#P-Post #9: Family time!

Or, sorry, was trying to get my kid to stop licking the TV.

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The astute among you will have noticed that there wasn’t a people post last week. I took a week off from general life to spend with the kids. My wife was traveling, so I went into full-time parenting mode. I thoroughly enjoyed the time with my kids and can’t wait for it to happen again. I decided that I would switch off from (almost) everything and focus on the ankle-biters. It was glorious!

My company allowed me to work from home and I spent most of the time on deep work and research, fitting it in around breakfasts, dinners, school-drop offs and nap times (I’ve got three kids from kindergarten to school age). I’d get up at the usual time, work for an hour or two on emails, then stop completely when the first resource-drain was awake and only started again once they were all at school, or ensconced in front of some children’s programming (or a film - I’ve watched Disney’s Coco about four hundred times this week. It’s surprisingly good though). I’d make sure I could make time for the littlest one when he needed attention (or when I wanted his attention, which is a lot - he’s so damn cute!).

My colleagues were happy to schedule meetings at times that worked for both of us (or were happy for me to sit on mute and tolerate a babbling toddler on occasion) and no one really knew I had shifted my working hours to suit the kids. It worked and, instead of feeling ragged and stressed, I’ve actually had a very chilled week and got a lot of stuff done I’ve been putting off. The only thing I really missed was adult conversation, although, that’s sometimes hard to come by, even in the office!

Companies that embrace the fact their employees have families and need to spend time with them in order to not explode in weekly status meeting, or the ones that will prosper and grow. Companies that provide the technology and space for the employees that need it, will be always attract the best talent.

Companies that trust their employees to get the work done, understanding that they are adults and need some flexibility, will always be successful.

From the channel

• Bianca McKee: Change Resilience for HR Practitioners Virtual HR Round Table (now, thats a mouthful!). This looks pretty good, some suggestions on strategies and approaches for managing change, always a tough one: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/virtual-hr-roundtable-change-resilience-for-hr-practitioners-tickets-67001141217
  

• Giovanni: One from the Humaans crew: How to leverage purpose to build up a performance-driven workforce. This is a good read and something close to my heart. Give people purpose, then get out of their way: https://blog.humaans.io/how-to-leverage-purpose-to-build-up-a-performance-driven-workforce/
  

• Harrison Kim: 7 cheap ways to motivate and engage employees. Good post here, although I’d argue this are all table stakes and something all companies should do, not just as a way to motivate and engage employees. Although, I dislike the idea of lunch and learns (unless the company provides lunch). My lunchtime is my downtime, there has to be a compelling reason for me to keep working through it. https://www.pavestep.com/post/7-cheap-ways-to-motivate-and-engage-employees

End #post

Right, sorry-not-sorry for missing last weeks, I had a better time than I usually do and you had a break from me, win-win.

Remember, if there’s something in particular you’d like to see in here, then let me know. I enjoyed putting together this issue, so any other topic you’d benefit from hearing about would be great.

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