted.”

The flexibility offered by Specsavers ensures Georgie can balance family life and work life wiithout unnecessary strain and still ensures she has the opportunities to make a tangible impact in her role. If it’s for family reasons, wellbeing reasons or something else, we’re happy to discuss flexible working arrangements within our roles to ensure you’re equipped to produce your best work.

If you’ve seen a vacancy and are unsure about flexible working possibilities, please don’t hesitate to reach out via our Life at Specsavers channels and we’ll be happy to help!