Read how two flexible-focused corporate companies are equipping managers and teams to successfully deliver hybrid working.
In Part 1 of our corporate insights into hybrid working, we shared the highlights of our recent roundtable for Timewise Partners, at which we explored how two organisations are approaching the principles and design of sustainable hybrid practices.
But of course, the work doesn’t stop once these have been agreed; it’s equally critical to understand how to implement the changes, and to do so in a way that is both fair and inclusive. This second part explains how our two organisations are approaching these issues, and shares their answers to some specific questions from attendees about making hybrid a reality.
Our speakers agreed that it was important that all members of a team are clear about what their responsibilities are, and how they will collaborate to make it a success. They also noted that line managers need specific training on how to manage, connect and develop a team which is not together all the time. Their advice for leaders and managers includes:
Our speakers also highlighted the challenges that hybrid working can create regarding inclusivity and fairness. There was a consensus that these should not prevent companies adopting a hybrid model, but that they do need to be addressed if the model is to succeed. Insights shared with attendees include:
Our speakers also shared a few of the other issues that they have started to consider as part of their hybrid working implementation. Their snapshots include:
Instead of looking at it from a purely cost perspective, consider re-framing the question around the types of work people will do in different spaces, then set up the office space to facilitate more collaborative work, networking and making connections. Priming employees to think in these ways about where they do particular pieces of work will help get the best from both.
And the last word goes to one of our speakers, with a final, spot-on principle: “If you rush and stumble into this, it will go badly wrong very quickly.” If you need help getting it right, take a look at our hybrid working workshops, or get in touch to find out more about our bespoke consultancy services.
Published May 2021
The impact of the pandemic on the barriers to flexible and remote working has been a largely positive one, with leaders and managers seeing for themselves that employees can work effectively and productively when not tied to the office. However, there’s another barrier that has also come crashing down, and this time it’s a problem: the barrier between work and home.
Throughout 2020 and into this year, there have been a range of reports suggesting that employees are suffering from work creep – in which their working hours spill over into the evenings and weekends. Indeed, in an April 2021 poll by Opinium, 32% of remote workers said they find it hard to switch off from work, and 30% reported working more unpaid hours than before the pandemic.
The Irish government has responded by writing the right to disconnect into an official code of practice, and the union Prospect is calling for it to be written into UK law, describing the blurred boundary between home and work as ”the dark side of remote working”. So, are they right? Do we need legislation to protect employees from work creep – or are there other, better ways of tackling it?
Here at Timewise, we believe it’s critical to get this right; if the hybrid model is to be a long-term success, we do need to encourage and empower people to manage their working-from-home time.
However, we’re also of the view that broad brush, right to disconnect legislation isn’t the right way to go. After all, the point about flexible working is that people can flex their hours to suit their needs. Choice is important; if some people prefer to work in the evenings, perhaps as a trade-off for a later start or an afternoon walk, they shouldn’t be prevented from doing so.
Instead, we believe the onus should be on leaders and managers to make sure they are aware of people working consistently outside their normal hours, and then seek to understand whether it is out of choice or necessity.
During lockdown, the fact that children were not at school played a big part, as parents restructured their working hours to support home schooling. But in more normal circumstances, there are three broad reasons why employees might be working long hours:
1. Workload issues
Given that 1 in 3 employees say they have too much work, it may be that the individual is struggling to deal with an excessive workload or unrealistic time pressure. They may need extra support to make their workload more manageable, or help them prioritise.
This may involve taking a whole team perspective, to see whether the work could be shared out more fairly. But certainly, helping someone feel supported through a particularly pressured time will have a positive effect on their motivation, commitment and mental wellbeing
2. Performance issues
If the workload is not excessive, but there is still evidence of regular long hours, it may be that there is an underlying performance issue. Perhaps the employee doesn’t have the skills and support they need to deliver. Or they may be struggling with a personal or health issue which is affecting their ability to complete the required tasks.
It’s important to address these issues rather than let the situation fester, and risk ending up in a downward spiral with long hours continuing to negatively affect performance.
