Flexible working - a report on the MK group's event held 21 April 2010.

Milton Keynes Women in Management (MK WiM) heard from Dr Deidre Anderson from Cranfield on Flexible Working at our recent event….read on for the latest news (May 2010) about our local version of the national network

Women in Management exists:

“To offer support to women at all stages in their career with the opportunity to make connections, learn from others, and to achieve their true potential.”

Our new National Chair, Sandra Pollock shared her ‘journey’ with us from being a WiM attendee to team member (helping to organise events) to her current role. She was passionate about how WiM has supported her change in career path by increasing her confidence, gaining advice and developing her skills.  Sandra highlighted the new enhanced benefits of becoming a member with even more access to CMI facilities at a reasonable cost of £60 per year.

Achieving true potential means making the most of all aspects of life. Being able to work flexibly allows men and women to make the most of the overlap between work and home priorities. WiM, in partnership with Women and Work, decided to stage an event to explore this topic in more depth.

At our recent event we learnt a huge amount from Dr Deidre Anderson of Cranfield University – described as ‘inspiring’, ‘really knowledgeable’ and ‘fascinating’ by participants. Flexible working can be about time, place, job content or all three. It works for the organisations as well as the employees: flexible working was shown to benefit business through more committed staff and managers praised their work rates and motivation; the only area providing a bit more challenge was ensuring good communication whilst implementing any changes to work patterns amongst teams.

The presentation created a buzz of discussion and ideas which the network plans to follow through*. In addition attendees were able to enjoy food and drink, make new contacts and benefit from a goody bag from Office Angels, our sponsor.

A follow up to this event "Flexible working - Putting it into Practice took place in June 2010.