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Part time working works for me

Working from home

Lianne Rimmer, Senior PR Manager, talks about how flexible working has helped her work life balance. 

Two years ago, I was asking myself how I was ever going to balance my full time position in the PR team at DWF with being a parent? I worried about how I could possibly drop my child at nursery and then spend an hour on a packed train into the city centre. Then do it all again in reverse at the end of the day.

I've been working for 25 years. At times I have worked while still in education, juggling work with college and university earlier on. But for the most part, I've been able to dedicate the majority of my week to work, with few interruptions.

I'm grateful that my role at DWF has always been flexible. Pre-pandemic, I was able to work from home if I needed to with the support of my manager, but most of the time I was in the office.

My return to work following maternity leave in 2020 coincided with new pandemic-induced ways of working, with increasing time working from home and decreasing time spent on commuting. DWF was already an agile business so adopting a new hybrid approach, where we can balance office and home working, was a very smooth transition across our business.

Being at home so much of the time made nursery drop offs and full time working less of a worry. Even so, at the start of 2022, I made the decision that I wanted to spend more quality time with my child during the week by reducing my hours at work.

 

Lianne Rimmer

"DWF was already an agile business so adopting a new hybrid approach, where we can balance office and home working, was a very smooth transition across our business."

Lianne Rimmer, Senior PR Manager
Find your perfect role at DWF

DWF is a family friendly business and work life balance is encouraged at all levels, so all the necessary information I needed was easy to find on our intranet. I read up on the details and made a flexible working request to reduce my hours and then had a meeting with my manager to discuss it.

I felt supported during the process and was pleased when the application was approved since it was such a big personal decision to make.

Now, for the first time in a very long time, I work reduced/part time hours.

I know of so many working parents across DWF, and this made my choice easier as I could see that it was completely possible to be both a dedicated member of the team while choosing to spend more one to one time with my child.

This extra flexibility means I have a dedicated day to plan in all the things that we can't squeeze into the weekend. My colleagues are supportive too and they're always there to pick up urgent tasks when I'm not available. I've also taken on a secondment into a more senior role during this time.

Six months in to this new working pattern, this seems the formula that works equally well for our family and in my role at DWF, where I feel my contribution and wellbeing is valued.

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