Should Parents Get Special Privileges?

A member of the Equilibrant network wrote to me yesterday saying that her female manager within a major, quite important section of the UK government (I really want to tell you - it's that appalling - but I won't) told her that she (the manager) would "block home working for any colleagues who had children as they shouldn't be given 'privileges' just because they have a family."   


There was a time, not that long ago, where I could actually understand that point of view.  I was working my *rse off in finance, putting in 12 hour days, and actually felt hard done by every time one of my colleagues (male or female) said they were ducking out to do something with their kids.  Why should they get special treatment just because they chose to have children?  Now that I have a child of my own, of course, I am completely embarrassed to admit that.  I should point out, though, that I also secretly felt it was unfair when my male colleagues would randomly duck out to play squash during the day, which they did often.  


I can see now that I, like the government manager, was missing the point entirely.  Flexibility in working hours and venues is a privilege, to be sure, but rather than denying it to some employees, on the basis that exceptions should not be made, it should be offered to all employees.  


In my pre-kid life, would I have been pleased to be encouraged to work from home a couple of days a week?  You bet.  My company could have even saved money on physical space by having me share a desk with someone who was working from home on other days.  It doesn't matter that I didn't "need" to work from home due to family obligations - to me, it would have been a valuable perk, and one that I might have taken up if I felt confident that I would be judged on my performance, rather on the amount of face time I was putting in at the office.


The option to work flexibly is something that has been proved, time and again, to be more valuable to employees than money.  It increases retention rates and decreases sick days.  Simply put, it makes financial sense, which is something the government (particularly in its current predicament) might want to note.