3. Culture issues
This is a tougher nut to crack – but it is one that needs cracking, not just to deal with work creep, but also to support successful hybrid working, employee engagement and wellbeing. Attitudes to work-life balance have really shifted as a result of the pandemic, and forward-looking leaders are making sure they have a culture to match.
The fact is, workplaces, or teams, which have an ‘always on’ culture, in which employees are expected to respond to emails and calls at any time of the day, and to deliver to unmanageable timescales, are not healthy places to be. They won’t get the best out of their people, and nor will they be viewed by brilliant candidates as a viable next step.
Leaders whose organisations veer towards this kind of culture need to act swiftly to turn things around. They need to clarify what’s expected of their staff, and set protocols around how and when people contact each other (Zoom-free Friday afternoons and avoiding sending out-of-hours emails are ways to tackle this that are being widely discussed).
They also need to make sure that line managers are placing realistic expectations on their direct reports, and have the skills to look after any who might be struggling in the ways set out above. And, perhaps most important of all, they need to lead by example, switching off themselves and being seen to do so, instead of firing out emails at all hours and making others feel pressured to do the same.
So if you spot what looks like work creep in your organisation, the steps are clear: call it out, work out why it’s happening and take steps to address it. Don’t just accept it; the chances are it’s a symptom of a bigger problem that won’t go away on its own.
And if you feel you need additional support with embracing flexible working to support a good work-life balance, we’re here to help; do get in touch.
Published May 2021
It’s fair to say that introducing flexible working in schools is more challenging than in many other sectors. As we previously explained in our report, Building flexibility into secondary schools, there are a number of barriers that have slowed progress in this area, including the logistics of timetabling, the need for teachers to be student-facing, and other cultural and attitudinal factors.
But the case for change is clear: the lack of part-time and flexible roles has been identified as a key reason behind the teaching brain drain. It also makes it harder to attract talented people to the profession, and to encourage them to return after a career break.
And whilst the pandemic has created huge pressures for school leaders and staff, from the cancellation of external exams to the need to create a safe environment for staff and students to return to, it’s undeniable that it has also opened up opportunities to rethink how things are done. Furthermore, as in most sectors, it has encouraged employers to increase their focus on staff wellbeing, and employees to evaluate their work life balance, and seek out ways to make it better.
We have long been interested in encouraging flexible working in schools, and are part-way through an action research project with three MATS. This will see us exploring the barriers to flexibility in more depth, and looking at how the positive experiences schools have gained during the pandemic can be taken forward. We’ll follow this up by designing flexible roles that can work around or overcome these barriers, and pilot them within schools.
As always, we will share our learnings during and at the end of this project, so all schools can benefit. But we are also really keen to give school leaders and HR teams the support they need to get started right now. So we have created a bank of resources to do just that, by:
We have also pulled out some of the key questions schools have asked us about implementing flexible working, and answered them in more detail.
We do hope you find these resources useful, and are able to build on them to create new, better opportunities for flexible working within your school. If you would like to explore the possibility of working with us to progress your plans, do please get in touch.
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust comprises a specialist cancer hospital based in Withington, Manchester, with satellite centres at Oldham and Salford. It is also a founding partner of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre, alongside with Cancer Research UK and University of Manchester.
The Trust employs over 3,000 employees and was the first NHS high-energy proton beam therapy centre in the UK, providing an advanced form of radiotherapy.
All NHS Trusts face challenges with recruitment and retention, as there are fewer people than there are roles that need filling. Additionally, NHS Staff survey results highlighted that the Trust was not perceived by staff to be open to flexible working, even though there were some pockets with excellent provision.
The HR team at the Christie came to Timewise because they wanted to proactively address these challenges. they also wanted to differentiate their organisation from other local trusts as a great place to work, which proactively encourages a positive work/ life balance.
The team felt that their reputation for delivering outstanding patient care needed to be mirrored by one of delivering outstanding staff care. They wanted to develop a proactive approach to flexible working which was open to all, whatever their personal circumstances, and to be known to be supportive of staff engagement, wellbeing and work life balance.
