Scripts
How to Ask for a Flexible Schedule
A script for convincing your manager to let you work from home or deviate from traditional work hours
It’s never been easier to get things done outside the confines of a 9-to-5 workday. Video conferencing, Slack, and a slew of productivity and project-management tools help blur the lines between time in the office and time outside of it.
This ability to work wherever, whenever, has obvious downsides, but it also comes in handy when life throws a wrench into a more traditional schedule. You might regularly have to pick up your kid from school at 3 p.m. You might have a chronic medical issue that requires regular appointments. You might need to care for an aging parent, or an ailing pet, or an apartment under bedbug attack, with exterminators set to spray every two weeks. Or you might need to move to a different location, and want to hold on to your job.
Life has a tendency to make demands that compete with work, says Jamie Klein, president and founder of the consulting firm Inspire Human Resources. “Anyone who’s human and an adult has responsibility in addition to work,” she says. “Period.” And then there’s the reality that some people work better outside of a traditional office environment. Whatever the reason, sometimes you need…
