Flexible Working

How to Implement Flexibility in the Workplace to Improve Employee and Business Performance

Gemma Dale

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781789665895
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781789665901
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

SHORTLISTED: Business Book Awards 2021 - HR & Management Category
DISTINGUISHED FAVOURITE: Independent Press Awards 2021 - Business General Category

Flexible working is now a key concern for many employees. It spans genders, ages and family circumstances, with 37% of millennials declining a job offer if working flexibly isn't an option and 78% of employees over 50 wanting more flexible hours.

Flexible Working is a practical guide for HR practitioners showing how to develop an effective flexible working strategy to meet the needs of employees and the needs of the business. This book explains how to develop effective flexibility policies and processes as well as how to communicate and train line managers on these practices. It also includes advice on how to overcome barriers to flexible working, dispels common myths and offers guidance on the different forms of flexible working available to organizations.

Flexible Working shows that working practices outside the standard 9-5, five-days-a-week in the office can benefit a company. It drives employee engagement and performance, reduces costs and workplace stress and improves talent acquisition from a more diverse talent pool. It also explains how a proactive flexible working strategy can have sustainability benefits and reduce a company's carbon footprint. Including case studies from organizations such as Zurich Insurance, and supported by rigorous analysis of flexible working data, this is essential reading for all HR professionals.

Appendix 1

Sample tools for managers

• Tool 1.1 Assessing a role for flexibility potential
• Tool 1.2 How to manage a flexible working request
• Tool 1.3 How to manage a trial period
• Tool 1.4 How to manage a flexible working request rejection
• Tool 1.5 How to manage job-share arrangements
• Tool 1.6 Sample text for job advertisements
• Tool 1.7 Sample ‘Day One’ policy clause
• Tool 1.8 Tips for managing flexible workers
• Tool 1.9 FAQs document

Tool 1.1: Assessing a role for flexibility potential

Whether a role is suitable for flexible working will depend on several factors. These can include the duties and responsibilities of the job itself, operational requirements, impact of changes upon colleagues or customers, the amount of collaboration required with other people (and the extent to which it needs to take place in real time), availability of enabling technology, or the need for work to be completed at a specific place or time.

Flexibility can generally take place in when work is done, where work is done, and how and what work is done. Reflect upon the work undertaken by the individual requesting flexibility – you may find it helpful to have a copy of their job description.

When work is done

Some roles require work to be undertaken at a particular time, such as opening a shop at set opening hours. Other work can be done at any time – examples might include analysing data, developing a project plan or writing up research. Consider the tasks in the job description and reflect:

• Can the work be undertaken at any time (within reason)? or
• Can the work only be undertaken at a specific time?

Where work is done

Some roles demand that the work is undertaken at a particular location, such as cleaning or providing personal care. Other forms of work will be more flexible and can be done from any location where there are relevant tools and technologies. Consider the tasks in the job description and reflect:

• Can the work be undertaken anywhere (within reason)? or
• Can the work only be undertaken in a specific place?

How and what work is done

Reflect on the nature of the activities of the role. Do they involve working with others, or do they involve thinking, reflection and independent work? Are the tasks routine or transactional? Does the role demand close supervision?

Tasks that involve working and collaborating with others can be further separated into:

• synchronous activities – work undertaken with other people at the same time (for example, taking part in a meeting with colleagues, delivering a presentation); and
• asynchronous activities – work that requires working with others but not necessarily at the same time. An example would be several colleagues working together to produce a report, but each of them can write their parts separately and share their ideas via email or a shared online space.

Consider the collaboration tasks undertaken by the employee:

• How many of them are synchronous?
• How many of them are asynchronous?

Some jobs may involve an element of each of these separate factors. For example, it may include tasks that demand work is done at a particular time but some tasks that are not. A role may also demand some elements of synchronous collaboration and some aspects of collaboration that can be done asynchronously.

