We spoke to workers in site-based roles about their perceptions of flexibility, its availability and its value to them. While they had little or no schedule control, they had a strong sense that things could and should be different.
By Dr Sarah Dauncey, Head of Partnerships and Insight, Timewise
We’ve been listening to workers in site-based roles over recent months in a series of focus groups, supported by Trust for London, to understand their views on flexible working and their experience of it in their workplace. Insights gained through these conversations are vital to inform our activity with employers and recommendations to drive positive change. There is now mounting evidence showing that control over working pattern is an important element of job quality, contributing to people’s sense of job satisfaction and wellbeing. It’s associated with healthy work.
And yet in spite of this evidence, there are millions of workers who not only have no control over their place of work but have minimal or no control over their schedules. The majority of workers (60%) are site-based and in customer facing or operational roles that couldn’t easily be worked from home. This is a feature of industry but also of job role and level of seniority. To put it simply, managers are more likely to get the option to work some of their time at home and to be able to flex their working hours whereas lower-paid workers have less choice. Their place and pattern of work is often fixed.
Recent Timewise research highlighted this ‘two-tier’ workforce, finding that almost a third of the workforce miss out on the benefits to health and work-life balance associated with flexible work.
The participants we engaged in our research represent a large part of the workforce. They worked in roles in construction, retail, health and transport. They recognised that flexibility was expected of them and was a requirement to get a job and keep it. They saw a clear distinction between “having” flexibility and “being” flexible. Their experience was that flexibility was all on them and wasn’t extended to them in return. One participant clearly articulated the impact of this: “Always being expected to be flexible can make you feel undervalued. It makes you feel your activities aren’t important.”
While their employers didn’t offer them any flexibility, they were very aware of it and of the difference it might make to their lives. This centred on having some sort of time-based flexibility to adjust start-finish times or condense or reduce working hours. Their understanding of what might be possible came through comparison with others working in different roles within their organisation or with friends and family working in entirely different jobs. They had a strong sense that “things could be different”. “Change can happen. The roster can change.”
The workers we spoke to felt trapped in systems that harmed their work-life balance. Parents with caring responsibilities described being placed in impossible situations at times – rigid patterns meant they were often unable to meet the needs of their children, creating a sense of guilt. Their awareness of the possibilities of organising work differently intensified their sense of frustration. They regarded their managers as stuck in “old school” ways, led by a fear of risk and a sense that “this is how things are always done.” The reluctance among managers to pursue change and explore alternative ways of working further contributed to workers’ low sense of worth. Systems and processes could change, but it’s too much of a “hassle” to do so.
This experience of inflexibility contributed to participants’ sense that they had poor work-life balance while also exposing some managers’ reluctance to give time and thought to workers’ circumstances beyond work. “I would rather take flexible working over a pay rise. It would make me a happier person.”
Participants recognised the impact of flexibility on their work-life balance, but also on their productivity. “We are all being held back by old-fashioned attitudes to work.” There was an overwhelming sense of lost potential resulting from working in contexts where they felt devalued and not fully trusted to work more autonomously.
When thinking more broadly about job quality and the elements of it, flexibility was seen as key. People want it, think that it’s possible and feel that they’re devalued through the lack of it. Their sense that it could be introduced with relatively few adjustments and low levels of risk just intensified their sense of not being worth the effort. When factoring in participants’ views that they would be more productive and loyal if trusted more and given flexible options. This is definitely an area for employers to reflect on given the level of emphasis on improving workplace performance and productivity in the current economic climate.
Our conversations highlighted the level of frustration experienced by workers resulting from a lack of flexibility and the need for workplace innovation for a complex of reasons: inclusion and belonging, work-life support, wellbeing and productivity. They also show that for reforms to be effective they need to be driven by an empathetic management approach.
When we asked our participants to “think big” and consider the sort of changes they would like to see in their workplace to improve their worker experience in the future and enhance their work-life balance, what was striking was the level of agreement. What they most wanted to see was more empathetic managers who considered their individual circumstances and their lives beyond work. They felt that once this was in place, flexibility would ensue.
These insights are critically important for employers and policymakers focusing on flexibility and how to make it work for all. Empathetic management shouldn’t have to be a recommendation for our workplaces, it should be a given. Yet it isn’t and too often it’s the primary barrier to flexibility being introduced or implemented effectively. This chimes with evidence found by CMI on the harm caused by bad managers, to individual employees and to organisations’ productivity. One in four people in the UK workforce holds a management role but only 27% of workers describe their manager as ‘highly effective’. This has implications for retention as manager behaviour has a sizeable impact on the likelihood of employees leaving their job.
Increased investment in training managers by employers is required to ensure flexibility is introduced and is working effectively to support employees’ work-life balance, performance and experience of job satisfaction. Such training would lead to wins for employees, but also for organisations looking to reduce staff turnover and sickness absence and increase productivity. Things can and should be different.
Published February 2025
