Our new Scottish Flexible Jobs Index shows the number of flexibly advertised jobs stagnating at 28%. In a tight labour market and a cost of living crisis, that’s a mistake, for everyone.
By Nicola Smith, Interim CEO, Timewise
It would be reasonable to think, in the current situation, that employers would use every trick in the book to encourage people into work. The economy is crying out for growth, with employers struggling to recruit the staff they need and large numbers of people remaining economically inactive (particularly older workers and those who are disabled or have long-term health conditions). And the cost of living has soared, with a fierce knock-on effect on household spending power.
Yet despite this perfect economic storm that we find ourselves in, it seems that Scottish employers aren’t yet fully using one of the most powerful talent attraction tools at their disposal: flexible working. Our new Scottish Flexible Jobs Index shows that the number of jobs advertised as flexible is still just 28%. This is a tiny, 1% increase on last year’s figure, and doesn’t come anywhere near the demand, with wider research studies indicating that 8 in 10 Scottish people want to work flexibly.
For Scottish people for whom flexible working is a preference, this is incredibly annoying; for those for whom flexible working is a necessity, it’s a nightmare. And for Scottish employers who are working out how to coax people into their organisations, it’s very much missing a trick.
The fact is, there are many, many people who would work if the flexibility they need was there. There’s been much talk at a UK-wide level about bringing older workers back into the workplace; in an article in the Financial Times, Kim Chaplain from Centre for Ageing Better noted that the single most important change employers can make to tempt the over-50s to return would be to be more flexible about working hours.
There are also many other people who can’t work unless they can find flexible arrangements that help them meet their caring responsibilities, or cope with health issues, or keep a lid on their childcare costs. The cost of living crisis means that many of these people are more desperate than ever to join the workforce, but without access to flexibility, they remain frozen out.
And it’s also worth remembering that flexibly advertised jobs don’t just help people get back into the workforce. They also help workers who currently have a flexible arrangement to progress their careers, and boost their household incomes, by taking the next step up the ladder elsewhere.
So by offering flexible working up front when advertising new roles , Scottish employers could massively widen the pool of talent that they have to choose from, and get themselves out of the recruitment hole that many find themselves in. And given that the UK Parliament is about to pass new legislation allowing employees to request flexible working from their first day in a new job, it makes sense for employers to get ahead of the curve by offering it proactively.
As well as digging deep into the data about flexibly advertised jobs – including breakdowns by salary, role type and region – our Scottish Flexible Jobs Index also sets out our recommendations for how Scottish employers and policymakers can use flexible hiring to tackle labour market shortages.
For employers, these include:
And for policymakers, they include:
We know that the Scottish Government already understand how important this is; in recent years they have supported a range of initiatives, including the Timewise Change Agent programme that ran from 2020 to 2022, helping raise employer awareness of the benefits of unlocking jobs to flexibility. But now, more than ever, we need all stakeholders to pull together to offer far more of the flexible jobs that really could transform the Scottish labour market, for everyone.
Published April 2023
