Some form of flexible working is offered by the majority of businesses in the UK, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
But such working patterns vary widely in the specific ways in which they are implemented. This can include:
– part-time or term-time working
– job share schemes
– monthly or annual hours quotas
– teleworking or working while travelling, and
– working from home.
So when it’s considered that ‘flexible working’ can embrace any or all of these options, it’s easy to see how administering it can quickly become complicated.
Benefits of flexible working –for the business
Many businesses complain that they find it difficult to recruit, and to keep, high calibre staff. So alongside such factors as the working environment, management culture and social aspects, companies do well to equally examine how easy they make it for their workers to balance the demands of their working and their home lives.
Flexible working, when it is carefully and considerately implemented, can help employees feel that their company encourages them to look for a sustainable work-life balance. And if a company is seen as offering this to its workers, it is likely to find that it brings a number of benefits, such as:
– the business becoming more attractive to female workers, who are the most likely to have to fit their work around childcare needs
– making the business more appreciative of the needs of employees who have elderly relatives who need some degree of care
– possibilities for avoiding having to dispense completely with valuable staff when needing to make cuts, by considering alternatives such as short-time working, and work sabbaticals, and
– greater ability for a business to meet the needs of a global customer base, which in turn increases the need for flexibility in working patterns.
Benefits of flexible working – for the employee
Many workers like the chance to be able to vary their working hours, and in turn to respond to peaks and troughs in their workflow, as well as the changing demands of looking after children or elderly relatives, as mentioned above.
Other advantages of such a scheme from the individual’s point of view include:
– the greater perception that their employer values what they do, through their granting them the chance to recoup time spent at work outside their ‘core’ hours
– the ability to adjust their working day to help them better fit in with public transport services
– knowledge that their working hours may need to change, but will still have some level of consistency within a prescribed framework
– the chance to do work when more mentally prepared to do so, and to create a physical work environment which is most conducive to being productive, and
– opportunities for both physical and mental recuperation following a particularly intensive period of work.
While the job market is always competitive, any company which has difficulty in recruiting and retaining suitable staff should carefully examine how the ways in which it allows its workers the opportunity to strike a sustainable balance between their work and home lives are perceived, and especially, whether they are seen as being successful in helping them achieve this objective.
About the Author: Hayley Spring is a freelance blogger who specializes in recruitment and HR. She is currently writing in conjunction with Edenred – The specialists in employee benefits.
Cover photo credit: Eneas de Troya
