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can business be flexible ? Can business be flexible?

Today’s fast paced lifestyle means some employees, especially those with families, find balancing home and work life difficult. With the pressures of some jobs meaning people are working longer and longer hours, one way of helping create a better work-life balance for employees is to offer the opportunity to work more flexibly.

 

 Put simply, flexible working can include part-time working, job share, flexi-time and working from home. For example, allowing parents to work from home if their young children are off school or permitting an employee to work from home two days a week if they have a long and tiring commute.

Businesses in the UK are now embracing this idea with latest figures showing more than 3.5 million people now work from home or another non-office based location, an increase of 31.8% over the last decade to 2008.1

A facilitator of this growth is likely to be the increased use of technology. The internet and laptops give employees the opportunity to work when and where it suits them. Mobile phones and wireless email also mean people are more contactable and not reliant upon physically being in the workplace.

What are the benefits for business?

Increasingly, employers are seeing the benefits of choosing to offer flexible working to their employees. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s (CIPD) survey on flexible working found most businesses achieved positive results from flexible working. It revealed 47% of organisations said it helped them retain staff and 43% said it helps them meet employees’ needs. In addition, 70% of HR professionals said they thought flexible-working practices benefited employee motivation.2

With sickness absence now costing businesses on average £666 per employee per year3, flexible working could help combat the amount of money lost. In a recent survey, 59% of respondents believed that including flexible working as part of their healthcare strategy helped to reduce sickness absence within their business.4

 

Attracting people back to work

Having the flexibility to leave work early to pick children up from school could be a major draw for those with young families. For older members of the workforce looking to return to work, the benefits of flexible working could also be appealing. If more people are attracted to employers offering such policies, it could help with recruitment.

Legal obligations of the employer

The law has gone some way to help encourage companies to offer flexible working to people with young families. Parents of children under six years old or disabled children have the right to request flexible work, in a law introduced by the Government in April 2003. Employers are not under any obligation to allow flexible working but are expected to consider requests carefully.6

 

Possible challenges for employers

Employees being allowed to work more flexibly can bring its own set of challenges and it is important that employers effectively manage working practices from the start. Commonly reported issues arising from the introduction of flexible working can include:2 

  • meeting operational pressures in the workplace
  • concerns about managers being able to manage individuals
  • achieving support for the policy from a senior level
  • changing the existing organisational culture of the workplace

Making it work for your business

Manage productivity

Your business shouldn’t suffer as a result of flexible working. By managing people’s workload and productivity from the beginning you can make sure they know what is expected of them.

Promote flexible working

To make sure you get the most out of offering flexible working it should be actively promoted to all staff. It’s also important to promote the policy throughout the recruitment process.

Monitor success

Watch recruitment, retention and sickness levels carefully to ensure your company can successfully monitor the benefits of flexible working. Giving employees the opportunity to work flexibly could have a positive effect in the workplace. However, this arrangement doesn’t suit every business and it requires careful thought and consideration before being implemented.

Bupa spokesperson Helen Hall, HR Director, Health and Wellbeing UK, Bupa, commented:

“Flexible working can help employees to achieve a work-life balance. The decision to introduce it into a company can be difficult, however, by allowing employees to work more flexibly, businesses could benefit from reduced sickness absence, increased productivity and higher retention levels. It also gives a much wider pool of potential applicants for many roles.”

For more information on the benefits of flexible working, including practical tips on how to implement the policy you can visit the Business Link website.

Next steps

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    Sources

    1 Trade Union Congress (TUC) research based on the Labour Force Survey – May 2009
    2 Flexible Working: Impact and Implementation. CIPD, http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/257CE4EE-356B-43F5-8927-5C86203D7AA1/0/flexworksurv0205.pdf, accessed 19 May 2009
    3 Absence management – Annual survey report 2008, CIPD
    4 The impact of health and wellbeing benefits on sickness absence, Employee benefits, 2009 - http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=8921
    5 Business Link - http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1073931239, accessed 25 May 2009

     

     

     

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