Following a recommendation, they approached us to support them in a programme to develop a more flexible culture and practice.
The programme began with a kick-off workshop, hosted by Timewise and attended by a project team made up of a cross-section of senior managers from across the Trust. We then carried out an audit of the Christie’s flexible culture, data and policies, and some staff engagement sessions.
Using the feedback from these sessions, we then ran a visioning workshop with the project team, helping them understand their current position on the Timewise Flexible Maturity Curve and where they wanted to get to. This was followed by an action planning workshop with the project team. We then supported the creation of a flexible working action plan which set out clear goals for the next two years.
The Covid-19 pandemic has put the implementation of the action plan on hold, and so limited the learnings that have been gathered at this stage. However, it has also helped remove some of the barriers to flexible working that had previously existed, and encouraged a perception that flexible working can be made to work.
Early learnings from the programme to date include:
Goals written into the action plan include:
Setting up a flexible working/job share pool to help staff buddy up and share roles.
Working in partnership with Timewise to expand our flexible working practice was a real success. It was so helpful to have an external insight into our flexible status and what we needed to do next, and we felt confident about being guided by their expertise. As well as hands-on support for each of the programme stages and events, they were responsive and helpful with any questions or issues we uncovered, and felt like a part of our extended team.
Natalie Marshall, Head of Operational HR, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
If there’s one phrase I’m hearing more than any other right now (apart from “You’re on mute”), it’s ‘hybrid working’. In meetings, in articles, in podcasts, everyone is talking about it; it seems it’s one of the main strategic priorities of 2021.
But despite all the discussion, not everyone seems to agree on exactly what it means – or understand how to do it well. So, here’s the Timewise lowdown on what it is, why it matters and how to make it work.
Hybrid working has always existed, but its prevalence has been turbocharged by the pandemic and subsequent remote working experiment. There isn’t yet a definitive definition, but at its core, it’s an arrangement in which an individual, team or organisation work part of their time at the workplace and part remotely.
In the brief periods in 2020 when office workers were allowed back into the workplace, the need for social distancing meant that most only went in for part of their working week. As a result, many employees experienced a hybrid pattern for the first time – and the evidence suggests they’re keen to stick with it.
At its best, hybrid working is about matching the task to the location, and doing the right work in the right place; there are numerous examples of people saying they work more productively on certain tasks from home. And from an employer’s perspective, there are many positives too.
Hybrid working, like flexible working in general, offers huge benefits for employers who take it seriously and deliver it well. These benefits are well-established by now, but here’s a recap of the main ones:
Thanks to the leaps that have been made in technology, it’s possible to be present in, and contribute to, most meetings, even when you’re elsewhere. And for those of us who have long been interested in flexible working, it’s worth noting that the focus on hybrid working, and the changes as a result, are hugely beneficial for part-time employees, as well as full-time hybrid ones.
However, while the benefits are clear, hybrid working isn’t risk-free. Here are some of the issues you need to consider:
What these issues clearly show is that this isn’t something you can leave to chance. Just telling your people they can split their week between home and the office and then crossing your fingers and hoping it will work itself out won’t wash.
Instead, you need to work to develop a hybrid culture, in which:
Already, different organisations are finding new ways to tackle this; for example, in some workplaces all meetings take place digitally, so that those at home have equal representation to those in the office. And some leaders are taking this as an opportunity to completely rethink what their HQ is used for, such as remodelling the office as a place for relationship building and collaboration rather than producing work.
There’s a lot to think about, certainly – but if, as seems likely, hybrid working is the future, it’s worth investing the time and training to get it right. We can help; as well as running a series of workshops on all elements of flexible and hybrid working, we have also created a new Flex Positive Programme, to help employers design and develop future-fit workplaces. If you’d like to know more, please get in touch.
Published June 2021
By Claire Campbell, Programme Director, Timewise
So, here we go again, back into lockdown. Morale is low and people are exhausted; frontline workers, in particular, have had little respite. For office-based employees, many of whom had been planning to spend some of their time back in the workplace, it’s time to pivot once again to enforced home working. And for parents across all sectors, home schooling has been added to the to-do list.
