Finding flexible jobs as a single parent isn’t easy, but it is getting easier and easier as time goes on. More and more companies are starting to see the benefits of being flexible, the benefits of allowing employees to work from home, the benefits of keeping their employees happy and allowing them to have more time out of the office.
I know people kept saying that, and I kept thinking “Yeah right, then why can’t I find any of these flexible positions?” They are out there however. Sometimes it just takes a little more digging than normal, sometimes it takes you being a little more flexible than you already are, and sometimes it takes you proving that you are what they are looking for before they will allow that flexibility.
Finding a flexible job can take a little more digging than usual. That means really looking for it. Read your local paper and your local shopper, find a few web sites that list employment in your area and look at them on a daily basis. Do some research the web and learn what some of these flexible jobs are actually called.
Be a little more flexible than you already are. Only want to work 4 hours a day, and they want you to work 5? Only want to work 3 days a week and they want you to work 4? Pick up the extra hour or day. Maybe it’s the other way around and you want to work 5 hours a day and they only have 4 hours. Grab what you can, they may get an extra hour down the road, or you may find another job where you can pick up an extra 5 hours during the week. They may even just be testing you to see how flexible you actually are. They know that they are flexible, and want to know that you are too.
Sometimes a company can be flexible, but either don’t realize they can be, or they don’t hire anyone off the bat as flexible. Find a job that you would love, but it’s not flexible at all? Go for it. Do the job that you love, and do it to the best of your ability for a while. Once you prove yourself, and find ways that it can be made flexible, then go to them and point out your performance and ways that they could make it flexible.