Frankly 9-5 monday to friday does not work… of course it works in the logistical sense of having your entire workforce arrive at the same time, working the same hours for ease of meetings and customer contact but it was designed – by man – in very different times.

Guess what, we have technology, we have e-mail, skype, an abundance of virtual meeting software, call forwarding, and we have an unhappy workforce.  In my own 25 year employment history I cannot count the number of times colleagues have said ‘a wednesday off’ ‘in our dreams’. ‘flexible start and finish times’ ‘in our dreams’.

For heaven’s sake why on earth is this still in anybody’s dreams!  We have so many deaths on the road in rush hour traffic it is ridiculous.  Now I am a passionate writer not a statistical surveyor so please feel free to gather your own stats but I am happy enough with the intrinsic knowledge that I have to kick and scream at those of you who are holding back humane evolution.

This is the 21st century.  An employer needs a workforce to run their empire.  An employee needs to to do what they are good at to be awarded pay.  Two human beings exchange goods and services to make the entire process functionable.  Now, if you allow your employees to manage their own time than quess what, if they do not deliver you can relieve them of their post.  If an employee can do what they are good at and manage it around their own humane existence, they are not going to f*** up are they! If they do it will be a hard life lesson for them.

Here’s the thing.  Youngsters naturally have a night life (yes steriotyping but for arguments sake I am using likely examples) – they would benefit from the option of working 10-6, or 11-7 (roughly – work with me here).  Elders may prefer to get to work when they rise, 6am – 2pm, and with effective communication this need never be a problem.  Instead people are setting alarms for 7, rising before the sun unaturally, contending with rush-hour traffic and literally DYING.  People are STRESSED, DEPRESSED, they have NO TIME to sort out their private lives.  Come on – it is not rocket science,  change is never easy and some administration is required but it’s not difficult either, and anybody competent enough to run a company should be capable of administering a work-life balance set-up.

‘School’ I hear you argue, well yes of course for obvious reasons they, along with other organisations need an element rigidity.  But if you can have 1/3rd of the workforce on the road at 6 0r 7, a 1/3rd at 9 and a 1/3rd at 11 the difference will be incredible.  Less deaths, proof is in the pudding and I will sign-post you to statistics in 10 or 20 years…

Teachers – now I have worked in schools and I know that many teachers are teaching for the love of teaching and they are brilliant at what they do – but i’m afraid that I also know that some enter the teaching profession because they want to have work-life balance with their family.  They too hate the rat-race and they would work somewhere else if they could work term-time school hours.  Yes it’s true..

‘Term-time’ I hear you grunt, ‘and what would the company do with half of it’s employees off all summer!’ – Really – you can’t figure this one out?  Cough – students spring to mind. University students who want to work the summer holidays and other holidays! Oh – yes – of course.  I know, training, not knowing what to do, whatever excuse – it’s just administration guys.  I would bet that there are millions of employees who would be happy to be on hand on the phone, on Skype, or visit the office a couple of times a week to check the students progress, with the pay split (and the very competent student gaining brilliant experience and momentum) if it meant that they could enjoy LIFE with their family.   We are here for a short time after all.  Just ask the question please! Times are changing and if you want your workforce to be happy (there is a legal obligation to take care of employees wellbeing not just their physical safety) you need to realise your power and make the changes.  You literally have people’s lives in your hand.

Again, entrepreneurs would probably do a brilliant job for you if they could enjoy a humane approach to work-life balance and they didn’t have to lose their liberty in order to make a living.

Times are changing and people are changing, but we’re still very much in the dark when it comes to 9-5 manslaughter and we need to collectively shout louder and fight for life!  Enabling us to be happy enough and unstressed enough to perform brilliantly at work.

Of course there are many of you who will be perfectly happy with the 9-5 commute, but as identified in my and many other books – we are all different.  As humans we have different threads of species – something more easily identifiable in the animal kingdom (you would not expect a monkey to carry 6 people and you would not expect an elephant to climb a tree, you would not expect a squirrel to mate for life and you would not expect to see a swan necking lots of different swans! You would not see a lion eat a vegetarian diet nor would you see a deer eat meat) – we are equally as diffent as they are it’s just harder to see. That’s why we need honesty!  – Going off on a tangent will save that for another post!

Caring and sharing peeps – my blog posts are to help those suffering without the confidence to fight for their own wellbeing.

But I will close with this.  ANYTHING MAN-MADE CAN BE UNMADE.  IT’S A BASIC ANALYSIS OF WHAT’S WORKING AND WHAT YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE, FOR THE BETTER.  

My Book – Finding Happiness and Freeing Your Spirit