But despite the all problems the new lockdown is likely to bring, there is one positive: we have done this before. Organisations across the country, our clients among them, have learned what works and what doesn’t. They have tried new ways of working and communicating, sticking with the successes and rejecting the failures. And in the best cases, they have used what they’ve learned as a platform to develop more flexible cultures.
Acting on the lessons others have learned will help make managing lockdown easier this time around. So, based on our insights from our clients and our own experience, here are our suggestions for what to keep, and what to avoid, when your employees are working remotely.
One of the more surprising outcomes from the first lockdown was that the explosion in remote working brought people’s home lives out into the open. For some managers, who didn’t know about the responsibilities their employees had outside work, this provided real insight into their team members’ lives. And both sides reported that people felt more supported as a result.
It’s worth noting that in the interim months, some people’s personal and financial situations may have changed for the worse; and with figures suggesting 1 in 50 people have the virus, sick leave will be on the increase. So regular check-ins will be important; it shouldn’t be a one-off.
Following on from the above, the employers who managed their teams most successfully in the first lockdown were those who realised that a 9-5 set-up wasn’t practical, and made it possible for their employees to work to a schedule that matched their responsibilities.
At a simple level, this meant things like scheduling meetings after 10am, so that parents could set their children off on their studies, or creating a timesheet code for non-work responsibilities for those who record their time (and encouraging them to use it). Some of the best examples saw employers providing additional paid carers leave, and clarifying that employees would be judged on outputs, not inputs, with active support to do so.
The risk underlying this approach is that over-diligent employees will suffer from work creep; the best employers redesigned roles that were proving too much to manage, and made it clear that switching off was both necessary and expected.
The negative impact of the pandemic on morale and mental health has been well documented, and many employees miss the interaction and creativity of the workplace when fully home-based. In the previous lockdown, the best managers and leaders put in place ways of communicating which supported team cohesion, and helped overcome physical distance.
This isn’t simply a case of arranging online coffee mornings or setting up team What’s App chats, although these do have a role to play. Acknowledging the challenges created by lockdown, and asking how your team members are feeling, is an easy place to start. Encouraging regular conversations about their purpose and priorities will help them feel connected to what they are delivering and why. Training managers to identify mental health issues and signpost support is also valuable.
Zoom fatigue became a real problem in the first lockdown, with some employees hopping from online call to online call, leaving little time or energy to get any actual work done. It’s recognised that video meetings are more exhausting than face to face ones, and the problem was exacerbated by the fact that everyone was (in theory) available, and meeting capacity unlimited, making organisers more liberal than usual with their invites.
Among the ways our clients found to address this were to block out meeting-free days or periods of time, to set out protocols for length and invitations to meetings, and to make it clear when attendance was and wasn’t expected.
There’s no question that transitioning from working in close proximity to your team to managing them remotely takes a huge mindset shift. However, in the first lockdown, some dealt with this more successfully than others. Stories emerged of teams being expected to log in to an all-day Zoom call so their boss could keep an eye on them; others of companies installing tracking software on company laptops to virtually look over people’s shoulders.
As every successful manager of flexible employees knows, trust is central to a positive working relationship. Those who managed this well in the first lockdown set clear expectations for delivery, and then gave their teams space to achieve it. For those who were struggling, our workshops were a great help.
However long this new lockdown lasts, the consensus is that there will be no going back to the old ways of working. Employees have stated in survey after survey that they want to hang on to at least some of their flexibility, and employers have seen for themselves that there are real business benefits to offering it.
The organisations that recognise this are one step ahead. Instead of seeing this shift to more flexible working as a short-term interruption of the status quo, they’re working to develop a truly flexible culture. One that starts at the top, with inspiring leadership and role modelling, and which is brought to life by well-trained managers and on-board HR.
If you feel that you need support with managing lockdown this time around, we’re here to help. In response to the impact of the pandemic, and our clients’ requests, we’ve created the Timewise Flex-Positive programme, a four-step process that helps employers develop and implement a flexible working strategy to match the evolving workplace. If you’d like to know more, please email info@timewise.co.uk.
