9-5, no longer the way to make a livin'

Newsletters

Arecent survey carried out by the flexible working community Workology found that almost half of all flexible workers would forgo a 100% pay rise if it meant giving up the way they worked - and that figure shot over 70 per cent when that prospective pay rise was lowered to 50%.

Back in 1980, even Dolly Parton was griping about working 9-5 - but in those days not too many people had a choice of where they worked or the hours they were expected to put in. Today, it's a very different situation. Today's workforce is increasingly looking for a better balance between work and life beyond the workplace and employers are having to work hard to meet flexible working demands, while balancing costs and delivering profitability.

Today's workforce is increasingly looking for a better balance between work and life beyond the workplace

Many enlightened British organisations, both large and small, from across a wide range of sectors have enjoyed real business benefits as a result of their modern approach to work-life balance. More flexible working policies have helped businesses to improve customer service, reduce staff stress and absenteeism and reduce recruitment costs because their employees are happier. But is it just about policies, or is flexible working simply becoming the way of life for British business?

Nationwide Building Society has long been held in high regard for its flexible working policies and they're something that Head of Reward, Paul Bissell sees as crucial to the Mutual's ongoing success.

"It's simply about building adult relationships with our employees," Paul explained. "No business can afford to be dictatorial in its approach towards employment now. We have to work harder to attract the kind of people we want to work in Nationwide and then do all we can to retain our best talent."

Nationwide sees flexible working as part of its total reward strategy and as such, considers it useful in both recruitment and retention. "We offer just about every kind of contract to employees, part-time, term time, compressed hours and job shares for starters, and also have some home-based roles. We're looking for individuals who will help take our business forward, and it's essential for us to make the proposition attractive for them."

Paul was keen to draw a distinction between this and simply having family-friendly policies. "We want to make our packages as flexible as is feasible - and certainly don't restrict them just to people with young families."

Cultural shift

There's clearly a cultural shift going on in the way people approach work, and Paul noted that the biggest take-up in Nationwide's flexible working package is buying more holiday. "We see an increasing number of people sacrificing pay for leisure time - in effect, they're paying to take time off. Sometimes that may be for childcare and so forth, but often it's just to have more time away from the job. If we can accommodate it, we will.

...the biggest take-up in Nationwide's flexible working package is buying more holiday

"Of course some roles lend themselves more easily than others to flexible working but we try and tailor the role to the needs of the individual as well as the needs of the business. In the end, it's down to sensible decision making to ensure the job is do-able. We even have examples of senior executives working compressed weeks to get a better balance to their lives - that would never have happened a few years ago.

"We've seen too much stress in the workplace in the past, and now have such services as EAP and health screening in place to support employees and their families. One of our core drivers is maintaining a healthy workforce - it makes business sense and all the statistics show that companies that invest in this kind of support reap a great return on their investment.

Asked to sum up what makes flexible working successful, Paul stated that the key is great communication. "It's about managers and their teams having a great working relationship. We can offer 'an honest deal' on jobs with sufficient flexibility to meet almost everyone's requirements. Then it's up to our employees to keep up their end of the deal. To be honest, very few people abuse their agreements and everyone benefits.

Paul had a point to add on costs too. "It's actually a very cost effective way to run a workforce. We automate our administration and flexible benefits as much as possible, and this reduces costs significantly for the business. And choosing from an overall reward 'menu' is very cost efficient for employees too."

Smaller scale

Catherine Mulholland manages HR for a networking company in Buckinghamshire and with just 50 people, they can't quite compete with the likes of Nationwide in terms of flexible benefits. "We're less formal than large employers, but have a good track record for keeping staff, and aim to be as flexible as possible to maintain that profile. We have a number of part-time roles and two people job sharing, and also have some office staff who work from home on one or two days a week so that they can meet certain personal needs such as the school run.

We're less formal than large employers, but have a good track record for keeping staff

"Our engineers also sometimes need to work away from home and at unsocial hours. To compensate for this, we allow them to finish early when a job is complete. They'll mark it against the job, so we always have a record of what's going on and it does tend to balance out well against the evening or weekend hours they have to put in."

Meanwhile, at Workology, they do practice what they preach. "We're providing tools and opportunities for flexible workers to come together in a community, and it would be wrong if we operated in an old-fashioned corporate way. Our team includes part-timers, portfolio workers and remote workers - our search engine optimisation expert is in Utah!

"As a young company, we see flexible working as a real virtue. We can access talent that we simply couldn't afford to employ full-time in an office in London, and overall, our cost base is lower. The biggest headache is keeping a management handle on the team so that everyone knows what they're doing, when they have to do it by and all the hand-offs in the process. However, we're living the model and, over the past 15 months, have found it a most efficient way of working."

So, are we all heading towards a more flexible way of working in the future? "I suspect so, Paul concluded. "Young people have a different attitude to work and many are less driven by purely financial goals. Then, at the other end of the career road, people are having to work longer than ever before, but have any number of responsibilities outside their job. The net result is that ever more people are looking for flexibility.

"As employers, we can't be paternalistic or dogmatic. We're competing in the resource pool and, if we want to attract and retain the best talent, we need to work harder and be more creative in our approach."

The legal position

Liddingtons LLP, Employment Law specialists based in Milton Keynes, remind us of points to note if you're planning a flexible working employment scheme.

The rules for flexible working are:

Only parents of children under 6 (or 18 if the child is disabled) who have worked for the employer continuously for at least 26 weeks have the right to request it.
Employers have a duty to consider the request but if they can't accommodate the request they can reject it.
Only one request can be made in any 12 month period.
In terms of flexibility, the employee can request a change - and if the request for flexibility is accepted, then the change to the employee's terms and conditions will be permanent.

No automatic right

An employee's right is only to request flexible working and the employer's duty is only to consider whether it's suitable to the business.

'First come, first served'

Deal with each request on a case-by-case basis. You could find your business is under resourced if you allow all requests for flexible working.

Avoid the discrimination trap

Don't apply any rules to the 'consideration' process such as automatic refusal of applications from part-timers. Part-time staff are often female and that rule would indirectly discriminate on the grounds of the employee's sex.

Four simple rules can help avoid any future legal battles:

Requests must be made in writing.
The employer meets with employee within 28 days of the request.
A decision for or against must be made in writing within 14 days of meeting.
An appeal by the employee may be made in writing to the employer within 14 days of the employer's decision.