A recent situation came up at work, an employee, who works in a hard-to-fill position four days a week, asked their manager if they could have a set day off each week. Typically, this employee’s days off rotate from week to week depending on various needs at work, but this employee needs to be off a set day in order to care for their child. The employee just wanted one set day off, the same day each week, it did not matter which day it was. The manager told them no, and that they do not schedule set days off.

My question is “why not try it out?” The clinic hours are the same each week, the schedule comes out weeks in advance, before the manager knows how busy the workload is going to be… so why not try it out? It costs the company no additional money, it makes the employee feel valued and heard, and it will keep the employee from looking elsewhere for a job. Again, this position is hard-to-fill, so them leaving would be more of problem than keeping them happy.

Why are managers so quick to dismiss a simple act of kindness and understanding towards an employee’s situation, especially when it really does not hurt business?

Work will never be first in most people’s hearts and minds. Work won’t even be second. My family, my health, my happiness, my faith… they all come before work. Don’t get me wrong, when I am at work, I am going to do a dang good job, but I am always going to look forward to my time off to do the things that come first. I am always going to regret missing out on some of the things I love, because sometimes I do have to sacrifice things because of work.

I appreciate it when my boss allows me to be flexible, it goes further than money can buy. I’ll be honest, it is not nearly as flexible as I had hoped for. I dream about the day I find the unicorn job, a true balance between work and everything that comes first. I want to challenge managers to really think about these types of requests from employees and not just knock them down right away. A little flexibility can go a long way.