Rob Dance, 41, shared the seemingly controversial news but said he didn’t want to be asked – because he “doesn’t care”.
Father-of-two Rob, chief executive of a large IT consultancy with more than 100 staff, said he “trusted” them to get the job done regardless.
His now-viral post said: “Things I hate hearing from my employees:
“Can I leave early today?
“I will come late in the morning.
“My child is sick, can I hurry?
“I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, is that okay?
“I’ll be back late from lunch, I have a few things to attend to.
“I do not care.
I hired you for the job and I have full confidence in you to get it done.”
Speaking today (8), Rob, from Cowbridge, South Wales, said flexibility to spend time on important things should be standard in the modern workplace.
“A lot of staff may have been conditioned in school or previous jobs to be afraid to say they have to do something,” he said.
“But my philosophy is – if you hire or hire someone, you have to trust them from day one.
“I follow the same rules as them – I wouldn’t ask my team for permission to take time off and I lead by example.
“If I’m off work for something, I always make sure I’m up to date on the work and I expect the same from my staff so no balls are dropped in their absence.
“But I don’t need them to ask my permission—I don’t think they have to.
“Treat people like adults.”
The posts went viral on both X and LinkedIn, with 14.4 MILLION views on the former.
While some people initially failed to read the whole post – assuming Rob was against allowing staff flexibility for personal needs – because he said “I don’t care”.
But after encouraging people to read the entire post, many agreed.
One commenter said: “I have a similar approach. My whole team is remote. I have teams first thing…. This is what I need to do today, is there anything stopping you? No, fine, I’m available if you need me .
“They’ll take the kids to school, swim, see the doctor, go shopping, I don’t care. As long as they do the agreed workload during the day, it’s fine.”
Another agreed: “Zero tolerance means employees will eventually leave and you’ll be paying to retrain someone else.
“We need flexibility especially for young families and children.”
A third added: “No one on my team ever says these things because they work from home with flexible hours.
“They have to do their job and do it well, but they don’t have to destroy their lifestyle in the process.”
Commenting on the viral post, Rob, who is currently working on a new business around working flexibility, said: “One thing that has come up is that it can vary with different roles and industries.
“But I think there should be a degree of flexibility in every role – if someone has an emergency or a childcare issue, you have to put their life before their work, no matter what their job is.
“If someone has to rush, they know they have to pick up whatever they need to do afterward. It’s not about leaving you high and dry.”
“If they do what they need to do to keep the clients happy and the team happy.
“A lot of the comments were also about communication — I’m not saying don’t communicate about what you’re doing. It’s that you don’t need to get permission.”
“A lot of people found it refreshing and encouraged that some companies were working this way.
“If you have a happy team, the profit will take care of itself.
“If you give people autonomy, they will deliver more than you can ever imagine.
“By taking this approach, you’ll have a happier team and it will pay off.”