Flexible Working - 3 Years On

As we near the 3 year anniversary of the “stay home” direction given on 20 March 2023 which started the first Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in the UK, we take a look at where we are now.

There are all different variations of flexible working but here we take a more detailed look at Working from Home and the 4 day week.

Working from home (now commonly shortened to WFH)

Prior to the pandemic, working from home was rare, with only around 5% [1]of workers working exclusively from home in January 2020. But with the nation going into lockdown, employers were keen to keep their businesses open, therefore letting their employees do their jobs without leaving the house. Subsequently, the number of home-workers quickly increased to 46.6%[2] April of 2020, whilst a lot of workers were still furloughed.

Allowing employees to work from home helped employees with childcare, they could stay at home with their children and not have to worry about paying for day care or finding a child minder, it also meant that they could work for longer hours as they don’t have to worry about getting home in time for their families.

Studies were carried out and it was found that 30.3% of those worked more hours than they did in the office, with 47.5% of women likely to do more work at home. [3]

However, it was and remains a mixed picture.

On the flip side of things, with social restrictions already in place, limiting people seeing their friends, family and colleagues; working from home could be quite isolating for a lot of people, particularly if they lived alone.

Continuing this practice for new starters now, could mean that they may not be “part of the team”. Employees who worked together before the pandemic, would have had stronger relationships with each other because they spent 8 hours a day, 5 days a week together. This is more than some people see their own family, so for people who start their jobs now, this may contribute to a feeling of isolation. Whilst Teams and Zoom calls can keep us in touch, there is nothing like face-to-face conversations to keep us connected

Another important consideration has also been noted by the Trade Union Congress that working from home, risks creating a “new class divide” as frontline workers in supermarkets and hospitals, mechanics, and other customer-centric jobs to do not have the option to work from home [4]. These kinds of jobs make up 75% of work in occupations. [5]

Also, people who earn under ￡20,000 per annum have less than 5% chance of being able to work remotely whilst 94% of people earning over ￡50,000 per annum can choose to work from home if they wish.[6]

If your business can allow everyone to work from home or at the office as they want then this wont be a concern but most business are not in that position and the ability to WFH will vary between roles.

WFH clearly ?has both pros and cons, whilst productivity and job satisfaction may well increase, it can be detrimental to team-building and the morale of staff in roles where such flexibility is not workable.

Flexible Hours and the 4 day working week

Another element of regular working that many were used used to was the typical 9-5, 8-hour days, 40 hours a week.

This has also been affected by the pandemic with a lot of employees looking for non-traditional ways to carry out their hours, by either adjusting their start and finish times or breaking their days up to allow them to do the school run or carry out any other responsibilities.

It is though not just employees that have been exploring this.

There has been recently an international 6-month pilot for 4 day working weeks and with some notable results.

The vast majority of companies taking part in the largest trial of the four-day working week have opted to continue with the new pattern.

Companies taking part were offered workshops and mentoring to help them rethink working practices. Staff were given the opportunity to remain on their existing salary, working across four days instead of five.

Out of 61 companies, 56 have extended the 4-day week, included in this is 18 companies who have implemented it permanently.

Phil McParlane recently published some statistics here ?demonstrating the success:

Average Revenue: +35%

Number of Staff Leaving: -57%

Improved mental health: 43%

Reduced burnout: 71%

Reduced Stress: 39%

In addition to surveys, the researchers performed in-depth interviews with participants in the new report. From those interviews, it emerged that employees used the additional day off mostly for organization and everyday tasks. This, in turn, allowed them to reserve the weekend primarily for recreation, so they could spend time with their families and hobbies.

It will be interesting to see how many other companies will follow suit and try out a 4-day working week. In the same way that allowing WFH difficult differently across the business, can impact on staff relations, implementing a 4 day week differently could also do so.

However, there may be more scope to do this for some businesses where WFH is not possible. One of my own manufacturing clients ran a trial and has decided to make it permanent.

Conclusions

From the news (and articles such as this one!), flexible working can come across as the “new normal”, with a lot of jobseekers being firmer and concentrating more on what they want from a job, rather than what a job wants from them, . When you are recruiting, it is important to bear these ?aspects in mind ?and to keep doing so on an ongoing basis to support employee wellbeing and help retention.

Furthermore, it has recently been decided that employees will now have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment. I wrote a blog on my website about this in December which summarises the key provisions from the the recent government response to the consultation on flexible working laws which can be found here.

The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill had its Third Reading in the House of Commons on 24 February and was passed. It will now go to the House of Lords and if passed, we will then get a commencement date which I would anticipate will be late 2023 or early 2024.Flexible working however is not that simple. One of our local MP’s Jo Gideon, Conservative MP for Stoke on Trent North summarised some of these issues herself in the Third Reading debate:

“Stoke-on-Trent Central has a very large manufacturing base, a very large logistics base and engineering works, and these are sectors in which it is quite difficult to provide the flexibility for homeworking. As is the case across the country, they also have a challenge with recruitment. I welcome the Bill and the work that has?been done by [Yasmin Qureshi], because flexibility is not just about hybrid working and homeworking; it is also about looking at working patterns. With manufacturing, for instance, shifts may have been established a long time ago, when the circumstances for employees were different. In order to attract new talent to those industries now, sometimes flexibility is hugely important.

There is a slight concern that we may be creating a two-tier system, whereby some people can work flexibly and some cannot…... Financial managers, directors and programmers were able to work from home, whereas those in occupations with lower average earnings, such as gardeners, carpenters and mechanics, were far less able to do so.

There is also something else to be aware of. I am not saying that we should be less flexible, but young people need to have the ability to learn from more experienced workers when they come into the workplace—the water cooler moment, the sharing of ideas and the innovation. If we have too many people working from home for too long, we run the risk that our ability to learn on the job and to innovate might be somewhat reduced.

Can you add a footnote for this please - https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/debate/2023-02-24/commons/commons-chamber/employment-relations-flexible-working-bill

As an employment lawyer advising businesses and hr manager, it has been fascinating to watch how my clients have responded to the flexible working opportunities and pressures. Some flourishing, others struggling but rarely any client not affected by these flexible working developments.

From a personal perspective, the award-winning Excello model enables me to work fully flexibly ?- WFH or in the office, 9 till 5 or 24/7. I know that I don’t work any less and I love it but I am aware that most are not so lucky. ?

I will watch this space with interest over the following years.

[1] https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pb-0049/#:~:text=This%20increased%20substantially%20during%20the,38%25%20worked%20from%20home%20exclusively.

[2]https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/coronavirusandhomeworkingintheuk/april2020

[3]https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/coronavirusandhomeworkingintheuk/april2020

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/02/how-working-from-home-has-divided-britain

[5] https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305738

[6] https://standout-cv.com/remote-working-statistics-uk?