Nothing can prepare you for becoming a parent, it is an equally joyful, life changing and exhausting process. As a self proclaimed ambitious woman who has worked all of my adult life the transition from a busy working professional to an equally busy stay at home mum was not easy at first. But I soon realised that this time was precious and treasured the days we spent together before I had to face the daunting task of returning to work.

Luckily when the time came to return to work, as a Virtual freelance worker, I already had a flexible schedule which allowed me to integrate back into work slowly and choose the hours I wanted to work.

However, whilst writing this blog, I have realised this isn't the experience of a lot of working mums, a survey conducted by NCT found: “ mothers are not given enough support in returning to work after maternity leave. A poorly managed reintegration back into the workplace and lack of support often have a detrimental effect on women’s well-being”

Achieving a healthy work-life balance can be a juggling act for most people. But if you're a working mum or dad, balancing the demands of work and home life can feel like an impossible goal. Many of the UK’s 11 million working parents feel a sense of guilt that they are not able to give their work or their home life as much time and energy as they would like.

So what's the solution? We often hear the term flexible working, but what does it actually mean? The government-funded initiative Fit for work explain flexible working as: :

Flexible working is anything that breaks away from the rigid nine-to-five routine, or the fixed hours working pattern that has traditionally dominated working life over the past 150 years. However, flexibility doesn’t only cover working hours, but also:

  • days worked;
  • location (e.g. home-working);
  • the nature of the job contract (e.g. freelance, fixed-term, contract work or temporary).

My exploration on this subject shows that 50% of UK workers are set to be freelance by 2020. Research by Kalido, revealed that 64% of UK-based businesses currently rely on freelance workers in some capacity. I often talk about the benefits of hiring a freelance worker, in particular the benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) can be:

  • No Hidden Costs: A VA's rate is exactly what they have communicated. You pay only for the time they are actually working and for the services they have agreed to provide. This also allows for scaling up and down, if you need an extra pair of hands to keep up with demand you can request more hours if you hit a quiet period you can reduce the hours.
  • No Overheads: A VA is self- employed and has their own equipment and space. Which means you don't have to provide an office space, No PC, No PAYE, No Pension, No Holiday pay, keeping your overheads low.
  • No Training Time: A VA already knows how to do the jobs you need done. They are highly skilled with usually many years of experience under their belts. You just have to communicate your desired outcome, and they can hit the ground running. This will significantly reduce training time and cost.
  • Flexibility: A VA will work flexible hours ,which is often based on task deadlines. Making it really easy to add or change workload.
  • Getting Organised: Whether you are a startup or established business organisation is key! You need to have processes and systems in place to provide structure and consistency. Without you will have a business that's slowly failing. A VA can handle all your admin needs but there are also VA’s out there that can create systems for you, ensuring your business operations are fully functional.
  • Commitment: As a business owner a VA will understand your business vision, they are there to help support your business growth. They are always on the end of a phone to bounce ideas off and will be your cheerleader through the ups and downs, we succeed when you succeed!

This is by no means an exhaustive list, freelance workers can also bring fresh ideas, expertise and expanded networks which clearly explains the apparent surge in popularity.

While some of the many benefits for the freelance workers themselves includes flexibility ,working on projects they are passionate about, and the variation of work keeps their work life exciting. Earnings for freelancers were also found to be far higher than for regular employees.

Sanjay Varma, co-founder of Kalido, said that the rigidity of corporate life was one of the main reasons for the sharp rise in freelancers.

"There are a few reasons for the surge in freelancers in the UK. First, more people are becoming disenchanted with the corporate lifestyle; long and stressful days, poor work/life balance and salaries not keeping pace with inflation. Going it alone creates opportunities to fix these pain points by putting scheduling and pricing power back into the hands of the individual,"

In conclusion this VA could not have juggled becoming a working mum within a traditional corporate lifestyle. Becoming a freelancer has been a wonderful, challenging, fulfilling, and economically sound choice and most importantly has helped me achieve the elusive work/life balance.

If you are thinking of going out on your own or setting up a side hustle we would love to hear from you. Here at Spero Solutions we are growing our team and always on the lookout for talented people. We live and breathe the flexible working philosophy, and as the ‘free’ in the ‘freelancer’ title implies, you’re free to make your own rules as to how and when you choose to work.