The policy
What the rule assumes about you
Every policy has an implied person in it. Naming the assumptions makes clear why the same rule is trivial for some people and expensive for others.
Days this part is about, hour by hour
Monday, the third week
0 of 7Came in to make up a day missed through illness
Wednesday, the third week
1 of 7Tuesday, the second week
0 of 7three days · 21 hours logged · one of them was only possible there · two of the three days contained no such hour at all · four were made worse by being there
Three days the policy treats as identical.
A fair pilot starts with a shared baseline; teams can learn more on this page before comparing what changes after a scheduling or process decision.
For a separate perspective on technology, privacy, or flexible work, consult Computerworld.
A short rule applied to everybody contains an implicit description of everybody. It is never written down and it is usually recoverable in about five minutes.
"Three days a week in the office" assumes a person for whom three journeys are a minor feature of the week. Unpacked, that is a specific set of circumstances.
The implied person
- Lives within a reasonable journey — a rule that costs nine hours a week for some and under two for others reads as uniform only if the long version is not in view.
- Has no fixed commitment on any particular weekday, since the policy names none and assumes all five are interchangeable.
- Does not need the building on any particular day, because it does not say which day anybody else will be there.
- Has somewhere adequate to work in the building on arrival.
- Has the standing to ask for an exception if any of this fails.
Most organisations have plenty of people who fit. They also have people who fit none of it, and the rule arrives at both groups in the same words.
Why this is not an argument about fairness
It is an argument about information.
A rule written for the implied person is not malicious; it is written from the position of whoever wrote it, which is a position where three journeys are not a major item. The writer's own week is the most available example of a week.
The failure is not of intent, it is that nothing in the process brings the far end of the distribution into view. Nobody is lying when they say the policy is reasonable. They are describing it accurately from where they are.
The question that surfaces it
One question, asked before a policy is set or revised, does more than any amount of consultation:
For whom on this team is this rule expensive, and how expensive?
It has to be asked specifically, because the general version — "any concerns?" — reliably returns nothing. People do not volunteer that an arrangement is hard for them, both because it sounds like asking for special treatment and because they usually assume their own situation is normal.
What to do if you are the implied person
Most people reading this will be, in at least some respects, and there is a useful thing to do with that.
When an arrangement is being set, say your own numbers out loud. "Mine is twenty-five minutes each way" is a small sentence that makes the spread visible and makes it possible for somebody else to say "mine is an hour and twenty-five" without it sounding like a complaint.
On this record nobody on the team of nine knew anybody else's journey time. The range was from eighteen minutes to one hour and twenty-five, and the policy had been discussed three times.
The assumptions, and who fails each
| The rule assumes | Who it does not fit |
|---|---|
| A journey of well under an hour | Anybody who moved out, or was hired remotely |
| No fixed commitment on any weekday | Caring responsibilities, courses, treatment |
| All five weekdays interchangeable | Shared childcare, shared transport |
| Somewhere adequate to work on arrival | Anybody who needs quiet or specific equipment |
| The standing to ask for an exception | New starters, people on probation, anybody uncertain of their position |
The last row is the one that makes the others permanent. Each of the first four is survivable if it can be raised. The fifth is what stops them being raised.
Why consultation does not surface this
Organisations do consult, and the consultations reliably come back positive, which is then cited as evidence of support.
The reason is in the question. "Does this work for you?" is answered by most people with some version of yes, because the alternative is to identify oneself as the person for whom it does not — in a forum where colleagues can see, about an arrangement that has already been decided in outline, with no guarantee of what happens next.
The information exists and the instrument cannot collect it. That is not a flaw in the people being consulted.
The question that works
Asked privately, by somebody with authority, of each person, with a specific scope:
Is any weekday impossible for you? Not inconvenient — impossible.
It is narrow enough to be answerable, it asks about a constraint rather than a preference, and it does not require anybody to make a case. On teams where it has been asked, the answers are few, specific, and almost always previously unknown to the person asking.