Fear of Flexible Working

Hello and a warm welcome to the fourth edition of the 2to3days newsletter - for people in business who are responsible for hiring decisions and who want to accelerate the pace of change when it comes to women’s equality.

Each week I speak to companies telling me that they are super keen to find experienced female talent to join their organizations. And each week I speak to experienced female talent who are super keen to find organizations that they want to work for and who will appreciate their skill set and expertise honed over many years of hard work.

The main connection piece – or more accurately the disconnection piece – boils down to the ‘ability to genuinely support and work flexibly.’

Thanks to Covid 19 the business case for flexible working and its definitions are incredibly well documented; for those of you who would like a quick reminder I would encourage you to read this great article by the CIPD - Flexible Working Practices.

According to research last year 76% of people want to work flexibly. So where’s the but… what’s stopping flexible working being the norm for all?

I thought it would be interesting to summarise and share the insights I have gleaned from talking to many employers across industry sectors – the challenges they are facing and how they are overcoming them. I hope that they provoke some new thinking about the kinds of choices employers are making in this space, and what can be done differently.

Institutional resistance

I think there’s an institutional – perhaps even unconscious – resistance to genuine flexible working in many organisations. Of course there are exceptions and some companies are leading the charge and fully embracing the opportunities and pay-offs of flexible working – whether that means full-time or part-time. The new norm is much more hybrid, split between office and home. But for many there’s still an attachment to an outdated mode of a full-time, 9-to-5 working week in the office.

In my experience this manifests itself at two levels – senior leadership and middle management.

For senior leadership, most of whom are Baby Boomers and Gen X who have spent their careers working in a full-time office culture (a lot of them in predominantly male workplaces) the main fears around flexible working are that:

• Productivity will drop.
• Clients won’t be serviced properly, and they will lose them.
• It’s too hard to manage a workforce working different hours, from different locations.

None of these fears are grounded in the evidence; in fact the opposite is more often true. Flexible working improves productivity, increases staff loyalty, promotes innovation and inclusivity. What needs to happen is a shift in mindset, and the will to try different things and pilot new ideas.?

One way of doing this is for senior leadership to ask themselves some soul-searching questions about what they believe in and how they want to show up in the world:

• How aware are you of your beliefs around flexible working? Are you an advocate of integrating life into your work? Is this something as a leader you spend time reflecting on?
• Does your behaviour in the office actively demonstrate or deter flexible working? Does your team perceive you as a role model or not in this regard?
• When you see behaviour that doesn’t support people to integrate work into their lives, do you ‘call it out’ or ignore it?
• What’s your set up at home? Do you share domestic as well as working responsibilities equally?
• If you have children, what do you say to them about the future of work and home life? Do you expect them to integrate the two? If yes, does it apply to them and not to you?

Line managers - the heroes or the fall guys?

I often hear that the real blockage to flexible working is middle management. Whatever the aspirations and guidance from above, the implementation of flexible working often comes unglued with line managers because they haven’t been given sufficient managerial training to support a flexible workforce. They get blamed for adopting a blanket approach to managing staff by having them all in the office five days a week rather than accommodating and managing individual flexible working requirements. That doesn’t seem fair to me. It’s too easy to depict them as the fall guys. The onus should be on the senior leadership team to upskill and train their managers as they are often the heroes of the day.?

Reframing the focus

There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to the challenges of flexible working. But these are good challenges to have. They are forcing business leaders to be better communicators, to listen harder and to find out what each individual needs in order to be able to perform their job to the best of their ability. Whilst I recognise that this takes time I actually think that it is fundamentally liberating for both employers and staff to have these conversations. The people I speak to in industry who are advocates for change and flexible working tell me this is precisely what they’re doing, day by day and week by week. With an open mind and a willingness to experiment, organisations can transform their working practices; the prize for those who do it best is to attract and retain the experienced female talent they’re so desperate to find.

Otherwise they become a 'flight risk' so it's time to buckle up, keep the belt on whilst you work your way through the inevitable turbulance of changing work patterns and enjoy the flight as the destination for all is sweet!

Celebrating the changemakers

This week I would like to give a 'high five' to the following senior leaders and their companies who are advocates for change Sophie Carter Catherine Murphy Jo Geraghty Marisa Williams Clare Vasey Christie's 普华永道 KPMG Culture Consultancy Pinsent Masons

My me time...

Watching State of Happiness on BBC iplayer great drama all about the oil industry taking off in Norwary.

Still reading Lessons in Chemistry (told you I was a slow reader) but loving it.

Project managing a house extension, chocking in dust, drowning in samples and keeping DHL in business but loving it - I am such a propery tart!

Until next time, take care - be open and question how you show up in the world and be open to having a different the conversation.

Juliet?

Who am I?

I am Juliet Turnbull, the founder of 2to3days, the company I set up because I believe that women in the 21st century?have a fundamental right to reach their full potential at work. I believe the UK plc needs a female focused talent marketplace that supports women, inspires women and connects women to organisations that want to hire more women to work flexibly. I myself have worked flexibly for the past 20 years. I don’t believe you can have it all but I do believe you can ‘have both’ - a great work and home life which comes through integration.?

I am a straight talking, crack on and make it happen sort of girl. I believe in speaking truth to power and being your authentic self. I am on the third chapter of my career - I started life as a Chartered Surveyor before moving into business coaching and now I am an entrepreneur building a purpose-led business.