There’s a distinctly autumnal chill in the air in North Wales. My love for this time of year – the smell of new textbooks, a shiny new pencil case and a fresh timetable – reveals my inner dork and I am ready to embrace it. Time to put away the summer clothes, get some logs in, unbox the new school shoes and crack on.

It’s a fitting season to have new staff, new contracts and new services kicking off. All very exciting developments, and a long time in the making, but daunting nonetheless. And as I feel daunted, I’m mindful of how it must be for our new team members. I remember well the potent mixture of excitement and trepidation that comes with starting a new job (or a new class). There are so many unknowns. One thing that can never be fully understood before beginning a new role, which is crucial to success and satisfaction at work, is workplace culture.

Organisational culture is one of the attractions of the charity sector, particularly in comparison with the archetype of private legal practice. Having not been a lawyer myself, it’s not something I’ve experienced first-hand. Stories of rigid work patterns, office-based routines and salaries tied to billable hours may not be universal, but, to an outsider at least, they are the narratives that prevail.

We do things very differently, as I know many non-profits do. Some of that is by design – offering a good work/life balance and avoiding burnout help to attract and retain talent – and some by necessity – in a rural advice desert, the best talent is less likely to be right on your doorstep and hybrid working helps lessen the burden of the commute. But this approach comes with its own set of risks and challenges. Building a strong team culture when people aren’t always in the office requires intentional effort. Boundaries and expectations can become blurry and simultaneously more important. How do we know when we’re getting it right?

Thinking about our new starters and their varied experiences and backgrounds, I’ve found myself asking a different question: can we ever get it right for everyone? After all, what is ‘flexible’ to one person is unnervingly ambiguous to another. I’ve seen people move into the charity sector for the first time and go into organisational culture shock. When being at your desk at 8.15 am has been seen as a signal of dedication for your entire career, having your new boss ask you why you’ve done so many extra hours in your first month and not taken any time off in lieu can rather take the wind out of your sails.

So, as our new team sharpen their fresh pencils and polish their shoes, I’m making a mental note to say to them: ‘We offer flexible working here, what works best for you?’ Prefer to know how many hours are expected of you each day and stick to it? Fine. Want to be able to do the school pick-up and work a little later a couple of days a week? As long as clients’ needs are met, we can fit around that. If spending 20 minutes doing yoga in the stationery cupboard to ward off the mid-afternoon slump gets you through the day, make up the time and knock yourself out (not literally, please – has someone done a dynamic risk assessment on stationery cupboard yoga?).

One of the core principles I bring to the culture of our workplace is transparency. We talk about it often in the context of our client work. We say what we mean; we do what we say we will; and we set realistic expectations. Those same principles, like all our values, have to be lived internally, too. For flexible working to be effective, we have to have the same transparency with each other.

I can’t wait to welcome our new people and what they add to our workplace culture. I hope they’ll feel able to be transparent about what does and doesn’t work for them, and how we can meet their needs so we can best meet those of the people we’re here to help. And I will continue to transparently, unashamedly celebrate my inner geek. Now, where did I put that new notebook?