Insights and experiences from Timewise and business leaders on how flexible working is being used to boost employee well-being.
Employee well-being is a workplace issue that desperately needs tackling. In the UK, a huge number of working days are lost to ill health (32.5 million in 2019/20) and stress, depression and anxiety (18 million). We know that flexible working can support employee well-being – but we also know there isn’t a one size fits all solution.
While the pandemic helped focus leaders’ attention on their employees’ well-being, and normalised the concept of working from home, it also had some negative effects, as people struggled to keep their home and working lives separate. And critically, the changes driven by the pandemic have happened in a reactive way, rather than a proactive one.
Additionally, we are now in a new, also difficult era, dominated by the cost of living crisis. Right now, financial issues are affecting the well-being of many employees, and employers are increasingly willing to think creatively about how they can offer support.
The result is a ‘golden window’ in which businesses are considering the health and well-being of their staff more than ever before. So we invited three business leaders to join us to discuss this at our recent roundtable: Richard Martin, Executive Officer of the Mindful Business Charter; Rebecca Ormond, Inclusive Workplace Leader at PWC; and Jordan Cummins, the CBI’s first Director of Health.
So, what should employers do to boost employees’ well-being in the current climate? Here are the key themes that came out of our roundtable discussion.
Review pandemic-driven decisions – and make changes where needed
The new, more flexible ways of working that evolved during the pandemic were often brought in at speed. And while they have been positive in many ways, they can also be a barrier to well-being.
For example, the removal of the boundaries between work and home has led to an expectation of being always on. And while some employees relish skipping the commute and getting more time to spend with family, there are others who feel burnt out by work creep, and miss the connections that being fully office-based brought.
Similarly, while hybrid working is seen by many as the best of both worlds, it is not without its problems. There is a risk of two track workforces developing, in which those who continue to work from home are sidelined, affecting their well-being as well as their careers. Research from the CMI indicate it’s already happening, with 40% of managers saying they have observed opinions or behaviours suggesting inequality between those who work in a hybrid way and those who don’t.
Employers should therefore take a proactive look at how decisions made during the pandemic are affecting employee well-being – and make changes where needed. This includes supporting employees to reinstate the boundaries between home and work, and taking action to ensure that the flexibility on offer is fair and inclusive. The result will be truly flexible working arrangements that benefit both the business and the employee.
Increase your understanding of your employees’ circumstances and needs
A key part of this review – and of creating sustainable well-being strategies going forwards – will be to understand what issues people are dealing with and how the business can help.
Gathering data on well-being can be hard, but people are increasingly willing to disclose details about their circumstances – and will be even more so if they understand that this may lead to greater flexibility. Set out a framework of information you think would be useful to gather, and pulse check regularly.
Shift your approach to well-being and become a prevention workplace
The positioning of well-being within an organisation is central to its success. One positive step to take is to stop treating health and well-being as a cost, and instead consider it as an asset to be invested in, like sustainability.
This will lead to well-being being seen as a competitive advantage, rather than a burden, and help you focus on preventing poor well-being, rather than reacting to it. Ideas for supporting this include:
And of course, proactively offering well-designed flexible roles, which allow employees to better balance their work and home lives, is central to being a prevention workplace.
Encourage a culture of openness and trust between line managers and teams
Building on the above, line managers should be encouraged to have open conversations about well-being with their team members. It’s a big leap for many managers to go from talking about workload to talking about well-being, but it becomes easier once a culture is established in which these conversations are not only acceptable, but preferable. Things to think about:
It’s worth remembering that most employees want to achieve and do their best at work; the business simply needs to trust and support them to do so. And that includes exploring which kinds of flexibility will make that possible.
Explore the impact of the way your organisation works
As well as putting initiatives in place to support well-being, it is also important to look at your structures and processes; in reality, it’s often the way people work that creates stress. This includes the nature of the work itself and organisational expectations, as well as how individuals interact.
A key part of resolving this is to develop a company-wide conversation about how your team members are working with each other. Then act on it in your structures and processes. For example:
Again, little things can make a big difference; thinking about when you schedule meetings, or even send emails, can reduce stress and underpin your commitment to flexible working.
Address the impact of the economic crisis clearly and swiftly
Whilst employers are not responsible for the cost of living crisis, they do have a duty to support their employees to navigate it as best they can. And being clear in communications is absolutely critical. Observations from our panel included:
Of course, this kind of support doesn’t have to be limited to a financial crisis; some companies are already looking at how they can support their employees’ financial wellbeing. Initiatives include offering pension planning to parents and carers who have taken career breaks, or providing a financial well-being expert who can explain what benefits are available and how to access them.
It’s also worth noting that part-time opportunities can support financial well-being. Offering high-level part-time jobs within your organisation could help parents, carers and others who can’t work full-time to progress their careers and increase their incomes. And doing the same when recruiting could open doors to help others back into the workplace (as well as widening your talent pool).
