People are desperate for part-time jobs; we must create them. If not now, when?

By Emma Stewart, Co-Founder

I’ve lost count over the last decade of the number of times I’ve written about how good flexible work is a social necessity. And while I’m delighted with how much more mainstream flexible working has become, there are some battles we still need to fight if we’re going to make our society a more equitable one.

We all know how devastating the impact of the current cost of living crisis is going to be, particularly for people on low incomes; you don’t need me to explain that to you. We also know that the economy is being held back by the fall in the number of people in the workforce, as Andy Haldane recently noted. 

But what may have been forgotten is that the single thread that can pull these issues together, and make this current crisis more manageable for many people, is offering good quality part-time jobs.

Part-time and flexible jobs unlock the market for key groups

We’ve recently produced a report, in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which explores this issue in more detail. We’ve also analysed the flexible jobs market in our latest Flexible Jobs Index. Together, these leave us in no doubt about the lack of good quality flexible jobs – and the potential impact that creating more of them could have:

• Only 30% of job adverts offer flexible working – and only 12% offer part-time.
• This is despite the huge demand: 87% of people say they want to work flexibly, and there are four people currently chasing every part-time job, bucking labour market trends.
• This lack of flexible jobs at the point of hire traps many people in priority groups out of work – specifically, parents, older workers, and people with disabilities.
• Part-time jobs are concentrated at the lower end of the market, with 22% of jobs below £20,000 FTE advertised as part-time, compared to 6% of roles paying over £60,000 FTE.
• As a result, people who need to work part-time (who are often members of these priority groups) are particularly likely to be trading skilled jobs for part-time work at lower pay.

So, creating more, better quality part-time and flexible jobs, and offering them at the point of hire, could open up opportunities for people in our priority groups (and others who also need flexibility to work) to access the workplace. It would also allow them to progress their careers, and boost their household incomes accordingly.

This would not only benefit the individuals concerned, and society as a whole, but would also help tackle the recruitment issues that so many employers are facing.

Employers aren’t against flexible working – but they need help to deliver it

So why isn’t this happening? Well, as our report also highlights, employers don’t tend to be ideologically opposed to flexible working. But some clear barriers are holding them back, including inertia and a lack of motivation, a lack of understanding, and fear and a lack of trust.

Yet, as the IES recently reported, helping employees through the current crisis is the highest priority for employers right now. So given that flexible working is a key way to do so, they need to overcome these barriers – and they need supporting to do so.

The good news is that the government has now published its response to the consultation on the right to request flexible working, and confirmed that it will be bringing forward new regulations to give employees this right from their first day in a job. It’s likely that the regulations will find their way onto the statute book in Spring 2023, which means the new rules could be in force by as early as the autumn.

This important change is also accompanied by government support for wider measures, which will be brought forward via a private members bill, and include allowing employees to make two flexible working requests in a year, and requiring employers to respond more quickly.

However, although these are a hugely positive steps, they aren’t yet the gamechanger we need, as this day one right still puts the onus on the employee to ask. So, while we hope that this legislation will increase the number of employers advertising roles flexibly, we doubt it will fully deliver the change in hiring practices and job design that employees and our economy need.

To give the legislation its best chance of success, we also need the infrastructure in place that will support employers to make flexible jobs available from the point of hire, including:

• Providing support to intermediaries, such as employment services, employability agencies, business enterprise agencies and recruiters. This would help companies understand how flexible working can help tackle their business and social impact goals, and help candidates navigate the request process more successfully.
• Testing, trialling and training through fully-funded government programmes, such as a BEIS- sponsored flexible job design training module, and DWP-funded flexible hiring pilots. This would help employers build capability and provide examples and case studies of what works.
• Commissioning analysis of the positive financial return of investing in flexible hiring.

Here at Timewise, we are already carrying out some of this work:

• We have explored the financial case for investing in flexible working in frontline roles, and demonstrated that it pays for itself surprisingly quickly.
• We have run a two-year change agent programme in Scotland, creating a network of intermediary organisations and supporting them to champion flexible working.
• And we are building a network of unions, welfare to work providers, local authorities and recruiters, to drive this work further forward.

If you would like to find out more about what we’ve done, and what we have learned from it, please get in touch.

But we are just one organisation; and the task of fixing the jobs market, so that people who need to work flexibly can access well-paid, good quality jobs, is one that we can’t tackle alone. It’s my hope that the current labour supply crisis will be the catalyst that encourages policymakers and organisations to take this issue seriously, and that I won’t still be talking about this in a few years’ time. I can promise you that I won’t stop until it’s fixed.

Published December 2022