Then you need to solve the ‘unseen jobs’ problem.
By Nicola Smith, Interim CEO, Timewise
Though job vacancies are declining, we still have 1.1m unfilled vacancies in the UK and acute talent shortages across most sectors, and on average just one person applies for every full-time (a ratio of 1:1).
No wonder government & employers are looking to retirees & people managing long-term health conditions or disabilities to fill the gap.
Much discussion has been had around the benefits of offering flexible working possibilities, with the CBI stating in its most recent Future of Work conference that flexible working has finally ‘mainstreamed’.
But in reality, the UK’s jobs market is seriously lagging behind what’s actually happening in the world of work. According to our analysis of 6 million UK job ads, fewer than a third include ‘flex options’ of some kind. Within that, just 12% offer part-time work and 12% home-working, some or all the time.
Employers – please understand that many older workers and long-term sick are probably not even looking at jobs that don’t mention part-time work (which make up a whopping 88% of all vacancies).
You have to get yourself into the mindset and behavioural patterns of the person making the search. People who need part-time jobs, search for the part-time options they are looking for: 2 day marketing jobs, 3 day finance jobs etc.
If part-time isn’t mentioned in the ad, it simply won’t be found.
This is what we call ‘the unseen jobs’ problem.
If you want to appear in the searches and feeds of those who need flexible work: you must include part-time options in your job ad.
Doing so immediately upgrades your chances of filling a role. Remember my 1:1 stat in the beginning? Well, 4 people are chasing every available part-time job in the UK. Your odds of finding talent for a role, at all increase greatly, once part-time becomes a possibility.
And don’t forget – Day One Flex rights are on the horizon. Meaning that soon, any employee starting a new job with you can request part-time hours or a flexible pattern with you from day one in that new role with you. Stating flex possibilities in the job ad from Day One means you’ve taken control from the start, set out the parameters and made potential working patters clear to all.
Get this right now, and by the time the legislation comes around, you’ll be leaps & bounds ahead of competitors, and you’ll have transformed your power to attract talent from within these two pools and beyond.
Published March 2023
By Emma Stewart, Co-Founder
Full disclosure: this time it’s personal. I used to work in TV production, and left 17 years ago when I found it impossible to juggle the job and my family. So I’ve long been keen to take everything I’ve learned through my years at Timewise and apply it to the film and TV industry.
And right now is most definitely the right time. Why? Because the industry is facing a perfect storm. It has some of the longest working hours in the UK, and 86% of people in film and TV are experiencing poor mental health. The resulting burnout, exacerbated by the rush to production after the Covid-enforced hiatus, has led to real skills shortages, with large numbers of crew leaving, and production companies struggling to replace them.
So, last year, we joined forces with BECTU Vision to explore how flexible working could be used to improve work-life balance within drama productions. And today, we’ve published a report on the first phase of the project.
It’s worth noting up front that introducing flexible working into the film and TV industry is far from straightforward. Schedules are historically built around long days, and budgeted in the number of weeks a project will take. So making them shorter means making the project longer, which in turn has implications for budgets and talent availability.
However, here at Timewise, we thrive on bringing flexibility into hard-to-flex sectors – as our work in construction, nursing and retail demonstrates. And there are positive examples out there – it’s said, for example, that Clint Eastwood’s projects are run on a 9-5 basis. But there’s been no evidence or learnings about what works – which is why we decided to get involved.
We began with a six-month research phase, to explore the barriers and opportunities around introducing flexible working within scripted drama productions. This research, funded by Screen Scotland, included interviews with crew, commissioners and production leads, as well as desk research. And here’s what we found:
The second phase of the project starts in April, and will see us going on set to explore whether productions based on shorter days could be commercially viable, and how they could work in practice.
We’ll be shadowing two live BBC productions in Scotland, both of which are running on a standard schedule and working day. We’ll be capturing and stress-testing crew preferences, using the fact that they are ‘in the zone’ to explore their thoughts on how shoots could be done differently. We’ll then use these insights to build a blueprint for an alternative production schedule and budget, based on a shorter working day, that’s steeped in the reality of life on set.