With learnings from the pandemic ripe for analysis, and the cost of living crisis likely to continue, it feels like the right time for employers to develop and embed their commitment to employee well-being. For the best chance of success, flexible working should be at the heart of any approach; if you need support with this, please do get in touch.
Published October 2022
By Melissa Jamieson, CEO, Timewise
Here at Timewise, we are proud to be a social business. We invest our profits back into our work, creating a virtuous circle in which we build on the insights we’ve gained to deliver better, more targeted solutions for our clients. And we share our learnings as widely as possible, to help drive change within and across as many sectors as possible.
As part of our social model, we set ourselves a suite of objectives against which we monitor the impact we’re having on businesses and individuals. And three years ago, we set some particularly ambitious goals, and committed to tracking our performance against them over time.
The outcomes are clear – and are set out in our latest social impact report , which also includes case studies and other feedback from businesses and individuals. But the topline summary is that we smashed our targets on all five measures.
For example, having set ourselves the challenge of working with 100 employers to influence their flex strategies and practice, we collaborated with 151. Having aimed to positively impact the lives of 1 million people through greater access to flexible working, we reached 1.7 million. And having a target of widening access to flexible working at the point of hire by posting 25,000 jobs on Timewise Jobs, we actually posted over 42,000.
So what does all this mean, overall? It means more individuals who want or need to work flexibly have been able to find a job to match their circumstances. For many people, such as those who are carers or have health conditions, this flexibility can be the difference between working or not. This in turn has a positive impact on societal issues such as child poverty.
It also means that more businesses now understand the role that flexible working plays within issues like talent attraction, retention, well-being and inclusion – and critically, understand what to do about it.
The result is a win-win-win scenario which benefits businesses and candidates alike. It increases the options for new candidates, and makes it easier for those already in work to move or progress, taking their flexibility with them. And it supports businesses to find, keep and nurture talented individuals, who are happier, healthier and more productive at work.
We’re publishing this report at a time of great uncertainty. The jobs market is hugely unsettled; companies are battling with a skills crisis, and with a marked candidate shortage. And the cost-of-living crisis is making it more important than ever that we help as many people as possible find work that fits with their lives.
So, having proved over the last three years that our work has measurable impact, we want to see action on a greater scale. And we’re calling for a shared commitment from businesses, government and social funders to invest in innovative solutions that will help make good flexible work available to all.
We need government to build an infrastructure that supports flexible options. We need businesses to develop change programmes that create the right flexible jobs for their structure and their people. And we need social funders to get behind organisations like ours, so we can explore what works and share our learnings to drive wider change.
We’re here to help, in an advisory or a practical capacity; please get in touch if you’d like to know more. In the meantime, having smashed our three-year targets, we’re evolving our approach and developing a new suite of goals that match where we are now. We’ll update you all about this in the next few months; watch this space.
Published October 2022
By Amy Butterworth, Consultancy Director, Timewise
“We cannot afford to lose any more of our people.” As these words taken from the NHS People Plan make clear, the workforce crisis in our health service is now at an acute level. Recruitment and retention are more challenging than ever; data from earlier this year suggested that one in 10 nursing positions, and one in 17 doctors’ jobs, were unfilled. And in the last quarter of 2021, at least 400 NHS staff in England left their posts every single week due to inadequate work-life balance.
Faced with a mountain to climb, and believing that flexible working is a key part of the solution, NHS England and Improvement sought our help. They commissioned us to create a model for introducing and embedding flexible working practices, and to implement it at scale. The result was NHS Flex For The Future, the largest ever flexible working change project within the NHS, involving teams from 93 NHS trusts and organisations.
So what did we do? Well, as we know from our previous work within the NHS and elsewhere, there really is no one-size-fits all solution for an organisation of this size. We therefore began by tasking each trust to create their own change team, a group of at least five members of staff who knew what their specific challenges, barriers and issues around implementing flexible working would be.
We encouraged them to make sure that the change teams were representative of their trusts, and included frontline staff (such as nurses or midwives) as well as HR and OD professionals. This was critical, not only because they had first-person insights into how things work in practice, but also to ensure that any solutions were seen to be delivered from the ground up, not imposed from the top. We also asked each team to nominate an executive-level Senior Responsible Officer, who could fast-track any issues and decisions to the board, and hold senior colleagues accountable for supporting the programme and its outcomes.
Once the change teams were established, we worked to educate and upskill them through a six-month programme of workshops and advice. This included access to specialist speakers, real-time examples of innovative practice and case studies, as well as practical tools and templates to support the process. We also set up smaller, regionally based group clinics, where they could share ideas, challenges and progress with their local peers, supported by flexible working experts from Timewise and NHS England and Improvement.
