This research has captured the whole picture of part-time working in the UK right now. We’re excited to share these voices. It’s not a simple story.
The aim of A Question of Time is to capture the whole picture of part-time working in the UK, right now. It’s not a simple story.
In partnership with Opinium, we surveyed both full-time and part-time 4,001 workers and undertook focus groups to gain a deeper understanding of people’s experiences of and views on part-time working.
There’s a mixed story of blocked career paths, conflicting views – and a glimpse of hope (see our video).
Reduced hours are seen as a central way to manage life and health needs. But there are distinct cultural and economic barriers to overcome. Part-time work is perceived to limit career progression, particularly among the ‘gatekeepers’ of career success: managers.
Yet, ironically, managers are the most likely occupational group to express an interest in working part-time in the future.
In this report, we shine a spotlight onto people’s experiences and perceptions of part-time working to contribute much needed new insight into labour market inequalities. By gathering a deeper understanding of the realities of part-time work, and differing attitudes towards it, we’re better able to direct action to deliver change, improving the lives of workers by granting them greater flexibility and choice.
Part-time employment is prevalent in the UK, especially among women. However, there has been a slow decrease in women’s participation in part-time work, and a slight increase in men’s.
41% of people work part-time to manage either care or home related responsibilities, and 22% work part-time to better manage their mental and/or physical health. The findings highlight the gender inequalities associated with caring responsibilities, yet also draw attention to the health crisis.
Covid has changed things. People want to pursue interests beyond work. Part-time shouldn’t just be for parents.
YOUNGER WORKER, FOCUS GROUP PARTICIPANT
Nearly half of all survey respondents believe part-time working can limit career progression, and over a third of workers consider it to be primarily for parents and carers, rising to 1 in 4 among those in the managerial occupational group.
Differences in the perception of the status of part-time work by age, ethnicity, education and occupation include:
While half of the survey respondents would be happy to talk to their employer about changing their working arrangements, 30% would not be comfortable discussing reduced hours. Of the respondents, younger workers and those with temporary contracts were least comfortable discussing changing their working arrangements. However, this group were more likely to consider taking advantage of the new day one right to request flexible working in a future role, and significantly more respondents from black minority ethnic groups than white ethnic groups would do the same.
The focus groups supported these findings as well as highlighting that workers were more comfortable discussing working arrangements once more established in their role, with a build up of trust between employer and employee.
At junior level, it’s difficult to discuss flex but as you become more senior and gain trust and respect, it’s easier to pursue it. The ‘right to flex’ is seen as a reward for good work and being trusted. It’s something you earn and isn’t something you automatically have.
OLDER WORKER, FOCUS GROUP PARTICIPANT
Our new findings show there’s a strong demand for part-time working, regardless of gender, occupation and income, and it has a key part to play in tackling societal challenges such as managing health and wellbeing and the increased burden of social care. There is an urgent need for joined up action by employers, policymakers and government to tackle inequalities in the part-time labour market and create more inclusive workplaces where employees can thrive.
So what can employers do today to make a difference?
Timewise is grateful to our corporate supporters for making the project possible: Diageo, Lloyds Banking Group and Phoenix Group.
Published December 2023
Watch the Timewise A Question of Time webinar below:
Our 9th annual Flexible Jobs Index© reports negligible change on the previous year’s level of job adverts offering flexible working. Only 31% do so, signifying an end to the progress that was made during and since the pandemic, when hybrid working became the norm for many UK jobs.
The stagnation is surprising in the light of the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023, with its accompanying regulation giving people the right to request flexible working from day one in a new job. It suggests that many employers remain resistant to flexibility for new recruits, and are not preparing for the change that is coming when the new law is implemented next year.
To be fair to employers, complex workplace transformation takes time. And the pressure to adapt to flex coincides with huge challenges in terms of pay rises to cover the increased cost of living, whilst grappling with an economic downturn. However, it has never been more important to look beyond the barriers and consider the evidence that flexible working is a powerful talent attraction tool. Candidates increasingly want and expect to be able to work flexibly, and with new legislation on the way that is not about to change.
The proportion of job adverts which offer flexible working appears to be stalling. The 2023 rate of 31% represents barely any increase on 30% in 2022, and follows three years of a marked upward trend during and since the pandemic, as many organisations embraced hybrid-working.
The supply of flexible vacancies lags far behind demand. 6 in 10 employees can access the benefits of flexibility in their current job, and many more people want to work flexibly. Yet only 3 in 10 jobs are advertised with flexible working – or, to look at it another way, people who need flexibility are unable to apply for 7 in 10 jobs.
The higher the salary, the lower the availability of part-time jobs. Conversely, home-working (including hybrid working) is least available in lower paid jobs and peaks for jobs paid £60k-£79k.
