Our story

As the global pandemic turns normal working practices upside down, our team steps in with a free Covid-19 support programme, From Crisis to Opportunity: Redesigning the Workplace. The programme, supported by Barclays Life Skills and Trust for London, reaches over 500 organisations and 1500 individuals.

Scotland’s leaders commission us to explore the best way to stimulate the supply of better quality part-time and flexible jobs. Watch this space.

Emma appears before the Select Committee on Intergenerational Fairness and Provision in October, sharing her knowledge about how flexible working can help different generations thrive at work.

As part of a government drive to make flexible working more widely available, Emma is invited join a new taskforce, challenged with identifying barriers to flexible working and ways to overcome them.

Our new office, in a co-working space opposite Borough Market, suits our flexible focus (and transforms our lunchtime options). Feel free to pop in if you’re in the area.

Our jobs board goes from strength to strength as the 100,000^th candidate registers with us. The number of flexible roles available on the site at any one time also continues to grow.

As flexible working continues to evolve, our awards evolve to match, celebrating a range of categories (such as job sharers or returners) and highlighting employers who are ahead of the pack.

Our research, Flexible Working: A Talent Imperative, busts the mum myth by identifying the scope of demand. 84% of male and 91% of female full-timers say they work flexibly already or want to.

Read more and download our full research report

Funded by the JP Morgan Foundation, we investigate the challenges and barriers to flexible working within social care, and pilot solutions for designing roles with compatible flexibility.

Read more and download our full research report

In another first, we launch the Flexible Jobs Index, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. It tracks and reports on the percentage of openly advertised flexible roles, by region, salary and role type.

Camden Council becomes the first local authority to be accredited through the Timewise Council programme, designing and promoting flexible roles and influencing stakeholders to follow suit.

Emma and Karen win the IOD’s Women Changing the Business World award, described as having “influenced the way organisations and individuals think and opened doors to talented people.”

Senior flexible working is brought out of the shadows as we celebrate our first 50 talented part-time and flexible leaders. Many of the original 50 still work flexibly, and continue to champion flexibility.

Keen to move flexible working into the mainstream, Emma and Karen launch Timewise (offering consultancy and training for employers) and Timewise Jobs (a part-time and flexible jobs board).

Emma and Karen are included in the Nesta New Radicals Top 50. The biannual list celebrates inspirational Britons who are improving lives for people and communities in radical, creative ways.

In the 2010 birthday honours list, Emma and Karen are jointly awarded MBEs for their services to social enterprise and take a trip to Buckingham Palace.

The Conservative Party leader visits our office to talk flexible working with members of the Women Like Us team and clients. The focus is on the support women and employers need to make it happen.

Emma is invited to chair the Department of Work and Pensions’ Family Friendly Working Hours Taskforce. It explores the challenges in creating family-friendly roles and suggests routes for change.

As Women Like Us helps its 10,000^th client into work, it wins the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, a prestigious award that recognises and rewards the organisation’s outstanding, innovative approach.

Frustrated by a lack of senior-level part-time roles, Emma and Karen set up Women Like Us, offering advice and training to help women get back into work. They start working with policymakers and employers to kick-start the debate about quality flexible jobs.