Because of its scale, the programme also provided a valuable opportunity to gather information and insights that participants and the wider NHS could learn from. For example, we discovered a real disparity in data gathering around different flexible working patterns, which has a serious knock-on effect on reporting and planning within some trusts. Similarly, we discovered that while some trusts were advertising 100% of their jobs as flexible, others weren’t advertising any in this way. Towards the end of the programme, the change teams began to put what they had learned into practice by developing a business case with which to engage their leadership teams, and a tailored action plan that proposed the right solutions for their particular trust.
Of course, driving change within such large organisations is a marathon, not a sprint, and NHS Flex for the Future was very much the start of the process. Nevertheless, we are already seeing real shifts in attitude and approach from our 93 participant trusts and organisations.
70% of participants told us they have developed an action plan which was supported by their leadership teams. And as one participant put it: “The programme has helped me influence the board and not just start the conversation, but get an organisational objective on our 22/23 business plan.” There were also clear examples within our post-programme survey of how participants’ confidence and understanding has increased. When asked to respond to the statement, “I am clear as to the ways to increase the number of quality flexible roles in my NHS organisation” agreement increased to 69% (compared to 20% at the beginning of the programme). And for the statement “I understand how to design jobs with greater flexibility”, agreement increased from 30% to 74%.
We’ve also collated more detailed feedback about the impact of the programme through a set of case studies, which have really highlighted the positive impact of our work. To pick just one example, here are some insights from Fran Wilson, Lead Nurse for Attraction, Recruitment & Retention at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust:
I was already convinced that flexible working is an area that will increase staff attraction and retention, but now I have participated in the programme I have the insight, knowledge and resources to share with other people, which really helps.
We would never have got to present at trust board level without the programme, so it’s really helped raise the profile of flexible working… It’s also inspired us to start conversations from a point of yes, and how, rather than no!
It’s a big cultural change, so it isn’t going to happen overnight… but the progress we’re making is exciting… It’s been a great investment.
You can read Fran’s full case study here.
So, having educated and upskilled change teams from 93 NHS trusts and organisations, what’s next? The teams are continuing to develop and embed their action plans, and we are supporting some of them along this next stage of the journey. We’re also keen to help keep up the connections that were formed between teams from different NHS organisations, and will be looking to create more opportunities to convene organisations who are doing exciting things in this area – watch this space. In the meantime, having created and implemented this new model for change at scale, we’re eager to put it to good use, within the healthcare sector and elsewhere. If you are interested in starting a conversation with us about whether our change team model could work in your sector, please get in touch.
Published October 2022
By Dr Sarah Dauncey, Head of Partnerships and Practice, Timewise
The pressure that the cost of living crisis is putting on household incomes is inescapable. In ONS data from early September, 82% of adults reported being very or somewhat worried about rising costs of living. According to the New Economics Foundation, three-quarters of households will see the cost of living outstrip incomes by the autumn budget. And the economic fallout from the Chancellor’s ‘mini-budget’ on 23 September has intensified the problems facing households across the country.
Low-income families, who spend a greater proportion of their income on food and energy, are worst hit. In research from the Living Wage Foundation, 78% of low-paid workers said the cost of living crisis is the worst financial period they have ever faced. And as part-time workers are twice as likely as full-timers to be trapped in low pay, they are likely to be disproportionally affected.
It’s crucial that employers do all they can to support their employees through the cost of living crisis, and raising pay in line with the Living Wage is a good starting point. And another measure that employers should take is to offer good quality flexible working for all employees, at all levels.
The problem, however, is not just that we don’t have enough flexible jobs, but also that we don’t have enough good quality ones. As our 2021 Flexible Jobs Index noted, only 1 in 4 jobs are advertised as flexible in any way. There are even fewer part-time jobs advertised (just 1 in 10), and they are clustered at the lowest-paid end of the scale, with very few higher-paid ones available.
This is a particular problem for parents, carers or those with health issues or other responsibilities, who simply can’t work full-time. Being able to find a quality part-time or flexible role can be a gamechanger, allowing them to get into (or back into, or progress in) the workplace and increase their household income. And the availability of good flexible jobs also has a positive impact on society as a whole. Evidence shows that flexible working can play a part in tackling social inequality, reducing child poverty, supporting social mobility, and increasing workplace diversity. This has long been the case, but is now more critical now than ever – when people are talking about choosing between heating and eating, it’s time to take action.
Just as the impact of a lack of flexible working is a societal issue, the solutions cut across many different parts of society too. For example:
At the time of writing, the Chancellor has stated that he will tighten benefit rules for part-time workers to increase economic productivity, requiring them to work longer hours or take steps to increase their earnings. This is a retrograde step, which will keep people who need flexibility out of the workforce, pushing more into economic hardship.