We’ll also be producing guidance on how to implement this new model, which we’ll ask crew to feed back on and help us refine. And we’ll be working with industry experts to review any previous modelling that could support our approach.
This phase of the project is being supported by Screen Scotland, the BBC and the Film & TV Charity in collaboration with BBC Drama.
Of course, the best way to get buy-in for fundamental change is to prove that it’s possible. So, our plan is to use these insights to have an informed discussion with a range of industry commissioners and production companies about how viable our blueprint is. It’s our hope that this will lead to the development and piloting of a live shorter-working-hours drama production – and with it, the game-changing example that the industry needs.
In the meantime, we have set out a number of recommendations and potential opportunities for industry stakeholders in our report, such as capturing and sharing existing good practice, building leadership capabilities on flexible working, and undertaking cost-benefit analysis to model the impact of shorter working days.
We need all parts of the industry to come together and support this; bringing about this level of change will require industry-wide attention (and funding), as well as an acceptance that there is likely to be a financial cost.
But the cost of doing nothing is also high; if we want a healthy film and TV industry, we need to pull together to make it happen. Seventeen years ago, the flexibility I needed wasn’t there; let’s make sure that won’t be true for much longer.
Published March 2023
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
By Emma Stewart, Co-Founder
The crisis in social care is well-known – and is something that we should all be worrying about. Demand is growing as the population ages, but care worker numbers are going in the opposite direction. Local authorities are finding it harder than ever to recruit and retain staff; job centres send candidates through without giving them any sense of what the job actually involves, with the knock-on effect that few stay the distance.
As a result, there are over 100,000 unfilled care worker vacancies in the UK right now. And while there has been much hand-wringing and many column inches on the subject, much of which has understandably been focused on pay, scant attention has been paid to working patterns or work-life balance.
Given that the existing care workforce is primarily women with their own caring responsibilities, this is a massive oversight. It’s not a huge leap to suspect that for this group, having some control over their working patterns could be a gamechanger. But there has been little attempt to ask existing care workers what THEY think could make a difference. At least, until our new action research project, Building the Social Care Workforce of the Future.
Tackling staff shortages by exploring what care workers need
Social care isn’t a new sector for us; our previous report, Caring by Design, explored whether a geographical, team-based approach to scheduling could tackle issues such as unpredictable rotas, unsociable hours and long travel times (the short answer – yes it can).
But this time, we wanted to get in on the ground, to gain the clearest possible understanding of the challenges domiciliary care workers are facing and their views on how to overcome them. We also wanted to work with the commissioning teams to ensure that any changes we recommended could become a reality. So we teamed up with London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) and a number of providers in their area, to do exactly that.
Over a six-month period, we shadowed a team of care workers, going with them from appointment to appointment, on buses, in cars and walking the streets, to get under the skin of how their days work (and how they made them work for them). We also spoke to managers and HR teams within social care providers, to understand the challenges they face, and the solutions they put in place to overcome them.
What we learned from our six months of research
Now clearly, the social care sector is not something that can be completely fixed from the ground up. There is absolutely a role for government to play, and we, like everyone else in this country, are hoping that policymakers will intervene to address the overarching issues that affect recruitment and retention, critically around pay.
However, we did learn that there are a number of practical changes that don’t require major policy reforms; relatively small quick wins that could have a transformational impact. For example:
The first few weeks in a social care role are particularly unpredictable, because the care worker doesn’t yet have a rota of regular clients. This can mean they don’t have enough guaranteed hours, or are offered work at times they can’t fulfil. Being open about this from the start, and reassuring new recruits that it will settle down, can help avoid knee-jerk resignations.
While most candidates are aware of the nature of tasks in care work, they may not understand that the timing of slots may not fit around their caring responsibilities. Setting this out up front could both cut down on wasted applications and the cost of training applicants who might not stay the distance.
