Everyone wants flexibility at work.

Very few people realise it has to be a two way street.

Flexible work is one of the most requested benefits in the healthcare and veterinary sectors. People want understanding, permission to live their real lives, room to be human. And most leaders I know genuinely want to provide that.

But here is the uncomfortable truth:

Flexibility is only functional if both sides understand the exchange.

Yes, of course you can start late because of a medical appointment, but then please do not complain that you did not get a full lunch break that day.

Yes, of course it matters that you go to your child’s assembly, but can you cover for someone who needs to go to their child's dance recital next week?

For many leaders, the difficulty is not the flexibility itself, it is the silent expectation that flexibility should be a one way flow from employer to employee.

What if we changed how we think about this entirely?

The problem, for example, is not that mums ask for flexibility.

It is that flexibility has been framed as a mum benefit, rather than a normal benefit for all humans who have lives outside the clinic.

Instead, imagine building flexibility into the workplace as a universal expectation.

At interviews we ask every person:

What does flexibility look like for you? It is a core value here.

Maybe you want to finish at 4pm on Thursdays so you can make chess club.

Maybe you want to start at 10am twice a week because you row before work.

Maybe you want one month each year of leave without pay to work with a community project you care about.

Maybe you want your job held for a 6 month sabbatical so you can travel and reset.

If every staff member names what personal flexibility means to them, it does four powerful things:

- It normalises flexibility for everyone, not just parents.

- It removes the implicit narrative that mothers are asking for special treatment.

- It creates a shared language the whole team can reference later.

- It allows the leader to request flexibility from staff as part of a shared sense of supporting each other's lives

Flexibility stops being a hidden deal that leaders are expected to quietly keep giving without acknowledgment. It becomes a cultural system with reciprocity.

Flexibility is not just about time. It is about mutual respect.

If we want truly sustainable workplaces, we need to stop acting like flexibility is a prize handed out only "when necessary" and start treating it as a shared principle we all benefit from and all contribute to.