Flexible working Written by Rob Wall, head of policy, The Chartered Management Institute
The reasons why flexible working works It is widely adopted that flexible working makes good business sense. But, there remains a refusal in many organisations to allow staff to adopt such patterns of working. Rob Wall discusses the issue At the Chartered Management Institute, What is flexible working? we know that flexible working is good Flexible working can mean many things: business sense. It helps attract and retain working from home, working compressed talent, improves employee engagement, hours, working term-time hours, part-time reduces absenteeism, boosts productivity or flexi-time working. It has now become and drives up business performance. That’s an umbrella term to describe working why thousands of employers across patterns that fall outside the the UK actively promote and traditional 9-to-5 office encourage flexible working. hours. The government But what exactly is describes flexible How flexible working, and how working as: ‘a way of e xactly d widespread is it? How working that suits an oes flexible exactly does flexible employee’s needs, w orking improv working improve for example having e perfo performance and increase flexible start and r m a a n nce d increa job satisfaction? And finish times, or satisfac se job what more can be done working from home’. tion? to encourage managers CMI research and employers to adopt shows that the most flexible working practices in common forms of their organisations? Well, if you flexible working are the want to know more, then read on! ability to schedule work
flexibly, the ability to work from home and working part-time. And we know that flexible working is more common now than ever. For example, in the 1950s, the proportion of employees working part-time was very low. By the 1980s, around one in five employees were working part-time. Today, this has risen to around one in four. The take up of flexible working practices varies across sectors and professions. We know, for example, that employees in the public sector are more likely to work flexibly that their counterparts in the private sector. CMI research also shows that managers are less likely to work flexibly than the people they manage. In organisations where flexible working practices like working part-time, job sharing or working compressed hours are available, most managers are not choosing, or do not feel able, to take up these forms of flexible working. E Issue 26.4 | GOVERNMENT BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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