In the meantime, on behalf of the Timewise team, I’d like to wish you all the best with the challenges that the next few months will doubtless bring.
Published January 2021
When we set out to create this year’s Flexible Jobs Index, we were pretty sure we’d see a major, pandemic-fuelled shift. There were huge increases in the number of people working from home, as well as a consensus that some of the traditional barriers to flex were falling in the face of necessity. And article after article suggested that employees wanted to continue flexing when the pandemic was eventually over.
It’s for this reason that we split the reporting for this year’s index into three periods; pre-Covid, the first national lockdown, and the first three months of lockdown easing. We recognised that the jobs market has contracted significantly as a result of the pandemic, but we nevertheless expected a bigger proportion of flexibly advertised jobs, and wanted to track the change through all three stages.
So we were disappointed, to say the least, to discover that the gap between the recruitment market and the employment market for flexible jobs grew wider still. The number of people working remotely shot up from 6% before the pandemic to 43% mid-Spring, and settled at 37% by June. But, as our index shows, the proportion of flexibly advertised jobs only rose from 17% before the pandemic to 22% during and since lockdown (with home-working roles representing about one third of those jobs).
To make matters worse, many of the newly created home-based jobs are likely to revert to the workplace as soon as is feasible. And there has been very little movement in the availability of other forms of flexible working, such as part-time and flexible hours.
This matters, a lot, and on many levels. Firstly, the pandemic has decimated the overall jobs market; it halved during lockdown, and was only up to two-thirds of the pre-pandemic level by the end of September. There are more job losses to come, once the furlough scheme finally ends, and more people will be struggling to keep the jobs they have, or find new ones.
And unfortunately, flexible workers will probably be some of the hardest hit, as they are more likely to have additional, complex challenges (such as caring commitments, or health issues) or to work in disappearing frontline jobs (such as retail or hospitality). As a result, they are at a higher risk of falling out of the workplace than their non-flex counterparts.
The knock-on effect of all of this is that the brunt of the pandemic-induced economic crisis is being borne by low-paid workers, and particularly by women. The Resolution Foundation has shown that one third of those in the lowest-paid quartile (who are disproportionately likely to work part-time) have lost their jobs, been furloughed, or lost hours and pay, compared to 15% of the highest paid.
Indeed, at the time of writing, data from LinkedIn has revealed that the percentage of women hired during the lockdown fell, while the percentage of men being hired increased. It also indicated that women over the age of 30 were least likely of all to be hired.
Clearly, then, the economic impact of the pandemic has been devastating, and is likely to continue to be so for some time to come. But alongside the challenges, there is an opportunity, as we rebuild the economy, to create a more level playing field for those who do and don’t need to flex.
Employers can’t wave a magic wand and create jobs that aren’t viable within the current market. But what they can do, and must do, is make sure that any vacancies they do have incorporate as much flexibility as possible, and are advertised as such. If they don’t, there’s a risk that the people who need to work part-time, or from home, or with staggered start and finish times, will be ‘flexcluded’ from the workplace, both now and well into next year.
And yes, we recognise that it’s a tough time for employers as well as employees. But for the sake of fairness, and to support the people who need it most, as well as ensuring businesses don’t miss out on the right talent, we must keep working towards a flexible jobs market. Let’s hope that, by next year’s index, we’ve managed to shift the dial.
Published December 2020
As 2020 crawls to a close, one thing is certain; the workplace will never be the same again. It’s pretty clear that a degree of remote working is here to stay; a survey by the IOD suggested that 74% of firms are planning to maintain the increase in home working. And at the time of writing, the Prime Minister has told all workers in England to work from home if possible until April 2021.
Clearly, there are many upsides to remote working; from the time gained by skipping the commute and the related positive impact to mental health, to a general perception that it makes it easier to balance work and life. And the growing acceptability of hybrid working set-ups, where you work in the best place for the job in hand and the needs of your team, is a real step forward.
