California Dreaming? Or A Dream Come True?

This summer, we had the chance to put our flexible working policy through the ultimate test - by waving off our Content Writer, Lucy, as she jetted off with her children to work from California for the entire summer! Lucy shares how this incredible experience worked in reality and what it meant:

“When my partner, Kris, first left for California on his three year Royal Navy draft, I worried about how we’d make it work. How often would I see him? How often would my children see him? Having no family close by to help with the juggle, I’d normally spread my annual leave across the school summer holidays. Would I need to rethink this strategy? But how would I then manage the summer? So many ifs and buts flew around my head.

Zen’s incredible support and promise to help us make it work was so reassuring. When they even went as far as saying ‘Why don’t you take the girls for the whole summer and just work from there?’ I was mind blown!

So how did we make it work? Well firstly - I can honestly say it's been the easiest school holiday juggle yet! Working so flexibly from California meant I could still utilise my annual leave for the days when I'd need it the most.  

On his work days Kris was up at 5am, so I’d get up then too, giving me a few hours of quiet and dedicated work time before my girls rose for the day. It also meant that these hours coincided with ‘normal’ working hours back in the UK, so holding video calls with clients wasn’t an issue even with an eight hour time difference. 

Throughout the remainder of the day, I’d check emails periodically or spend an hour with my laptop by the pool, while the girls had the best summer ever. Working in this way worked perfectly for us as a family. Kris and I would start our working day together, so neither one of us had to creep around the other in the dark. My girls had my attention for most of their waking hours and together we were able to have *so* much fun. And we were all free in the evenings to enjoy a family dinner and quality time together (without feeling I needed to ‘catch up’).

The ultimate benefit? It also meant guilt-free fun on the four-day family weekends we had together

I’d keep an eye out for urgent emails, but otherwise I’d managed my workload so effectively that we could just enjoy that time together, visiting so many amazing places my children would never have been able to see if it wasn’t for the way I work at Zen. And, already being over there meant that we could both take some valuable time off together to completely immerse ourselves in the most magical Disneyland adventure!

I wasn’t California dreaming - that really was our summer! I was able to balance work effectively (and in peace!) at times that suited myself, our clients, and the Zen team back in the UK, whilst being able to spend some rare quality time with Kris and the girls as a family. And I had a pool on tap to keep the girls occupied when needed and more support than a usual summer as Kris was around most of the time to help.

We were all happy, healthy, and absolutely living our best lives, and I’m so grateful to Zen for enabling it to happen - our flexible working policy really does mean genuine flexible working!”