“Flexible work” has become one of the most overused and underdefined phrases in modern workplaces. It’s agreeable. It’s marketable. It looks great on a careers page…
It’s also vague, which makes it easy to misuse.
Flexibility is often positioned as a perk: something “progressive” companies offer without ever being clearly defined, consistently modeled, or equitably accessible. That ambiguity allows some people to benefit from it freely, while others quietly learn that it doesn’t really apply to them.
So before we talk about whether flexibility works, we have to ask a more basic question:
What are we even talking about?
The problem with vague flexibility.
In my experience as a people leader inside agencies, startups, and growing organizations, flexibility tends to break down in three predictable (and avoidable) ways:
1. We offer things that aren’t defined.
“Flexible hours.” “Remote-friendly.” “Work from anywhere.”
Without clarity, these promises rely entirely on interpretation, and interpretation varies wildly depending on your role, your manager, and your perceived value to the business.
2. We offer things that are defined, but not modeled or accessible to everyone.
A policy exists on paper, but only certain people feel safe using it. Leaders say flexibility matters, but their calendars, expectations, and behavior tell a different story.
3. We extend flexibility in moments of crisis (great!), but the day-to-day is treacherous (not great).
Flexibility shows up when something breaks, but disappears in normal operations. The result is an unsustainable culture where people keep stretching and absorbing the impact until there’s nothing left to give.
Flexibility is not a perk, it’s an OPERATING MODEL.
You don’t “offer” flexibility the way you offer snacks or stipends.
You either build it into how work runs, or you don’t have it at all.
Flexibility is operational.
Flexibility lives in the systems that shape daily work:
- how work gets done
- when work gets done
- where work gets done
- who controls the structure of the workday
Address only one of these and flexibility collapses.
Remote work with rigid hours.
Flexible hours with nonstop meetings.
Autonomy in theory, micromanagement in practice.
These aren’t flexible workplaces. They’re fragile ones.
Flexibility can’t be architected, approved, or modeled in a bubble. If it only exists through the lens of HR, it becomes a vanity perk: something that looks good in theory, but collapses in practice.
So what does REAL flexibility look like.
This is where organizations need to get much more specific, and much more honest.
Real flexibility requires making decisions about things like:
- when people are expected to work
- how quickly they’re expected to respond
- what actually needs to happen in real time
- when work is officially “off”
- who gets to decide how time and workload are managed
- and where flexibility legitimately differs by role
If you can’t answer these questions without hedging, you don’t have flexibility.
You have ambiguity. And ambiguity always favors power, not people.
How organizations move beyond good intentions.
Flexibility doesn’t fail because leaders don’t care.
It fails because it gets promised before it’s designed.
Before an organization tells people “we’re flexible,” it has to answer a harder question: What level of flexibility can we actually support, without relying on burnout to make it work?
That means getting honest about constraints:
- client demands
- coverage requirements
- revenue models
- capacity reality
Not all work can be fully flexible. Pretending otherwise just shifts the cost onto employees. And this is where flexibility initiatives most often collapse, especially for client-facing and customer-facing teams.
You cannot offer internal flexibility while maintaining external expectations of constant availability. You have to choose. Either you reset those expectations, or flexibility becomes a lie people are punished for believing.
In practice, that means doing the uncomfortable work:
- defining client response windows instead of instant availability
- building coverage models instead of relying on heroics
- naming nights and weekends as exceptions, not expectations
- being explicit, with clients and teams, about how and when work gets done
This isn’t about doing less. It’s about refusing to build a business model that only works through overextension.
Real flexibility isn’t just announced. It’s designed, tested, adjusted, and modeled across all levels. If flexibility isn’t reinforced in planning, protected during busy seasons, and backed by real tradeoffs, it’s not a value. It’s a risk employees absorb on your behalf.
Now let’s talk about parents, and everyone else too.
My first year as a working mom was brutal.
I somehow missed the memo on how relentless year one of daycare would be. How often our entire household would be sick, exhausted, and operating without margin.
What became immediately clear is that my mornings, evenings, and weekends were no longer available for spillover. There was no hidden capacity. No buffer. No extra hours waiting to be reclaimed.
I could not work the way I worked for the first ten years of my career, not because I didn’t want to, but because it simply wasn’t possible.
And honestly? I don’t think it should be.
Not just for parents, for anyone.
Parenthood doesn’t create this constraint. It exposes it.
It reveals how much modern work quietly depends on unpaid overtime, personal sacrifice, and the assumption that someone always has more to give.
Time outside of work should be protected space for life: rest, relationships, creativity, and health. And even with my business hat on, I believe this is better for organizations too. When work requires constant spillover to function, it’s not high-performing – it’s brittle.
And yes — there’s a whole body of data that backs this up. But honestly, we don’t need more studies to tell us what lived experience already makes clear.
Haven’t we had enough of hustle culture?
Hustle culture has rebranded.
It now shows up as “passion.”
As “ownership.”
As “being available when it matters.”
But the ask hasn’t changed: more time, more energy, and more of you …without clear boundaries or shared responsibility.
This perspective makes people uncomfortable because it challenges a long-held belief that:
- constant availability equals commitment
- unpredictability is the price of ambition
- exhaustion is proof you care
- work should sit at the center of your life
I’m okay with this discomfort.
Because this isn’t the work culture I want for us, and it’s not the one I want my son to inherit.
We don’t need people to stretch further.
We need systems that stop asking them to.
We can do better.
And we all deserve better.
→ If you’re an organization trying to make a real impact without building on burnout, let’s talk.
→ If you’re a working mom in advertising, media, and beyond looking for a community that gets it, come join us: https://mamalliance.com
→ If this resonated, follow me on LinkedIn for future POVs.