When team members feel connected, they are more likely to support each other, whether that’s helping newcomers to settle into the role, sharing hints and tips or being willing to swap shifts.
Similarly, team members who feel supported by their field supervisors are more likely to accept unforeseen scheduling changes. And they’ll feel trusted enough to report back on problems that, if left unchecked, might force them to leave (such as under-estimated time slots, issues around travel time or pressure to work more hours than they can manage).
The resources we created to bring these changes about
So, having gained these insights into what needed to change, we created a suite of resources to help candidates, employees, managers and providers to put them into practice:
No resources like this have previously existed within the social care sector, and they have been well-received by employees and providers alike. They’re now being rolled out across LBBD and neighbouring boroughs by providers, local authorities and wider networks, with the help of Skills for Care and Care Providers Voice.
It’s a good starting point – but more needs to be done
This research project has made it clear that exploring worker preferences, and giving them more input and control into how they work, are good places to start tackling the social care crisis. This is at the heart of everything we do at Timewise, for a simple reason; you can’t create change without understanding what could make a difference on the ground.
So we hope that care commissioners will start taking a whole systems approach to workforce planning, which includes supporting providers with job design skills, and insisting that they cover travel time and expenses (with funding to back this up). And we hope that local authorities and providers across the UK will start using these resources so that they can attract and keep people for whom social care is a viable career.
And above all, we hope that the government listens to everyone who is telling them that investment is needed in social care; not just to increase wages, but also to provide the financial support to commissioners and providers that will make the kind of changes we are suggesting a reality.
This project has been supported by Trust for London. Published February 2023.
By Claire Campbell, Consultancy Director
The six-month UK pilot of the four-day working week saw 61 companies trialling the concept, with a meaningful reduction in work time and no loss of pay. It finished in December, the results are now in – and it’s an incredibly positive picture.
Here at Timewise, we’ve been following the 4-Day Week movement since the start. It’s been brilliant to see so many companies willing to challenge existing norms, and step up to try to improve their staff’s working lives and well-being. And we welcome the positive debates about working hours and productivity which have been amplified by the pilot – and will no doubt be discussed with increasing intensity following the publication of its outcomes.
The demand for less-than-full-time roles is certainly there; our recent research in partnership with the JRF indicated that over 8 million people in the UK are either working part-time, or would prefer to. And our previous research suggested that 1 in 4 full-time workers would choose to work fewer hours, provided they didn’t have to lower their hourly pay rate or damage their career progression.
We also know that widening access to part-time opportunities is a great way to help key groups of people enter and stay in the workplace – particularly parents, carers, people with health issues and older workers. And given the twin pressures of the cost-of-living crisis and a tight labour market, as well as the upcoming right to ask for flex from day one, it’s something all employers should consider.
Positive outcomes from the 61 pilot companies
So the results from the four-day week pilot are landing at a good time – and the headline findings show how positive the experience has been, for both the companies involved and their employees:
Why a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t the answer
Clearly, this is excellent news for the companies involved, and for others who might be considering something similar. And it’s also providing some useful learnings that apply more generally to flexible working.
It’s particularly telling that the pilot was based on a flexible approach to how the companies involved interpreted the four-day week. The organisers rejected a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, stipulating only that companies should maintain pay at 100% alongside a ‘meaningful reduction’ in work time.
So while some chose to shut down operations on the same day each week, others asked staff to alternate days off, to maintain five-day coverage. Some used a combination of the two, matched to each department’s specific needs. And others were more flexible still, such as the restaurant that trialled an annualised arrangement, in which staff had a 32 hour average working week, but with shorter opening hours in winter and longer in summer.
Some organisations need to take an even more flexible approach
This is important, because a rigid four-day, 32-hour working week won’t necessarily work for all organisations, or for everyone in an organisation. While office-based staff may be able to reduce their hours by getting their work done more efficiently, this can’t be achieved in the same way in organisations which employ some or all frontline employees. And it’s hard to see where productivity savings could be found in cost-constrained, shift-based, service-based or production roles.
