Inspirational Woman: Cheney Hamilton | CEO, Find Your Flex

Cheney Hamilton is the CEO & Founder of the FindYourFlex network, she is a noted Thought Leader on the Future Of Work and a member of the 50:50 Parliamentary Group.

Cheney advocates on the need for careers with #FlexAppeal and encourages the use of output based job descriptions to ensure all bias is removed and a purely inclusive engagement exists for candidates, increasing applicant diversity.

Cheney also brings together industry leading HR specialists to deliver focused one hour ‘power’ sessions for her clients and their teams, covering topics such as Embedding Flexible Working, Establishing Positive Behaviours – Values – Cultures, Reducing Gender Pay Gap, Work Life Balance Discovery & Output working.

Cheney regularly speaks at Career and Future of Work events and has received several awards for Culture, Sustainability, Entreprenurialship, Championing Women and Community Making.

Her platform reaches over 1.3M people each month, providing industry insight into many challenging area’s of recruitment and people – she also promotes LOTS of Flexible Jobs, which you can check out on the job board part of the network today: jobs.findyourflex.co.uk

Tell us a bit about yourself, background and your current role

I’m a mum of three, wife and founder of The FindYourFlex Network, supporting employers across the UK in finding their way to flexibility.

As CEO, I manage a team of 12 delivering our job board followers the best flexible jobs that the UK has to offer, provide training and career coach access on our community sites (Mummyjobs.co.uk, Daddyjobs.co.uk &
FindYourFlex.co.uk), host our very own #TalkFlex podcast, engage our social media audience and film lots of collaborative video content – all whilst also delivering HR Consultation/Power Hour services to UK
Employers on all things Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Flexible working.

Did you ever sit down and plan your career?

Absolutely not. It was mostly a happy accident, followed by a traumatic experience after the birth of my first child, which changed my world view forever.

Have you faced any challenges along the way?

Lots. Founding my company in 2017 has meant traversing both Brexit & a Global Pandemic, we’ve grown to 8, down to 2 and back up to 12 in the core team.

Yet every trial and challenge has sent us in new directions and have enabled us to become the business we are today. I’m a big believer in ‘everything happens for a reason’. Our business has never been more Agile or Diverse as a result.

What has been your biggest achievement to date?

It’s hard to say. Personally.. giving birth to three children without painkillers seems like quite a big achievement. Professionally, I’m proud that I took the leap and set up my business – leaving the comfort of a six figure salary to help my fellow humans was a big step, and four years on it still seems worth it!

What one thing do you believe has been a major factor in you achieving success?

The people around me. As I’ve grown older I seem to have a circle of family, friends and colleagues who all share the same values as me. They have been invaluable as sounding boards, advisors, mentors and support.

How do you feel about mentoring? Have you mentored anyone or are you someone’s mentee?

I love mentoring other people who are trying to work in the flexible working space – I’ve done it three times now. I really don’t see people making their own as competition, I love to collaborate and share the pitfalls I’ve experienced in the hopes that the others move along their own road faster.  They way I see it, the more people shouting about work/ life balance, the faster we will see change!

If you could change one thing to accelerate the pace of change for Gender Equality, what would it be?

For flexible working to be available to everyone who needs it. Only then will we normalise different working patterns enabling more women to make it to the top.

If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self what would it be?

Reference ‘new starters’ like you had no other purpose!

What is your next challenge and what are you hoping to achieve in the future?

Next Challenge? To launch our Societal Change Maker Accreditation, allowing businesses to be truly benchmarked for their Ethicality, Societal Impact and Sustainability.

Hope to achieve in the future? To be elected to parliament and make change from within the system – Ideally getting rid of Party Politics and delivering a new age of accountability from parliamentarians.