But it’s also important to recognise that the remote working we’re seeing right now isn’t normal; it’s universal, and enforced, without reference to whether it’s the best way to tackle that day’s or week’s workload. So it’s not surprising that, in our conversations with businesses, we’re hearing lots of examples of how it isn’t working as it should.
This doesn’t mean that home and hybrid working arrangements should be phased out once the pandemic is over. Employees want to keep them, and they can be a useful part of any organisation’s flexible toolkit. But simply replicating office-based practices isn’t enough. As with any flexible role, these arrangements need to be designed properly, and managers need to be skilled up to support the people who are using them.
The concept of Zoom fatigue – the exhaustion felt by people as a result of online meeting overload – was much discussed at the beginning of the pandemic. Some employees, particularly younger ones and those living alone, have wrestled with a lack of proper workspace, with some even reporting feeling judged by their home environments. The blurring of boundaries is also a recognised problem. And smart decision-making and creativity have both been noted as being negatively affected when whole teams work permanently from home.
Additionally, there is a growing sense that, without careful oversight, the move to a hybrid set-up, with some in the office and others at home, may lead to women and ethnic minorities being excluded from key decisions and limiting the diversity of opinions which are heard. Or that the extroverts in a team will choose to go in, and the introverts to stay at home, affecting their visibility and progression path, and encouraging groupthink.
These are tough issues to work around – but if we just roll over and accept them as the price we pay for more flex, we risk rowing back on all the progress that’s been made. Instead, we need to tackle them – and the best way to do so is by making sure line managers and other leaders are properly skilled up.
Well-trained, properly skilled managers know that they need to trust their remote employees, rather than force them to stay logged in to Zoom all day so they can keep an eye on them. They understand that having an 8.30 meeting every day to check that everyone is working can be counterproductive. They appreciate that, when physical interaction isn’t possible, other ways of connecting teams have to be found. And they realise that, in an era of job uncertainty, employees need to be encouraged to switch off, not left to put in ever longer hours for fear of being let go.
To succeed, managers need to know how to design flexible roles – whether part-time, remote, or a combination of the two. They need to understand how to manage flexible employees, and how to ensure that hybrid-working teams are still able to work productively together. But these aren’t skills that people can just pick up. They need to be taught; and that’s where we come in.
Training managers to build and develop successful flexible teams has long been a core part of our work here at Timewise. And now, from our work with clients and other organisations during the pandemic, we have gained a unique set of insights that are specifically relevant to building these skills in the current circumstances.
We can support employers in a range of ways; from workshops and training sessions to participation in our new Flex Positive Programme. So if you, like us, believe that this is a critical time for developing the leadership skills that will make a success of flexible and hybrid working, feel free to get in touch to see how we can help.
Published December 2020
The Scottish government was serious about improving access to fair flexible working long before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Recognising the role that flex can play in tackling inequality, and keen to help employers attract and keep talented people, they commissioned a Flexible Jobs Index for Scotland in 2017, and subsequently asked us to explore how to improve access to flexible work.
And now, as Scottish organisations look to recalibrate their workplaces in response to the pandemic, the government is stepping up their support – and has asked us to work with them to do so. The result is our Fair Flexible Work programme, which launches in Scotland this month.
It’s now widely agreed that flexible working benefits employers as well as employees. There’s a strong social case for it, as a way of opening up the jobs market for vulnerable groups, including parents, carers and those with mental and physical health issues. And the business case, including the pivotal role flex plays in attracting and retaining a diverse talent pool, and closing the gender pay gap, is no longer in doubt.
However, despite the benefits, there are still too few quality flexible jobs available; the 2017 Flexible Jobs Index for Scotland noted that just 11.9% of vacancies paying more than £20,000 FTE referenced part-time or flexible working. With 87% of the UK’s workforce either having or wanting flexibility in their next job, there’s a clear gap here, which employers who want to recruit the best people need to close.
Within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, improving access to flexible working is all the more critical. On the plus side, the crisis has ripped up the rulebook on what ‘normal’ work looks like, and opened up opportunities for change. Leaders and managers have learned that they can trust their employees to work from home without damaging productivity. 40% of medium to large employers have said they will permanently increase remote working options, and 13 million people plan to ask for permanent flexible working arrangements going forward.
