Assemblies, sports days… these are normal things, for normal people to attend. But not for nurses.”
NHS nurse
Ad-hoc flexibility is harder to achieve in frontline and shift-based roles – but for the sake of fairness, employers need to try and make it work. Here are some pointers.
By Amy Butterworth, Consultancy Director
It’s no secret that frontline and shift-based jobs are harder to make flexible than office-based ones. From the obvious barriers around working from home to the requirement to have a balance of skills on a shift or site, there’s just less room to manoeuvre when a frontline employee needs flexibility.
Here at Timewise, we see this as a challenge, not a barrier; we’re working with employers across the frontline, including NHS trusts, construction companies, schools and retailers, to level the flexible playing field.
But although the dial is starting to shift on access to formal flexible arrangements, most frontline staff are still missing out on something else that many office-based workers take for granted – ad-hoc flexibility.
Sometimes, life happens in a way that requires flex at short notice; an hour here, or a morning there, in a way that can’t be planned in. It might be a child’s school assembly, or an elderly relative’s doctor’s appointment; it might be something as seemingly trivial as a tiny window in which to book tickets for a favourite band’s farewell tour.
Faced with these scenarios, most office-based workers would simply come in late, or take a bit of time out, and make it up later; but for a frontline employee, that’s not an option. Rosters are often created months in advance, and while colleagues might be willing to swap shifts or cover for each other, it’s not a given – and puts the onus on the employee to call in a favour. So as well as exploring more formal flexible arrangements, proactive employers are also looking at ways to give their frontline and shift-based staff access to this more informal, ad-hoc flexibility.
Assemblies, sports days… these are normal things, for normal people to attend. But not for nurses.”
NHS nurse
Ad-hoc flexibility has tended to be largely employee-driven, but that doesn’t work for everyone, or in every organisation. If an employee doesn’t know their colleagues well, or they’re in a sector such as transport where colleagues rarely meet, or the details of who is working on each shift aren’t published, arranging a swap or a bit of extra cover isn’t straightforward, or time-efficient.
So a much better answer is to take an employer-led approach, in which support is put in place to help employees find the cover they need – and feel that it’s OK to do so. This is something a number of our clients are exploring; for example:
It’s worth noting that initiatives like these work best when the staff responsible for scheduling and rostering are trained and encouraged to take a positive, proactive approach.
These are examples of real innovation within the frontline and shift-based space – and they work on two levels. From a practical perspective, they actively facilitate the swapping or covering of shifts that makes ad-hoc flexibility possible. And they do so in a way that is fairer, more efficient, and accessible for all members of a team.
And from a cultural one, they signal to employees that their lives outside work matter; that their bosses will support them to fit their work around life events, and do their best to give them the flexibility that most office-based staff can more easily access.
Our research has shown that only 9% of frontline staff gained flexibility as a result of the pandemic, compared to 41% of those in office-based roles. So at a time when many frontline employers are struggling to recruit and retain staff, this ‘small’ stuff can make a big difference. And this is all the more relevant for organisations with a mixture of frontline and office-based employees, who all need to be treated as fairly as possible.
We’d love to hear more examples of employers taking action in this area, so do please share your own innovative ideas or success stories with us. And if you’d like to do more, and aren’t sure where to start, please get in touch.
Published September 2023