So leaders who want to offer their staff the chance to work less, but can’t necessarily offer this kind of four-day week, need to take an even more flexible approach, and develop bespoke arrangements that match the needs of the organisation and its staff. This could include offering more traditional part-time, compressed hours and annualised options, as well as exploring ways to give shift-based employees more input into and control over their rotas.
We’re currently working with a number of companies to explore the viability of a four-day week – as well as continuing to support companies from all sectors to consider the full range of flexible working options. If you would like to discuss how we could help you get the right flexible working in place for your organisation, please get in touch.
Published February 2023
The place-based rise in flexible working that evolved during the pandemic has passed frontline workers by. Whilst most office-based employees were, and still are, able to work from home, those who have to be based at a specific location didn’t have that flexibility. And the hype around ‘hybrid working’, and its conflation with ‘flexible working’, have taken attention and resources away from other kinds of flexible arrangement.
The figures are pretty stark: frontline and place-based workers, a category which includes roles as diverse as medical staff, transport workers, teachers, cleaners, retail assistants and construction workers, make up almost half of all UK employees. And yet just 3% of shift workers, which many frontline employees are, have any flexibility in their role.
The result is the risk of a two-tier workforce, split into flex haves and have-nots, in which those who can work in a hybrid way have easy access to flexibility, while those who work in frontline and placed-based roles (which are more challenging to make flexible) are left to struggle on without it. And this is increasingly having a knock-on effect on recruitment and retention, as people who want or need flexibility seek it elsewhere.
But here at Timewise, we know that it IS possible to make place-based and frontline roles more flexible. We’ve carried out pilots in teaching, construction, nursing and retail that explored how innovative job design can create some flexibility around when and how much people work. And we have also shown that investing in flexible working in frontline sectors pays for itself within just a few years, through improved retention and sickness absence. We invited leaders from a range of frontline sectors to come together to talk and learn from each other, discussing the challenges they are facing, the actions they have taken and the outcomes they have achieved. Here are the key themes that came out of our discussion.
Aside from the obvious logistical challenge that remote working is rarely an option for place-based roles, there are some other key issues and barriers that our attendees noted:
The battle for talent against more attractive roles elsewhere
Many frontline industries are struggling with staff shortages – from nursing and care work to construction and engineering. And the reasons why are varied, including rates of pay and unsociable hours or shifts. These both prevent people from wanting to join the industries, and make them more likely to leave.
However, offering some kind of flexible working can help mitigate the ‘brain drain’. It’s been shown, for example, that many teachers who leave for another profession reduce their hours. So making time-based flexibility available within these roles could encourage them to stay on, delay their retirement or join in the first place.
The impossibility of offering the same flex to everyone
Clearly, someone working in an on-site role can’t spend their entire time working from home. So organisations which have a combination of office-based and frontline roles won’t be able to offer everyone the same arrangement. This can be hard when employees look at the flexibility others are getting and want the same.
Some organisations are dealing with this by trying to bring their hybrid employees back into the office, for the sake of solidarity with their colleagues. We’d argue this isn’t the right approach, and only makes sense if it would benefit the on-site colleagues and make a real difference to the team as a whole. Instead, the key is to look at what flexibility CAN be offered within the frontline roles.
‘We’ve always done it this way’
The status quo can be a real barrier to innovation. Sometimes there are structures and processes within an organisation that seem set in stone, without anyone having asked why, or what else could be done instead.
One example cited by an attendee was a local authority’s bin collection service, which had always started at 6am. No one knew why it was scheduled so early, or could think of a good reason why it should stay that way, so they changed it to allow flexibility around start times. Levels of service were unchanged and there were no complaints from residents or employees.
The role of clients and the supply chain
Another factor that frontline organisations have to consider is the demands of clients, customers and the supply chain. For example, if clients expect on-site teams to be available at all hours, or suppliers feel they can deliver whenever they like, it can make it harder to facilitate time-based flexibility.