But as well as these opportunities, the pandemic has created some serious risks, for employers and for employees. The impact on the economy and the rise in unemployment are creating huge challenges; between May and July, Scotland’s unemployment rate rose to 4.6%, a higher rate than that of the UK as a whole. And while the increased acceptance of flexible working is great for those who can take advantage of it, it’s just not possible in some sectors.
Frontline roles, such as those of the NHS staff and retail employees who were so appreciated during the crisis, cannot easily be made flexible. So if we don’t take action, we will end up with a two-tier system in which only those who work in an office-based environment can access the benefits of flex. And the knock-on effect of this will be to increase workplace inequality, and deny flexibility to some of the people who need it most.
For all of these reasons, our new Fair Flexible Work programme is happening at the perfect time. A three-stage, eight-month programme, it will provide employers in Scotland with the knowledge, insights and tools they need to take advantage of the opportunities that flexible working delivers, and stops the risks becoming realities.
The first stage of the programme will take place in October, and will see us providing a series of webinars, guidance and toolkits for hundreds of employers across Scotland. Through these platforms, we will share our insights and experience on how to adapt to the crisis, and offer practical support with creating and delivering sustainable flexible roles.
We will also be working with a range of Scottish industry bodies, including the CIPD, the CBI , Scottish Enterprise and Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, to create a network of Fair Flexible Work Change Agents, so they can better support their employer members to embrace new ways of working. This will include training on the job design, culture change and team management skills that support flexible workers and create flexible workplaces.
And finally, in the spring of 2021, we will publish a new Flexible Jobs Index for Scotland. This will assess the proportion of flexibly advertised roles across different wage brackets and sectors, and will also use pre- and post-pandemic data to see whether Covid-19 has shifted the dial on flexible recruitment.
There’s no question that this is a large-scale programme of work, and it’s one which we will relish, not least because the outcome is so worthwhile. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape working practices across the whole of Scotland, to help employees have fair access to flexible work and to help organisations skill up and take action on flex that will make them employers of choice. We can’t wait to get started.
Published October 2020
The over 50s now stay in work longer, because they want or need to. They increasingly have to balance work with the changes that come with ageing (from physical changes to a desire for more control over how they spend their time). And they make up a third of the UK workforce.
Employers value the experience and skills that over 50s bring to their roles. But the power of flexible working as a retention tool for this demographic has not been given the same level of attention as it has for other groups such as working parents.
Timewise therefore partnered with the Centre for Ageing Better to explore how employers could best support older workers through flexible working. The key findings of the project are reported below, together with details of the methodology.
Although the mechanics of implementing flexible working are the same for all demographics, ‘what happens at the edges’ can be different for older workers:
Appreciating the needs and wants of over 50s will help to engage them in conversations about flexible working, and retain their skills and experience.
Our research and pilot programme explored feelings around whether there was a ‘hierarchy of acceptable reasons for working flexibly’. Both managers and staff felt that:
Flexible working initiatives aimed at older workers need to be carefully managed to ensure there are no perceptions of age discrimination. It’s important for employers to pre-empt how different people may respond, and factor this into communications. The best way to support flexibility for over 50s may be to make it:
Either
Or
This was an 18-month programme in two-phases:
Insights research: The first phase consisted of focus groups and surveys with six large employers: Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Leeds City Council, Legal & General, McDonalds, Sodexo and Whitbread. We spoke to more than 40 over 50s staff from these organisations, as well as 34 managers with older workers in their teams. We also ran a survey for the over 50s, with 421 respondents, to understand attitudes and perceptions about work-life balance and flexible working, and to gain an insight into their lived experience. This was conducted between November 2018 and February 2019.
Employer pilots: Our research was followed by pilots with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and two divisions at Legal & General. The purpose of the pilots was to bring about changes in working patterns for a cohort of over 50s, providing them and their managers with the training and tools to implement and adapt to different flexible working patterns. This part of the programme ran from May 2019 to February 2020, and was completed prior to the covid-19 pandemic.
