#FlexFrom1st - Let's Lead, Not Follow

When you think of flexible working, what do you think of? What immediately comes to mind?

For some it might be flexible hours, working contracted hours spread throughout the day. For some it might be changing shift patterns, to accommodate working longer hours but in fewer days.

For others, usually managers, it’s a term of dread that makes organising staffing seem difficult. It’s the term that frightens businesses into thinking that giving some flexibility to one employee will “open the floodgates to all employees wanting it”.

Now, we can baulk at that view and quash the managerial response as old-fashioned, unimaginative, uncaring and even lazy. But the reality is, that many managers still feel that way, and what’s missing is often simply the piece around education. Educating the manager in how good a flexibly working workforce can be for that particular organisation.

Flexible Working can lead to both direct and indirect business benefits (CIPD Factsheet 2021), and research by the Tavistock Institute (published by Sage, and accessible here) has evidenced that there is an increase in job satisfaction and commitment from those permitted flexible working, which enhances the positive psychological contract between employer and employee.

In my almost 2 decades supporting businesses, my experience is that when managers move passed the initial discomfort and concern of allowing an employee to work flexibly, and transition their mindset to thinking about how they can accommodate a flexible working request, instead of how they can ‘safely’ turn one down without truly considering it, they find that the relationship and job appreciation from the employee has been enhanced considerably. The mindset of ‘now he’s been allowed to work flexibly, they’ll all want it’ is often a myth, and even where other requests come forward that are accommodated, managers reap the rewards of having even more members of their teams having an upturn in commitment and job satisfaction.

Furthermore, forward-thinking and pragmatic workplaces that truly embrace flexible working for all, are perfect examples to those other businesses who take an opposite view. Flexible working is very quickly becoming a minimum expectation for those joining the workforce, and so business who may lag behind in this regard, may lose out when competing for talent in recruitment campaigns.

In the immortal words of Dustin Kensrue of rock band Thrice, ‘Lets lead, not follow’.

This month, the CIPD has launched its ‘Flex from 1st’ Campaign, calling on organisations and the government to make the right to request flexible working a day one right. Currently, employees need to have a minimum of 26 weeks continuous service with their employer before being permitted to request to work flexibly, which the CIPD is campaigning to change to allow employees to make a request from their first day.

The pandemic has shown how businesses across Britain can flex and evolve to survive and thrive, and in many cases flexible working has happened unintentionally. With more people working from home in line with government guidelines, and more businesses facilitating that through providing the technology to make it happen, a business case in lots of organisations clearly presented itself.

A vast array of organisations across the world have seen the benefits and the returns of allowing many employees to work flexibly whilst at home during this crisis. These employers understand that the current situation has called for a change to how we’ve worked, and that both employees and the organisations themselves have gained many advantages. Anecdotally, I’ve heard business owners discuss how they are more responsive to customers and clients because their staff work at different points in the day, which supports their global customer base in different time zones. And I’m hearing from friends who want to give more to their work because they are thankful of the fact they are seeing more of their families now than they ever have and are treasuring that time with them.

These obvious benefits, don’t have to be temporary. We don’t have to rush back to old ways of working when the world resets itself in a post-pandemic environment. We don’t have to bounce to the extreme of flexible working for everybody if our businesses are simply not set up that way, but neither do we need to default to Victorian 9-5 working practices that are often oppressive and restrictive.

By offering employees the right to request flexible working from day one, its giving organisations and employees alike, an early opportunity to strike a mutually beneficial deal that will enhance business performance. And if the request cannot be granted for entirely legitimate reasons, then its not delaying a conversation for 26 weeks that might lead to an employee leaving, ultimately resulting in a partially if not fully wasted investment on both sides.

Flexible working requests from day 1 is simply good business sense, as well as the right thing to do, and along with many others in my field I pledge to support the CIPD campaign, because I genuinely believe it is in the best interests of everybody.

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Hendy HR Limited is a full-service HR consultancy firm. We can support your business through introducing a flexible working policy and work with your managers to maximise the benefits this can bring. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via email [email protected] or through our social media channels.