It’s true that these are factors that need to be worked around, but it can be done. Setting clear expectations with clients at the beginning of a project, for example, makes it possible to move away from industry norms.
The need for industry-wide change
Underpinning this point, as, one attendee noted, is that that some leaders, managers, suppliers and clients have such entrenched mindsets that it will take an industry-level shift to overcome them. We agree, which is why we make a point of carrying out projects and pilots across an industry, usually in partnership with four or five organisations and supported by industry bodies.
For example, we rallied four construction pioneers to work with us on an action research project, supported by Build UK. This allowed us to research, test and trial new approaches for on-site staff, and share our learnings widely. We’ve carried out similar projects in teaching, retail and the NHS.
So, with the above challenges in mind, how can frontline organisations get better at flexible working? Here are some things to consider.
Involve your staff in the process
Begin by exploring what flexible working means to the people in your organisation. While they may understand more common arrangements like part-time and hybrid working, they may not be aware of what else could be possible for their role.
Finding out what the main outcomes they want to achieve from flexible working is a good place to start. It could be as simple as being able to drop off or pick up a school-aged child, a broader issue around work-life balance, or something else entirely.
For example, one of our attendees realised that a top focus area for their employees was career progression and development. They therefore developed a model that included two hours a week from home to achieve this.
Another attendee spoke about running workshops for employees to discuss their needs and wants, which resulted in staff being given one day in every 20 off, and the establishment of core hours outside which people were not expected to respond to emails.
The process is almost as important as the outcome, because involving your employees in the discussions will ensure they feel heard, understand what can and can’t be done, and feel ownership of the solutions.
Invest in job design to explore viable options
Once you know why people want to have more flexibility, you can then look at how to match the flex you can offer to their needs and role. At Timewise, we have developed a ‘Shift-Life Balance’ model which helps frontline employers explore issues around input, stability and advance notice to develop appropriate workloads and patterns.
It’s worth remembering that sometimes, a small change is all it takes to achieve the better balance an employee is seeking. One attendee noted that allowing employees to start just one or two hours later was enough. Another highlighted the feeling of ownership and fairness that employees gained from having input into the rosta, rather than having it imposed upon them.
We ourselves found in our construction pilot that simple changes such as altering the timings of site briefings, and developing a pattern of rotating shifts, made a surprisingly big difference.
Look at changing practices to boost productivity
If you’re willing to move on from ‘we’ve always done it this way’, it’s possible to rework your processes and practices to achieve the same in less time. One attendee described a unit who are paid on the number of jobs they fulfil in a day. They make their own choices about how best to achieve that target and have become more productive as a result.
Another noted that, having introduced some flexibility, “There has definitely been a positive impact on productivity. Morale is much better, and the guys are working harder.”
Upskill managers and embed a culture of trust
Finally, none of these measures will land unless you have established a culture in which people’s lives outside work are respected, and they are trusted to do their best work. And they won’t work in practice unless line managers are trained and encouraged to see them through.
So it’s vital that your leaders set the tone that flexible working is good for the organisation, and should be championed at every level. And it’s worth investing in upskilling your managers to design and advertise flexible roles, and manage flexible teams. This doesn’t mean saying yes to every request; but it does mean creating a collaborative process in which all the options can be explored so that some kind of flexibility is available in every role.
As one of our attendees noted, the talent challenges within frontline roles mean that organisations are going to need to be brave, strike out and do things differently and lead the way for others to follow. If that sounds like you, we’re right behind you; do get in touch if you’d like our help.
By Nicola Smith, Director of Development and Innovation
The government consultation into ‘Making flexible working the default’, launched in September 2021, was widely welcomed. Today, the government has confirmed that it will be taking action in response, finally concluding that the right to request flexible work should be a day one right for all employees.
This is an important success for all of us who have made the case for a fairer, stronger jobs market – and is also a ‘win-win’ for employers and their (current and potential) workforces.