Instead, we need to use flexible and part-time working to unlock the jobs market, which will support people through the cost of living crisis, as well as contributing to growth. This has long been true, but is now mission critical. Collaborative and coordinated action is urgently required.
Published October 2022
By Emma Stewart, Co-Founder of Timewise
It’s well established that maternal worklessness is a core factor behind child poverty – and that flexible working helps parents and carers work. So, two years ago, the Scottish Government took the decision to join the dots, commissioning Timewise to improve access to fair flexible work for parents and carers, as part of their Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan.
Having carried out a feasibility study, we concluded that the only way to have the broad impact that the government required was to take a systems-led approach. There were already a range of labour market support services being offered to both jobseekers and employers, so we felt the most sensible route was to equip the intermediaries to advise on flexible working.
The result was Fair Flexible Work for Scotland, a two-year programme through which we created a network of Change Agents from 70 intermediary organisations (including recruiters, enterprise agencies and local authority employability teams), and trained them up to offer the right support. We also connected them to a range of wider experts on flexible working, including the Scotland-based Flexibility Works.
For employer-facing intermediaries, our focus was on how to help businesses adjust to new ways of working (including hybrid) and upskilling hiring managers to create better flexible jobs. For those who were jobseeker facing, we explored the best way to deliver advice for people (particularly parents and carers) on finding quality flexible work.
We achieved this through a series of interactive workshops and a toolkit of resources, as well as access to follow-up clinics tackling specific challenges and opportunities. We backed these up with up-to-the-minute data on the jobs market, via a new Scotland Flexible Jobs Index. And we also provided practical masterclasses directly to over 600 employers, offering clear guidance on how to improve their flexible working offer.
So, did it work? The answer is a resounding yes, across a variety of measures.
Initial feedback showed that we have succeeded in equipping our Change Agents to incentivise and support action on flexible working. Highlights include 80% saying they have a better understanding of how to influence employers to enable a fairer, more successful approach to hybrid working, and 76% strongly agreeing that “I am motivated to take action to ensure fairer access to flexible work by more people.”
We’re also pleased to note that the system is already becoming hardwired into how people operate; for example, Scottish Enterprise advisers now ask that any jobs created as a result of their business growth grants are advertised as flexible from day one.
And there’s qualitative evidence of emerging changes in approach from both employers and individuals, with even traditional employers such as the Scotch Whisky Association now offering a range of flexible arrangements for existing and prospective staff.
So what’s the secret of this programme’s success? Certainly, the participants feel that there is real value in this kind of collaborative approach, which brings together stakeholders from both the public and private sectors. And the systemic way the programme has been designed also makes it easy to share what works and scale up its impact.
The Scottish Government agrees too. This approach – supporting labour market intermediaries to not just advocate for, but provide, practical support on flexible working – is a key factor in encouraging Fair Work in Scotland. And, as the Fair Work Criteria now includes a specific request for companies accessing any government funds to offer flexible working from day one, it’s more relevant than ever.
Employers are (rightly) being asked to deliver on metrics around employability, inclusion and wellbeing, but they don’t always know where to start. This model doesn’t just set expectations; it also provides support, building systems capability that can then be maintained and rolled out more widely through existing intermediaries
So we’ll continue to monitor the impact of the support provided by this new network of Fair Flexible Work Change Agents, to build evidence of the effect it has on unlocking a better quality flexible jobs market, and the impact this has on tackling child poverty. And having proved the concept in Scotland, we’re now keen to replicate it elsewhere in the UK. We’re currently discussing it with some local and combined authorities in England, and are keen to get cracking; we’ll keep you posted.
Published September 2022
In July 2021, we published the report into our Construction Pioneers Pilot, and it caused quite a stir. The 18-month programme was carried out in partnership with Build UK and four pioneer firms – BAM Construct, BAM Nuttall, Skanska UK and Wilmot Dixon – and set out to challenge the concept that frontline site-based roles were incompatible with flexible working. The outcomes were clear; and overnight, some long-held assumptions were overturned.
The pilot demonstrated that flexible working CAN be implemented on construction sites, without negatively affecting budgets or delivery. It highlighted the positive impact of flexible working on workers’ sense of well-being and work-life balance. It also set out the benefits of taking a team-based approach to working patterns, and demonstrated that a culture which accepts, and champions, flexible workers, is better for everyone involved.
But for us, and for our pilot colleagues, that wasn’t the end of the story. Flexible working is a long-term change; it takes time to embed it within an organisation, and progress needs to be tracked to get a clear picture of what works.
So we agreed to come back after a year and review the situation. Were the positive outcomes sustainable, and has anything else changed for the better? What still needs to be tackled? And what can the rest of the industry learn from all this? Our One Year On Review holds the answers.
To start with, the continuing positive impact on employees is clear. All four firms agreed that even small changes to ways of working were helping their staff better manage the challenges of day-to-day life, taking away potential problems that could increase stress.
