Our guest blog today is from Judith Cherry, Head of Knowledge and Insight at Opportunity Now, BITC’s campaign to promote gender equality in the workplace.
Judith Cherry believes a flexible approach to work cultures gives tangible business advantage.
“The new government’s announcement that it will extend the right to request flexible working to all staff has made flexibility a hot business topic. We welcome this move to ensure flexibility is not just for parents and have always maintained that creating flexible working cultures is good news for organisations and employees alike.
I strongly disagree with those that argue that flexible working practices are a burden to business. In fact, I believe the opposite is true. In such challenging economic times, where salaries are being frozen, bonuses are vanishing, and spending needs to be dramatically reduced, flexible working can offer a way of keeping talented people engaged and motivated and offer a way of reducing overheads. It should be viewed through a lens of business success. Unfortunately there is often a resistance or a residual perception of flexible or part-time working as something which is an adjunct to business as usual, an irritation or an accommodation – the mummy track.
It is true that the majority of workplaces are still designed around a mid 20th century lifestyle, with an outdated approach to where, when and how work happens. Whilst more enlightened employers do position flexible working as a way to retain expertise, cut overheads and motivate staff. In these organisations it is accepted as a tool which will make their businesses more agile and responsive, not something which is begrudgingly implemented for the sake of mothers.
A great example of getting it right is the way that KPMG utilised flexible working to respond speedily to changes in market conditions whilst still maintaining the engagement of its people. It introduced a programme called Flexible Futures – a temporary, reduced working hours arrangement that was introduced in January 2009.
The objective was to manage the firm’s people costs in line with fluctuating and unpredictable business demands whilst retaining valuable talent.
In early 2009 all of its 11,000 people were asked to volunteer to accept a temporary change to their terms and conditions of employment. This temporary change to terms and conditions meant that the firm could ask volunteers at any time over the subsequent 18 months to reduce their working week by one day unpaid or take extended time off at 30% salary. Once people had signed up there was no guarantee that they would be asked to take leave as this would be dependent on the business needs of their unit. 85% of its people signed up overall and over the subsequent months around 500 people across the business were asked to take leave in line with the options they volunteered for. The scheme saved the organisation over £4 million and is a very good example of how flexible working can be used as a business solution.
The business imperative for creating more flexible work cultures revolves around leveraging a more diverse talent pool, the ability to flex over time and space, and the fact that it allows greater freedom to scale up and down as the business or business cycle requires. Greater agility allows companies to better organise their global 24/7 operations and build networks. Technology has allowed organisations to be more flexible and agile, now we need now is more organisational cultures to catch up.
‘Opportunity Now empowers employers to accelerate change for women in the workplace because it makes good business sense. It works with its membership of 350 employers, from the private, public and education sectors to offer tailored, practical and pragmatic advice on workplace issues. Opportunity Now is part of Business in the Community, a charity which mobilises business for good. Visit www.opportunitynow.org.uk to find out more.’