Flexible working pays off for employers by encouraging staff to focus on completing the job, rather than just doing the hours. Noella Pio Kivlehan reports
In days not long past, the phrase “flexible working” would elicit one of two reactions: disdain from bosses who connected the idea of “flexi-time” with staff taking unofficial time off, and glee from certain employees who saw it as a chance to skive off early.
In 2010, though, it would be wrong to confuse flexible working with its distant cousin, flexi-hours. The former concerns not just the hours an employee works, but where the employee actually does that work – which could involve hot-desking, home-working or working on the road. In fact, the subject of flexible working covers everything from the use of space and technology, to task-oriented working, and cultural and management techniques.
“The idea, historically, that people should have a dedicated workspace really just doesn’t reflect the modern way of working,” says Oliver Jones, partner with built-asset consultancy EC Harris.
Malcolm Whetstone, managing director of GVA Grimley, agrees. “There has been a mind-shift about people working from home,” he says. “People are now task-oriented and project-based – they know what they have to do to get the task done.”
GVA Grimley has 10% of its workforce – some 120 people – on flexible working, ranging from executive directors to support staff.
So crucial has flexible working become to employees that, in June, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of 1,167 workers found that 47% rated flexible working as the most important benefit – above performance-related bonuses, which came second at 19%.
The shift towards flexible working was given a major boost three years ago, in the Queen’s speech for former premier Gordon Brown’s first parliament as prime minister. At the time, a report by the Equal Opportunities Commission said that evidence was accumulating which showed that there was an unmet growing demand for flexible working in the UK (see panel).
Since then, the onset of recession has made flexible working even more attractive to employers, who can save desk space by allowing staff to work from home using handheld PDAs and laptops.
However, some firms saw the benefits of flexible working before the recession. “We are not driven by the economics. For us, it comes from the employee,” says GVA’s Whetstone. “The family unit has changed, so employers have to respond to that change. We have been very progressive in this for the past five years.”
EC Harris also embraced flexible working prior to the economic downturn. The firm used the move four years ago to its new HQ in York Way, N1, as a catalyst to implement a three-year strategic change programme, including the introduction of flexible working. The programme appeared as a case study in a British Council of Offices report, published in May, called Making flexible working work, written by consultant the Original Creative Co-op.
EC Harris’s Jones says: “The move [to our new HQ] was key because we wanted people to work in a more flexible and inspired way. For this reason, an entirely new style of workspace environment was created to help our employees live the vision of a ‘knowledge-based business’ – from an airport-style, open-plan approach throughout the building, to versatile communal areas and other breakout space.”
Jones says that the results have been “a resounding success”. He explains: “We saw staff attrition dropping by 20%, fee turnover go up by 7.5% per head, and overhead costs as a percentage of staff costs reduced by 15%. The business impact is so profound that we have since rolled out the same approach to 11 of our other locations.”
But while flexible working can seem beneficial to some employees, there are others who struggle with the concept. The BCO report states that staff can react differently to the changes. It says: “Their behaviour and expectations will need to be managed so that the organisation remains effective during the introductory period, and is able to move forward, making proper use of the flexible opportunities provided.
“One of the hardest adjustments to flexible work is the concept of ‘work to results’, as opposed to time in the office. Managers require training in result management prior to and during the change process. Flexible workers need a clear understanding of what is expected of them and how it will influence their performance review.”
Also, the ages of employees must be taken into account. “Age demographics will have an influence on the ease of adapting to a flexible workstyle,” says the BCO report. “Typically, younger workers will easily gravitate to flexibility, while older workers may struggle with the freedom flexible work allows.”
Jones says it is imperative that staff are reassured. “If you are moving to flexible working, people feel that you are taking something away from them,” he says. “But we say, ‘You can have any desk you want.’ So, rather than people saying, ‘This is my desk,’ we want people to feel that the whole office is their space.”
UK still lagging behind
While there are those companies keen to embrace flexible working, it is still an anomaly for many others. In its May report Making flexible working work, the BCO stated: “At the present timethere is still a wide gap between mainland Europe, where 90% of employees are offered flexi-time, and the UK, with 48%. This is in spite of UK legislation being broadened in 2007 and again in 2009. Taking into consideration today’s economic climate, it makes even more sense to introduce flexible working now than it did in 2007.”
Case study: Colliers International
“We have found that offering flexible working has improved our staff retention, including an increase in the number of women who are returning to work after maternity leave,” says Beccy Gibson, associate director of human resources at Colliers International.
Gibson says that staff benefit from an improved work-life balance, which in turn, reduces stress levels but increases motivation – thereby boosting productivity.
“By embracing flexible working, we have widened the talent pool from which we are able to recruit,” says Gibson. “Not embracing flexible working could restrict our ability to employ the best people.
“Having a culture where ‘non-standard’ work patterns were acceptable was useful during the downturn, where creative solutions were sometimes found as an alternative to redundancy.”
Gibson says that Colliers will consider flexible working applications from any member of staff, not only those who have a statutory right to ask for it. However, she says that client and business requirements are paramount, and flexible working may not be appropriate for all job roles.
“With regard to home-working,” she says, “it makes much more sense to judge people’s productivity on their output than by how many hours we can see them sitting at their desk. We wouldn’t want to have an environment where people felt they had to be in the office at all hours in order to ‘prove’ that they were working hard.”