The employees we interviewed also felt that they were more trusted and better understood, and that it was easier to discuss flexible working and make changes in a collaborative way with their managers. The managers themselves felt they were more open to trying out new ways of working, recognising that if it benefits their teams, it benefits the business too. That’s quite a culture shift.
And critically there was new evidence, from interviews and HR feedback, of a reduction in sickness absence. This is particularly notable in comparison to the rest of the construction industry, in which sickness absence is on the rise. All four participating firms believe that flexible working has contributed to this reduction, and given that one of our initial aims was to tackle the industry’s poor mental health and well-being record, it’s a welcome development.
Additionally, the firms have reported increased productivity levels, which they feel is the result of having a happier workforce who are better able to manage their commitments outside of work. And all this is still being delivered without any negative impact on either budget or delivery.
A further positive outcome is that our pioneer firms are now so confident about the value of flexible working that they have felt able to offer it from the point of hire. This is rare within construction, and likely to seriously improve the industry’s gender pay gap.
The review also noted some areas where there is more work to be done. There’s still a need for more consistency in management practice across the firms, and more time needs to be spent exploring other forms of flexible working. Part-time work, in particular, is still rare to the point of invisibility, particularly for on-site roles.
It also highlighted the as-yet-missed opportunity of influencing other parts of the supply chain; these new attitudes towards flexible working need to ripple downwards to sub-contracted workers, and upwards to clients too.
Overall, the evidence clearly suggests that our pioneers are reaping the rewards of their flexible working trial. They are also benefitting from this review, which has given them a forum to reflect on what’s working, within and across the four firms, and refine their plans accordingly.
What’s more, this model offers real benefits for the whole sector. Why? Because our initial pilot, and this one year on review, provide a clear roadmap for change. They set out what needs to be done, offer proof of concept for flexible working, and show what’s up for grabs for others who are willing to trial it for themselves.
It’s already gathering momentum; following our initial report a year ago, we’ve been engaged by a number of other firms who are keen to move forwards with flexible working, including Sir Robert McAlpine, Kier and Balfour Beatty. It’s our expectation that the further proof provided by this review will see even more firms taking action.
And why wouldn’t they? The evidence from this programme is pretty conclusive; it’s also backed up by our own cross-sector research, which has indicated that a flexible working trial which reduces sickness absence by one day per person per year generates a positive ROI.
In the words of Suzannah Nichol MBE, CEO of Build UK, “With such positive results, particularly around diversity and well-being, Build UK will continue to champion flexible working and I would encourage other industry organisations to do so too. If you aren’t already having the flexible working conversation within your business, it is definitely one worth starting – I promise you won’t regret it.”
Published July 2022
It seems pretty clear that hybrid is the new normal. A June 2022 survey from the CIPD noted that 78% of organisations now offer hybrid working, in a mix of formal and informal arrangements. And spring 2022 ONS data showed that 84% of employees who worked from home during the pandemic plan to continue working in a hybrid way.
Here at Timewise, we see the increase in hybrid working as a hugely positive thing. We, like many organisations, believe that it offers huge benefits for employers and employees alike (as long as it is properly implemented, of course).
But an unexpected side-effect of hybrid’s increasing popularity is that it’s becoming conflated with flexible working in general. In the media, in conversations, in focus groups, people are using the phrase flexible working when what they mean is hybrid working.
To give just one example of many, in a recent discussion we held with a group of frontline workers, a participant stated that “Flexible working won’t work for us – we can’t do our job from home”.
So, what’s the problem here? Well, firstly, it’s just not accurate to conflate the two. Hybrid working is essentially place-based flex – giving people the opportunity to work across different locations. This is a subset of flexible working, which also includes time-based flex – such as part-time, job sharing, compressed hours and flexible start and finish times, as well as more unusual arrangements such as term-time only contracts.
And while place-based flex is liberating and beneficial for many, it doesn’t work for everyone. There are many people for whom being able to work fewer days is the only way they can work at all. Parents, carers, people with physical or mental health issues… for some, working a full week, even if partially from home, just isn’t feasible.
Additionally, there are many roles for which working from home isn’t an option at all. Most frontline workers, such as nurses, teachers, retail assistants and on-site construction workers, generally have to be at their workplace to work. But they may still need flexibility, and if they don’t get it, they may leave; in secondary schools, for example, 1 in 5 teachers who leave the profession do so to take up a part-time role elsewhere.
For these groups, offering time-based flexibility is key. School timetables can be tweaked to accommodate part-time employees or staggered start and finish times; rotas and shift patterns can be designed to accommodate reduced hours. It requires leadership, job design skills and a team-based approach, but it can be done successfully.
However, the confusion between flex and hybrid means that companies which are allowing a blend of in office and WFH can assume they’ve ‘got flex done’. They therefore may not invest enough time in exploring and facilitating time-based flexible working options.
