We must keep the flexitime option, especially through these tough times

AS the recession bites, all but the most shrewd businessmen and politicians panic and make hasty statements they will rue. One such is Business Secretary Peter Mandelson's suggestion that plans to introduce flexible working rights and better maternity leave, expected to be implemented next May, could be shelved until this crisis subsides. Companies must not be "burdened" further, critics of the measures say. Not a good time to breed for working men and women, perhaps even unpatriotic, in a nation of small shopkeepers.

Policy experts have worked for decades to get us in line with progressive European nations where these rights are taken for granted. Now they are told to put up or shut up.

But those complaining fail to understand that what they reject may save us all from the worst effects of the downturn. They are locked into a 19th-century management ethos, still think in sepia in the age of the internet, cannot unchain themselves from masculine employment practices that demonstrably reduce worker's job satisfaction and therefore commitment.

It is good that Yvette Cooper, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and Patricia Hewitt, who ran the Department for Trade and Industry, have come out for the extended rights. They point out that workers could be offered reduced hours instead of redundancy to ride the recession. Accommodating employees' needs brings qualitative gain. And that applies to men as well as women.

Sullen employees do not do their best, enforced labour is wilfully unproductive. Given some control over their lives, people work massively better. Obvious, that. With small businesses some of the proposed statutory changes will be a pain but I still say that willing and open employers will get high returns.

I decided long ago never to work set times in a workplace under rigid, often senseless rules. I wanted to be a parent, lover, daughter and friend - plus take a nap in the afternoon if I fancied. It isn't easy because I don't count the hours I put in, work through the night if necessary. But I am happy and ultra-professional. I give my employers my best and they treat me with respect. Everyone wins. Which is why we must keep the flexitime option, especially through these tough times.