Reflect on the duties and responsibilities of the role. Based on the employee’s job description and day-to-day activities, consider the following:

• What percentage of the tasks need to take place at a certain location? What percentage could take place elsewhere?
• What percentage of tasks need to take place at a particular time? What percentage of tasks could take place at a time different to ‘standard’ working hours?
• What is the nature of the work being undertaken? How much of the work requires synchronous or asynchronous collaboration? How much requires independent work or work that requires supervision? How much of the work is routine or standardized?
• Can the different types of tasks be organized in such a way that they can be undertaken together? (For example, can all of the thinking and reflecting tasks be undertaken on the same day?)

If the answers are not easily identifiable, consider asking the employee (where they are in post) to keep a note of the work they undertake each day, as categorized above, over an appropriate time period (at least a couple of weeks) to allow you to analyse this more fully. Ask them to note down their day-to-day tasks as well as when, where and how they take place.

Following this data collection, review the information to identify what patterns have emerged and what form of flexible working would most suit the nature of the work being undertaken (you can refer to Chapter 1 to remind you of the different forms). For example:

• synchronous collaboration tasks may be suitable for flexi-time (as employees will need to work together at the same time), where asyn­chronous collaboration tasks could be suitable for most forms of flexibility;
• location-independent tasks that can be done at any time of the day or week may be particularly suitable for remote or homeworking (as they will not need to be undertaken at a specific time or place);
• routine tasks or independent work may be suitable for remote or homeworking or part-time/staggered-hours working (as they may only need some interaction with other team members).

Also consider some of the following before making a decision:

• What changes could be made or tried? How could work be organized differently to allow for non-time/location-dependent work to be under­taken at different times or in different places?
• Where work requires collaboration, does this need to be face to face or could other forms of collaboration such as virtual or online engagement work just as well?
• Is the workload realistically achievable in the proposed working pattern?
• Where work requires high levels of concentration, could this be done at different times or in different places?
• What tasks could be split between different individuals (such as through a potential job-share situation) or across different days or hours of the week?

Also consider:

• What are the potential benefits to the individual or organization of the particular form of flexible working requested?
• What are the potential disadvantages to the individual or the organization of flexible working – and how might these be overcome?
• What tools (or access to technology/systems) would be required to support the type of flexible working requested?
• Are there any costs to the organization of the proposed working pattern? This could include costs of recruitment (such as a job-share partner) or purchase of additional IT equipment.
• What are the potential impacts on the work of the rest of the team?

The following should not be taken into consideration when determining if a role is suitable for flexible working:

• the reason that the individual is making the request (unless it relates to a disability);
• the seniority of the person making the request;
• whether accepting a request will encourage other employees to make flexible working requests;
• how work has been undertaken in the past;
• the attitudes of other team members to flexible working;
• your personal preferences about where and how people work.

Examples of role assessments

A role that requires both writing and delivering training courses is likely to have a combination of thinking and collaboration activities. The collaboration activities (for example, the delivery of the courses) will usually need to be done face to face and at a specific time and location. The thinking element of the work (the development of the training materials) could be done at any time or location. This could lend itself to a split between homeworking and office-based working, or flexible hours on days where there is no training delivery.

A role that requires large amounts of routine administration might have deadlines (such as the completion of reports at certain times of the month) but the tasks do not need to be completed at set times of the day and do not require collaboration with team members, only access to systems, therefore allowing for flexibility with daily or weekly hours, or location.

A role that involves providing college students with face-to-face support will require large amounts of synchronous collaboration activities at certain times of year. When students are not present, the work may change to tasks that are more focused on thinking or transactional tasks (such...

Table of contents

• Praise for Flexible Working
• Flexible Working
• Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• The case for flexibility
• 01 Flexible working
• 02 The benefits and challenges of flexible working
• 03 Flexible working and the future of work
• 04 Flexible working and inclusion
• 05 Flexible working and wellbeing
• 06 Exploring flexible working myths
• 07 The barriers to flexible working, and how to overcome them
• Introducing flexible working
• 08 From compliance to culture
• 09 Developing a strategy for flexible working
• 10 Effective policy and process
• 11 Supporting implementation
• 12 Conclusions
• 13 Flexible working toolkit
• Epilogue
• P1 Appendix 1
• P2 Appendix 2
• Index