That’s a bad business decision, particularly in a skills crisis, because offering time-based flex as well as place-based flex allows companies to widen their recruitment talent pool and keep hold of employees for longer. It helps them boost employee wellbeing, and develop a more diverse workforce, which reflects wider society and avoids issues around groupthink. It also, all the evidence suggests, helps close the gender pay gap.
And in organisations with both frontline and office-based staff, it also counters the development of a two-tier workforce, in which only those in office-based roles have access to flexible working.
The other thing to note is that time-based flex and place-based flex aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s possible to have a part-time role that is executed in a hybrid way; for example, working four days per week, of which one is from home. For many people, that’s the best of both worlds; for companies who offer it, it’s a powerful lever.
So, our advice is simple. Get clear on the difference between hybrid working and flexible working, and avoid conflating the two. Explore all the different time-based and place-based options, and offer those which are suitable for your organisation. And if you spot someone talking about flex when they really just mean hybrid, it probably wouldn’t hurt to call it out.
Published July 2022
Despite what some business leaders and government ministers want to believe, it seems pretty clear that hybrid working is here to stay. According to ONS data, 38% of working adults reported having worked at home at some point over the past seven days in Spring 2022, and 84% of those who had to work from home during the pandemic were planning to continue to work on a hybrid basis.
And it’s becoming a deal breaker for employees, with 47% of UK office workers – and 60% of those aged 25-34 – saying they would be prepared to quit their current job and look for new opportunities if flex isn’t provided by their employer.
But there’s a science to doing hybrid working well. It’s not just a case of dishing out a laptop and telling people they can work from home a few days a week. And there’s a danger that ways of working developed in haste during the pandemic are still in place, and being left to drift, rather than being actively redesigned to suit the post-Covid landscape.
From our work with clients across all sectors, it’s clear that there’s a willingness to get behind hybrid working, and a determination to do it well. But what’s less clear is how to do so.
We recently explored this in depth with our research, Beyond the hype of hybrid, which dug into the challenges that companies have experienced, and the ways they are working to tackle them. As part of this project, we’ve identified three core actions that employers who want to get hybrid right – and make it stick – should take.
1. Upskill Leaders & Managers
Managing hybrid teams, and negotiating and implementing hybrid patterns, is not instinctive. So make sure your managers, and your leadership team, understand why it’s important and how to do it successfully. This includes:
You’ll also need to build in a feedback loop to understand how managing a hybrid team is affecting your managers’ own workload and productivity. It needs to work for them, too.
2. Enable connection and cultural cohesion
Hybrid working is only possible because of advances in tech; but tech alone won’t make it stick. Companies who want to succeed at hybrid working need to take deliberate action to keep their employees connected, and provide opportunities for collaboration.
This includes:
As one of our panelists at a recent event noted, “People crave the crackle you get in the air in a meeting.” Finding ways to bring that crackle to life in your workplace will really help make hybrid working stick.
3. Ensure fairness and inclusion
Hybrid working, done well, can actually boost inclusion. For some key groups, being able to work from home at least some of the time can be a gamechanger. And it can also support the recruitment of a more diverse, less geographically restricted workforce.
But there are a number of issues, legal and otherwise, that need to be considered to ensure that your arrangements are fair and inclusive. For example:
The legal and HR ramifications of hybrid working are many and varied, and you’ll certainly need to invest some time exploring the impact on issues such as benefits and rewards. You’ll also need to decide whether to make your hybrid arrangements informal or contractual.
Hybrid working is still relatively new, and many organisations have been trialing different approaches as they go along. So it’s a good time to start gathering the data to track how it is working in reality.
This doesn’t mean monitoring attendance for the sake of it, or leaving passive-aggressive notes on empty desks. It’s about collecting information about who is using your office space, and how they’re using it, to ensure that your approach is productive and inclusive.
You should combine your data collection with inclusive listening activities, via groups or surveys, to capture experiences as well as numbers. You could also consider getting input from new starters, who will have a preconception-free view of how well your hybrid-working arrangements are working in practice.
It’s our expectation that the next couple of years will see companies refining and embedding their hybrid working arrangements, and using them as a foundation on which to build more inclusive, more productive, and happier workplaces. Working practices will continue to evolve, but by taking the actions set out here, you’ll be well placed to get hybrid right, and make it stick.
Published July 2022
By Muriel Tersago, Principal Consultant
Debates around the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention aren’t new – but the pandemic appears to have made things even worse. April 2022 research from the National Education Union suggests that 44% of teachers are planning to leave within five years, and that it’s getting harder to fill vacancies, with a knock-on effect on workloads for remaining staff.