Along with government support for Yasmin Qureshi MP’s Private Member’s Bill (the means by which much new legislation will be introduced), today’s announcement means important new flexible working rights are coming. Alongside day one rights to request flexible work, wider positive changes that will now be introduced include:
We don’t yet know when these changes will take effect, but with committee stage on the bill taking place later this week, new legislation could hit the statute book in early 2023. In practice, these new requirements could be in place by as early as next Autumn.
Giving employees the right to ask for a flexible role from the moment they join an organisation – rather than waiting 26 weeks – is certainly a step forward. And in today’s tight labour market, it makes real business sense. With four people currently chasing every part-time job, there’s no doubt that the demand is there; if ever there was a time to advertise flex at the point of hire, it’s right now.
But we believe there is still much more to do to properly widen access to flexible working from day one. Why? Because this arrangement still puts all the onus on the employee to ask.
Our 2022 Flexible Jobs Index© shows that only 30% of jobs are advertised with any flexible working options, and research also shows that this stops people who need flex from ever applying. And when candidates do ask, employers have often not thought about what might be possible, and aren’t equipped to respond. As a result, all those people who need flex to fit work around their wider lives lose out – and employers can’t get the candidates they need.
So although we’re hopeful that the day one right to request will increase the number of employers advertising roles flexibly, we doubt it will fully deliver the step change in hiring practice and job design that our economy desperately needs.
The government could have taken this opportunity to take things a step further.
We think employers should be required to consider whether a job can be made flexible, and if they feel it can’t, to explain why not. And critically, if it can be done flexibly, employers should be required to state the flexibility on offer up front in the recruitment process.
How else will applicants know when they apply for work whether they will actually be able to do the job? We believe few people would feel comfortable accepting a new position and then a few weeks later, bringing up the need for a new working pattern on day one.
Of course not every role can offer flex in where, when or how a job is done – but as our Innovation Unit pilots continue to show, far more is possible across so many roles.
At Timewise, we also know that legislative change alone is not enough. We continue to call on government to provide a package of support for employers, to help them create and implement flexible jobs and behaviours, to sit alongside this new legislation.
This needs to include training managers in how to design flexible jobs, and manage flexible teams. And in some sectors, in which flexibility is more complex to achieve, it should involve supporting them to test and pilot different approaches.
If this support becomes available, employers will be able to get to a position where fully considering whether a job can be made flexible, and what options are the most suitable, happens before the recruitment process. Where hiring managers proactively think this through. And where doing so is seen as an opportunity to attract the best talent, rather than a problem to be solved.
More work also needs to be done to help those who engage and bargain with employers – for example Jobcentre Plus and welfare to work providers, recruiters and trade unions – to act as change agents for better flexible work.
In Scotland, we’ve worked with labour market intermediaries to improve access to fair flexible work; we now need to see widespread action like this across the UK. There is huge potential for DWP and its provider network to do more in this space – with employers struggling to fill full-time vacancies and so many potential applicants in need of flexible work, action here must be a priority.
Our previous work with DWP has shown that specialist support for job brokerage teams works to get people who are out of work into better paying flexible jobs. We’ve recently been working with Restart providers, supporting them to work with employers to identify opportunities for more flexible jobs, and can see how much potential there is to do more.
It’s also worth taking a moment to remember that those who won’t benefit at all from the right to request are people who don’t have an employee contract. The Living Wage Campaign’s Living Hours ask speaks to this challenge – calling on employers to make sure that their entire workforces have decent notices of shifts and a basic guaranteed minimum of hours.
The fact that exclusivity clauses will be banned for the lowest paid is a positive move, but doesn’t go far enough to give people the security over hours that’s needed. Wider changes in employer practice and legislation remain necessary here, to make sure that our jobs market has more of the good flex that employers and employees urgently need, and less of the extreme low-wage insecure work that is bad for everyone.
