Sam has her master’s degree in social sciences, and works in a managment position the charity sector. She lives in the outer suburbs of Dublin,and commutes to her job by car. She is a single mother of one small boy.

“I was in full-time employment which became very difficult for me as my parenting responsibilities were so demanding that my work life became affected. As much as I wanted to dedicate myself to my job, the hours I needed to remain in my office became unmanageable, I started to have high levels of absenteeism, and never seemed to have enough annual leaves to actually take a holiday with my son. As much as I was very good at my Job, I felt I had no choice but to leave my employer. But, as I approached my employers to hand in her resignation my boss asked me what the problem was…
I broke down and began to explain my issues to my boss who turned out to be very understanding. We came to an arrangement which allowed me to be at home for part of the week and come in to the office for the other part. I now work mornings in the office and evenings in my home office. Since this new Arrangement, I am less stressed and more productive since I am no longer absent at times when my son needs me to be home, and I can now also take quality time off work to spend holidays with my son. In the event that I do in fact fall behind my weekly deadlines, I can catch up without the stress over the weekend when my son is with his father.

This is a perfect example of a situation where an qualified and hard-working employee felt overwhelmed by a work arrangement that was not working for her. She felt that she had no other option other than quit her job. But as it turned out, with some flexibility from her employer, she was able to keep her full-time job and meet all of her deadlines by working flexible hours and working some hours from home. Because her employer was open to alternative working arrangements and recognised the value of her employee, she was able to quickly solve the problem, retained her loyal and dedicated employee…and avoided the extra cost of recruiting and training a new employee.”