Teachers’ reasons for leaving are many and varied, and include issues around workload, wellbeing and stress; all of which could be mitigated if flexible working in schools was more widely available. Indeed, NFER research has shown that some teachers leave because they can’t access flexible working, and that many secondary school teachers who do leave reduce their hours when they do.
It’s for this reason that we have spent the last 16 months working on a Teaching Pioneers Programme with three MATs, across eight schools, piloting how best to champion and deliver flexible working within schools. And our findings are clear: yes, it’s complex, but it’s not impossible, and there is a return on investment for doing so. As one deputy headteacher put it: “Find the commitment and shift in mindset, and you can tackle the operational issues.”
Clearly, introducing flexible working into teaching is less straightforward than in office-based roles. Complications around timetabling and culture, the frontline nature of the role and the intensity of the school day all play their part.
But our Teaching Pioneer MATs (Academies Enterprise Trust, GLF Schools and The Kemnal Academies Trust) recognised that these challenges should, and could, be overcome. They agreed about the benefits of flexible working in schools, and saw our pilot as an opportunity to focus on how to go wider and deeper with the changes that were needed.
Our team worked closely with central HR teams and headteachers from the eight schools to explore five core areas, providing support including workshops, coaching sessions, timetabling masterclasses and train-the-trainer materials, and sharing learnings across the group at each stage.
So what was the outcome? There were a number of key learnings, which our Teaching Pioneers have already begun to implement – and which can be adopted by other schools and academy trusts who are keen to get better at flexible working. Here are some of the highlights:
Many schools currently operate on a request-response model, in which people (usually women coming back from maternity leave) formally ask for reduced hours. This pigeonholes flex as something that needs to be earned, and isn’t applicable to all, creating an unspoken sense that there are a limited number of arrangements possible.
A far better way forward is to implement a proactive whole-school approach, which opens up opportunities for flexibility across all roles. This is facilitated by regular, open discussions about what people’s flexible needs might be, how to create opportunities to support these, and how to build these into the timetabling and workforce planning processes.
A knock-on effect of the request response model is that flexible working in schools has become synonymous with part-time. However, there are many other flexible options that schools can consider, such as timetabling PPA at the beginning or end of the day and allowing staff to do that work from home, or delivering CPD and meetings remotely.
Many schools trialled some of these approaches during lockdown, and some have continued with them; but what’s often missing is a strategic approach to their implementation, underpinned by dialogue about when, where and how work can be done, which gives people a sense of input and control.
The point is to have open minds and discussions, and see what is possible within each role and team. In the words of one principal: “We can’t guarantee the same outcomes… but the process is the same for all – open conversations, trying out different ideas and trying to make it work.”
Clearly, such substantial operational and culture changes require committed leadership. So it’s vital that headteachers are not just vaguely supportive of flexible working, but committed to it in principle, and driven to make it work. This commitment is all the more powerful when heads role model working flexibly themselves.
They also need to be willing to pass on some of the responsibility to others. With a whole-school approach, the implications and execution of what’s needed and what’s possible are discussed at an individual, team and school level, rather than simply being approved or declined by the head.
The pilot also highlighted the importance of clear communication, explored solutions for the thorny issue of timetabling, focused on training and empowerment of line managers and noted the positive impact on students.
Sixteen months on from the start of the project, what’s been the impact on our Teaching Pioneers? Our post-pilot evaluation showed that a majority of teachers surveyed felt more confident about discussing flexible working, and that different reasons were considered more acceptable; they also noted that their schools were increasingly supportive of flexible working.
Qualitative feedback also highlights the impact the programme has had. Comments include: “There is so much goodwill in return for the trust and understanding we are given”, and “Thinking proactively is liberating… we engage more people to explore what’s possible and come up with more creative ideas that can work for both sides.”
One principal noted “Our absenteeism has dropped through the floor”, which highlights the return on investment that flexible working can deliver. Our own research has showed that, for a MAT with 100 teaching staff, one fewer sick day per teacher per year for three years would cover the cost of a flexible working pilot. On every level, that’s an investment worth making.
It’s our hope that more schools and MATs will use the findings from this pilot to develop their own whole school approach to flexible working, and reap these rewards. We’ve also partnered with the Department for Education to develop a programme of insights and resources to train school leaders in flexible working; to date 682 schools and 103 business institutions across the country have taken part. We’ll be watching with interest to see how the educational landscape changes as a result.
You can download the Teaching Pioneers Programme report here.
Published June 2022
By Rachel Parmley, Principal Consultant, Timewise
The deadline for the 2021-22 gender pay gap reporting has now passed, with initial data suggesting that the gap has barely narrowed, going from 10.2% in 2020 to 9.8% in 2021.
Now, perhaps this isn’t surprising, given that we are coming out of a pandemic in which women have been disproportionately affected. A report from the IFS on the first lockdown found that mothers were 47% more likely than fathers to have lost their job or quit, and were far more likely to be interrupted during working hours. More recently, our own research demonstrated that the pandemic has had a particularly fierce impact on part-time employees, the vast proportion of whom are women.