These imbalances create unfairness in the workplace. The lack of part-time jobs at higher salaries traps many people in their low-paid part-time roles. It also creates barriers for those who take a temporary break from work and need a part-time role to re-enter the workforce. Meanwhile, hybrid arrangements, which make up the majority of home-working jobs, are primarily associated with higher-paid office roles and are inaccessible to many.
Greater parity can be achieved, if employers look more closely at what flexibility is possible in a role and design it into jobs.
Access to flexible working at the point of hire varies widely depending on the type of role. Those that are largely based around shifts offer flex the most – for example social services (45% of job adverts) and medical/health (38%). Above average access to flex is also offered in a number of office-based role categories, because of increased home-working – for example, HR (39%), marketing (38%), and finance (38%).
But some role categories have stubbornly low rates of flex, such as manufacturing (11%), and construction (10%). This may be gender based – they are male dominated roles where historically low requests for flexibility may have shaped cultural resistance to it.
CIPD research published in May 2023 found that 49% of employers were not even aware of the 2023 legislation on flexible working, and the regulation around the day-one right to request it. So first, employers need to read up on the new legislation and think through how they will incorporate it into their processes.
The best way to gain knowledge and confidence on how to make flexibility work in your organisation is to find successful examples in your sector. Guidance on flexible job design will be helpful, as will advice on how to support line managers to implement flex.
Look particularly at how to make a success of hybrid working, which is currently the subject of much doubt amongst employers. Before you row back on hybrid, or decide not to trial it, invest time in understanding models that are successful.
And finally, it’s a mistake to assume that candidates will know they can ask for flexible working at interview. People who need flex want to know it’s on offer before they waste time on an application. This is especially true if they have been out of the labour market for a while, as they may lack the confidence to ask. So be sure to state clearly in your job adverts which types of flexibility are possible for the role.
Watch the Timewise Flexible Jobs Index© 2023 webinar below:
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
Flexible hiring – advertising job vacancies as flexible from day one – is a key building block for fair access to work. It is a lifeline for people who need to work flexibly; a tool for employers to attract more talent; and at a societal level, it can help tackle inequality.
Yet the latest Scottish Flexible Jobs Index finds that only 28% of advertised vacancies offer flexible working, barely any higher than the previous year (27%). This rate lags far behind both demand for flexibility and workplace practice – 8 in 10 Scottish people want to work flexibly, with 6 in 10 already doing so.
There are also several underlying concerns. Home-working (including hybrid) is the only form of flexibility that is increasing, while part-time arrangements (highly sought by people with caring commitments) show no growth at all. And potential inequalities between workers are exacerbated by wide discrepancies in access to flex at different salary levels, by occupation and by region.
Employers need to change their approach as a matter of urgency, especially in light of forthcoming legislation on the ‘day one right to request flexible working’. Our report contains recommendations for employers and policy makers on how best to adapt.
With a standard working day of 11 hours, and crew increasingly work back to back on productions because of escalating demand for new film and TV shows, the sector is under immense strain. The drain of skilled and experienced people (especially women) in mid-career is endemic, as the long and unpredictable hours are incompatible with raising a family.
Our action research project explored potential opportunities to improve flexible working – the underlying goals being to reduce long hours, enhance health and wellbeing, and enable productions to attract and retain talent.
We identified several tactical ways to introduce flexibility to some roles within the constraints of the current working model. Alongside our report, we have therefore produced a checklist of practical actions for production teams to consider.
However, there is no getting away from it: the biggest challenge is the length of the standard 11-hour day. The majority of crew and producers we spoke to believe that fundamentally tackling this is the way to change the industry, increase retention and minimise burn out. Piloting a model for a shorter working day is therefore the key recommendation of our research report.
Published March 2023
Domiciliary care roles have a reputation for offering flexible work that will suit people (mainly women) with their own family caring responsibilities. However, the flexibility on offer is often ‘poor flexible work’. Zero hours contracts bring unpredictability and insecurity, while the ‘flexible hours’ that are available are mostly at unsociable times – early mornings, evenings and weekends, which are prime times when carers need to be with their own families.
Timewise teamed up with London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) to explore what carers say they need to make the job fit better for them. Our aim was to provide insight as to how small changes and greater transparency around the nature of working patterns could potentially enhance retention during the first few months of the job – a ‘crunch’ point when many new recruits realise the schedules are not a good fit.
We developed and tested a guide for carers with a focus on how to manage the realities of scheduling. Guidance for hiring managers was also produced, highlighting the need for transparency and support.
This project by Timewise and LBBD has reinforced previous evidence of the need to improve flexible working options for care workers, to make it a more attractive career choice.