Today’s announcement is an important and exciting step forward in acknowledging how widespread the need for good flexibility is – whether that is in how, where or when people work. It opens the door to a real shift in access to good flexible jobs. But we know that this legislation is only the first stage. Employers now need support to design flexible jobs fairly and consistently across their workforces, and ultimately we need to ensure good flexibility is on offer from the point a job advert is posted.
Published December 2022
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 Nicola Smith, Director of Development and Innovation
This year’s Flexible Jobs Index is being published at a time of great economic uncertainty. In the seven years since we began our annual tracking of the flexible jobs market, we’ve never seen anything like it.
The cost of living crisis is biting hard, with those not in work the worse hit, and an estimated 3.7 million people struggling in insecure work and low pay. And new figures released today show that there are four people chasing every part-time job. Yet, business leaders across all sectors are finding it hard to recruit the people they need, with vacancies remaining at record highs. Even though the country is now in recession, unemployment is still predicted to remain lower than in other recent downturns, and forecasters expect businesses will continue to struggle to recruit.
Clearly, then, offering more flexible jobs – and specifically, more part-time jobs – would help employers to fill their skills gaps. So are we seeing an increase in the number of employers advertising their roles in this way? Disappointingly, the answer from this year’s Index is ‘not really.’
Looked at as a whole, the picture is of minimal growth. Despite a real shift in attitudes towards flexible working during the pandemic, still only 30% of jobs are advertised with any kind of flexibility (up from 26% last year).
Crucially, we are only talking about secure permanent employment here. Highly insecure roles such as zero hours contracts and gig economy self-employed roles can provide high levels of flexibility for employers but little autonomy or control for workers, so we do not include them in our analysis.
So while 9 in 10 people want to work flexibly, and 5 in 10 currently do, only 3 in 10 permanent jobs are advertised as such.
The Index also demonstrates why the demand for part-time jobs is so high – just 12% of jobs are advertised as less than full-time. And it’s not just employers who are missing out as a result. The lack of part-time jobs means that people who can’t work full-time – including parents, carers and many people with mental and physical health conditions – are locked out of the workplace.
Furthermore, the Index tells a ‘Tale of Two Flexes’, with roles advertised as part-time lurking towards the bottom of the pay scale, and hybrid roles tending to be offered at higher salary levels. This is important. We have a good supply of low-paid part-time work – what we don’t have is decent part-time jobs higher up the pay scale. And in some better paid sectors that are really struggling to fill their vacancies – such as manufacturing and construction – the proportion of jobs advertised as flexible remains particularly low.
So why are employers failing to advertise flexible roles, when doing so would help them overcome their recruitment challenges? Our new report, created in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, with analysis from the Institute of Employment Studies, seeks to answer that question.
We interviewed 1,000 senior decision makers from a mix of SMEs and large firms, and followed up with qualitative interviews. Three core themes emerged – none of which, in our view, should be a barrier:
However, these reasons are no longer good enough. It’s now well accepted that offering flexible working up front can help employers gain an edge in the fight for talent, which is all the more critical given current vacancy rates. And with the cost of living already unmanageably high, helping people who can’t work full-time access paid work is not just a practical solution, but a social imperative.
The medium to long-term outlook remains challenging; our jobs market is facing a triple whammy of higher rates of long-term ill health, falling birth rates and post-Brexit restrictions. It seems there will continue to be fewer candidates than we need for some time to come. This is a problem that isn’t going away any time soon; employers who want to attract talented staff can’t afford to keep recruiting in the way they always have.
That means accepting that the old, less flexible ways of working won’t cut it any longer. Investing time and money in exploring how flexible working could benefit their organisations. And creating cultures where employees are trusted to deliver, part-time and flexible workers are valued and championed, and managers are trained to support them.
It will be time and money well spent, even just in terms of the bottom line; as we’ve shown, there’s a financial return on investment in flexible working. And as Bruce Daisley has noted, “Flex is the new salary”, so offering it will also help employers overcome recruitment challenges, widening the candidate talent pool and helping attract the best candidates. Not sure where to start? We can help.
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