But even within this context, it is hugely disappointing that the gender pay gap remains so persistently wide. And it underlines the fact that, if businesses are genuinely keen to learn from the Covid-19 pandemic, they need to do so in an inclusive way that supports female career progression.
As we have previously explained, a workplace culture that embraces flexible working is a sure-fire way to approach this issue. Of the four reasons behind the gender pay gap, three can be tackled by creating quality part-time and flexible jobs at all levels, across all sectors, that are attractive to ambitious men and women alike.
And given that 9 in 10 workers say they want to work flexibly, doing so will help businesses attract and retain talented people, as well as narrowing their gender pay gap.
So with under a year to go until the next reporting deadline, the clock is ticking, and organisations who are serious about reducing their gender pay gap need to start now. Here are eight actions that leaders can take to get started.
Instead of just handing out laptops or trying to squeeze a full-time role into fewer days, redesign jobs by looking at when, where and in how much time a role is done, preferably taking a team-based approach. Specifically, consider offering part-time and job shares, rather than just homeworking.
It’s true that this is more complex in some sectors than others, but it can be done; we are showing what is possible through action research projects in hard-to-flex areas such as construction, banking, teaching and retail.
Advertise jobs as being open to flexibility at the point of hire. Make sure you are clear about what this flexibility means, and if you are open to job-sharing applicants, say so.
Our latest Flexible Jobs Index shows that only one in four jobs openly offer flexible working arrangements, which is far below candidate demand. In this era of candidate shortages and the ‘great resignation’, being upfront about offering flex will help you gain an edge in the battle for talent.
Ensure there are routes for flexible progression, to help overcome cultural bias. And make part-time roles more attractive to career-driven people, to ensure that career progression on a part-time basis is not only acceptable, but aspirational.
It’s worth getting feedback from any existing part-time workers to inform this process. Ask what they like about their working pattern, and explore whether there is anything that can be done to improve their arrangement and encourage others to consider flexible working.
For most organisations, flexible working strategy still relies on a request-response model which requires an employee to make a request. This feeds into much of the stigma around part-time arrangements, because it pigeon-holes flexibility as something that’s only considered in special circumstances (usually involving women and childcare).
The more flexibility is normalised, the more inclusive it becomes. So talk proactively to your teams about how they would like to work, making it clear that flexibility is something that can be explored, and don’t make assumptions about what they need. You could set up a survey, where employees can give anonymous feedback on their work practices.
A couple of watchouts. Avoid creating a two-tier workforce in which only some employees can access flexible working; whilst not everyone can work from home, you could explore other kinds of flex such as reduced hours, compressed hours, annualised contracts or staggered start and finish times. And for those that can work from home, remember to mitigate against proximity bias, to avoid the impact on their progression.
Gather as much data as you can around flexible working arrangements and requests in your business. This should include:
Given that the link between flexible working and the gender pay gap is clear, understanding your own data will help you make informed decisions about how best to close it.
Having flex role models – people who are effectively working in a flexible way – is critical to helping make the exception become the norm.
If people can’t see anyone working flexibly in a senior role, it’s hard for them to feel they might have flexible opportunities to progress. So champion those who are working in this way, and think about how others can follow in their footsteps.
Our annual Power List does this on a national scale, telling the stories of exceptional people working part-time, to show what is possible. But companies should do this too. By celebrating your staff who are blazing the trail for flexibly, both internally and through case studies on your jobs websites, you’ll open up a talent pipeline for those looking for flex.
Managing a team of people who aren’t all working full-time, or always physically present, isn’t instinctive; it needs to be learned. So teaching your managers the skills they need to lead and support a flexible team is vital, as is making sure they are supported to work flexibly, too.
At Timewise, we’ve developed a tried-and-tested training model that we use with our clients. Find out more through our Timewise consultancy service.
In order to have a tangible impact on their gender pay gap, leaders should not just commit to changing their approach – but also be willing to be held accountable.
So we believe all employers should be required to publish an action plan, as part of the reporting process, which explains how they are planning to address their gap, with a section dedicated to flexible working.
The evidence is clear: flexible working is key to women’s career progression. Done well, it should allow women to access and succeed in aspirational and well-paid jobs that do not require them to be in the office from 9-5, five days a week.
By offering flexible roles, you will not only narrow your gender pay gap, but also attract and retain the best talent, helping your business grow by remaining ahead of competitors. And at a societal level, you will support the creation of a healthier, more equitable society.
Of course, leadership is critical to sustainable change; so it’s important to get your organisation’s senior team on board with your plans, and vocally supportive. Make sure you’ve got that in place, then start working on the eight actions suggested above, so you’re ready for the next set of reporting in April 2023.
Published June 2022