Published February 2023
The UK is facing a labour market crisis with demand far outstripping the supply of candidates, and a cost of living crisis that is hitting hard, especially for low income households. Against this backdrop, Timewise set out to explore:
The jobs market remains broken for people who need to work flexibly, and a key barrier is employer resistance. This report seeks to improve understanding around the issues, with a view to encouraging more employers to engage with the idea of hiring flexibly, and realise the benefits of changing their hiring practices.
Published November 2022
By Dr Sarah Dauncey, Head of Partnerships and Practice, Timewise
The pandemic intensified existing labour market inequalities in access to flexible working arrangements. Half of working adults worked from home at times during the pandemic, but this opportunity wasn’t available to frontline workers.
And while 84% of those who had to work from home because of government regulations said they wanted to work in a hybrid way in the future, equivalent flexibility wasn’t available to many of those in location-based roles. The result is a risk of two-tier workforces developing, split into flexible working haves and have nots, amplifying existing inequalities.
It’s for this reason that we have joined with IES and three frontline employers – Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Sir Robert McAlpine and Wickes – in a two-year action research programme designing, testing and embedding flexible working solutions. It’s funded by Impact on Urban Health and Barclays Life Skills, and the findings from the study will be shared widely to drive change among employers.
Even before the pandemic, frontline work was overrepresented by young people, those on lower pay, and people from minoritised ethnic groups. Typically, these roles can be physically challenging with less opportunity for autonomy and control over working patterns, factors that negatively affect health and wellbeing.
As many frontline roles involve delivering care and services to other people, frontline employees were most exposed to Covid-19. In contrast, desk-based and knowledge workers were more shielded from the risk of infection, and had more options about when, where and how they worked.
Additionally, flexible working is heavily concentrated in high-paid roles and, consequently, is more prevalent in London and the South-East than in any other region. Geographical inequality in access to flexible working arrangements is largely a feature of sectoral variation, and local and combined authorities are actively working to ‘level up’ through good work and inclusive economy agendas. But there remains a likelihood that where you live can determine your access to flexible work.
These labour market patterns are often replicated within organisations, with disparities between employees working in frontline and site-based roles and those who are more desk-based. These have become starker with the increased focus on location-based flexibility. Remote and hybrid working have become synonyms for ‘flexible working’, and time-based flexibility, which is more feasible for those unable to change where they work, is being sidelined as a result.
Our new programme of research and action seeks to tackle these inequalities, widening access to flexible working and implementing it fairly across organisations. It has been built in partnership with like-minded organisations, including three employers who are committed to reducing organisational disparities in access to flexible working, and improving the health and wellbeing of their employees.
We began by devising a two-year programme of activity and establishing a steering group comprised of leading practitioners and experts. The group includes members from the three participating employers, British Retail Consortium, Build UK, Business for Health, CBI, Impact on Urban Health, and NHS England. It has informed the direction of the programme and will provide strategic oversight throughout its duration.
The programme falls into four parts:
1. Developing fair flexible principles
The first phase of the programme, which was completed in the summer, involved consultation with the steering group to develop a set of guiding principles for the development of a fairer and more consistent, organisation-wide approach to flexible working. These relate to seven key organisational areas, including: leadership, manager capability, recruitment and communications. They will be used and adapted by our participating employers to support their work to embed flexible working and align it with other priorities, like diversity and inclusion.
2. Designing and testing practical solutions with our partner employers
Next, we’ll collaborate with our employer partners to identify areas for action to widen access to flexible working, particularly among those in frontline or site-based roles who currently have limited access to flexible working arrangements. Timewise consultants will work closely with the employers to build and deliver interventions that will create change. For instance, by coaching managers to help them become more effective in managing individuals and teams working flexibly and building peer support networks.
3. Building the evidence base to better understand the impact of flexible working on individuals and organisations
We’ll then collaborate with IES to gather learnings from the programme. These will inform our future activity and influence participating employers and the wider sectors represented by them: health, construction and retail.
A key piece of evidence we’ll be seeking is the impact of access to good quality flexible working arrangements on employees, in the context of their experience of wellbeing, health and job satisfaction. We’ll also be evaluating its impact on the organisations in terms of their ability to retain employees and reduce sickness and absence, therefore their capacity to increase productivity.
4. Sharing insights to improve job quality for frontline employees across the UK
Having embedded a set of fair flexible principles, and developed solutions with three major frontline employers, we’ll then be in a position to share new models of practice to open access to flexible working arrangements in sectors with substantial operational barriers to implementing them effectively.
Critically, we’ll be able to use the evidence we’ve captured to inform policymakers and employers, and drive action to improve job quality and wellbeing among millions of frontline and site-based workers across the UK.
This programme of work has long been necessary, and the cost of living crisis has given it an added significance. There has never been a more important time to invest in workforce development, and to create a model that can drive wider change. We look forward to sharing our findings with you as they emerge.
Published November 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
