Thread by @FlexNHS

On #FathersDay we spoke to @JoeHMK about flexible working and balancing work and life. It’s a thread! 👇👇👇 @flexnhs #flexappeal

Hello, my name is Joe @JoeHMK and I’m the dad of 10-year old twins as well as being chief executive of Milton Keynes University Hospital @MKHospital. It’s Father’s Day in the UK and so @flexNHS asked me if I’d write a few words on flexible working and balancing work and life...

So first up, flexible working isn’t only for parents - in fact, for me, a lot of the flexibility I’ve needed at work over the past year or so has been around hospital appointments and care for my elderly dad.

But being a parent (or carer) adds a different type of pressure into the working day and often prompts us to seek more flexibility and a decent balance between work and home/ family life.

I’m a real advocate for flexibility and for balance. I try and role model this - I’m vocal about its importance, which, when you’re the chief executive is also about saying ‘this is the way we work here’ - which I hope helps to empower the 4,000 people working at MKUH...

and makes it really clear that we value our people, and we understand that you bring your whole self to work (and that sometimes life is tricky for all sorts of reasons).

We are doing more at MKUH to support and increase flexible working as well as other things to help improve working conditions and the work environment - that includes more carer’s leave, better bereavement support, free tea and coffee and free parking.

For me this is about valuing the people we rely on. We don’t get it right all the time, but we are trying to get it right more of the time, for more of our staff. We all want the best balance we can - whether it’s time with our kids, time with our parents, time for ourselves.

It’s vital - it’s about who we are and who and what we love, and what makes us happy.

Being a great employee doesn’t mean being at work all the time. It means being the best you can be when you’re working; and being a good employer means supporting people to be the best they can be at work.

You bring your whole self to work - we ask a huge amount of you - we should and we must support you as much as we can. Movements like @flexNHS and #flexappeal are really important in highlighting good practice and illustrating how much more we need to do.

It’s also good to see an increasing focus on flexible working and work/life balance in national NHS plans - including the interim People Plan published a couple of weeks ago.

It’s something that touches us all and for people in jobs like mine, something we need to keep championing and doing more to improve.

So, as it’s Father’s Day - Happy Father’s Day to all those celebrating fatherhood today. Whether it’s the father you are, the father you have, or the father figures in your life. Whether those celebrations are here and now, ones to come, or ones remembered.

And in NHS hospitals up and down the country, for the dads who gain that title today; for those who sit at the bedside of their own fathers and for all the dads coming into work to care for others. Happy Father’s Day. #FathersDay2019

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