Flexible Working – The Great Leveller?

Around this time last year in the UK, one of the most commonly heard phrases in the media was “Levelling Up”.  It was a catchphrase used as part of the general election campaign by the then (and current) government; somewhat generic in its terminology, without knowing what they meant it would fail to meet the “Ronseal” test.

The policy was an offer to support regions of the UK in the hope that this will boost the economy, raise employment etc. – Levelling up these regions would mean an investment in infrastructure and was a way of rewarding the support of Brexit-leaning voters who would otherwise not consider backing the Conservative Party. 

12 months later, and the term it seems could now be applied to the impact a flexible workplace strategy could have on addressing another hot topic of the pre-COVID world.

This week has seen some insights published by Zurich Insurance as part of a government-backed study, which grabbed headlines in a number of national news sources.

Zurich found that flexible working has the potential to address long-term issues such as the Gender Pay Gap in businesses; It was when initially looking to reduce their improving but, then still 20% average gap, that the business discovered the greater importance of flexibility such as remote and part-time working for the women in the business, particularly those at higher levels in the hierarchy. 

As a result of this insight, Zurich Insurance trialled a policy where all roles became flexible, on whatever terms where necessary; flipping the status-quo on its head, office-centric roles became the exception when they simply couldn’t be done remotely; a policy that had the potential to bring women in their business closer to the men, in other words, Levelling Up.

For decades women have had to make decisions of Career vs Family, meaning a glass ceiling has been in place and for those who broke through, added pressure not only to do it all, but be seen doing so made for a difficult and challenging working environment. For many facing this choice a remedy would have been clear but unavailable, an increase in the flexibility would resolve so many of the challenges they face.

I can think back about a decade ago and remember representing a candidate at HoD level; The client loved her, she had a strong reputation in the industry, aced the interview stages, blew the Marketing Director away with her presentation, thus inevitably received an offer.

Everyone was happy, that was until the written offer was received by the candidate, and with it her contract for employment; within it was the hours of work, detailing a regimented 8.30am – 5.00pm working day.

Pretty standard hours, and unlikely to grab any attention at all if it wasn’t for the fact this highly talented marketing professional had to do a school-run, 3 days per week in the morning and 2 in the evenings, meaning that (traffic permitting) she wouldn’t be able to make it to the office until 9.10ish and required leaving the office around 4.30pm to collect the children from the childminder.

A simple resolution was suggested by the candidate – offsetting these additional hours with later finishes/earlier starts on the different days, and an assertion from the candidate that she normally would respond to anything that she had missed during the evening as she was rarely without her Blackberry (yes, it was those days!). 

Incredibly, this proposal was rejected, not by the person who would become her boss, but by the HRD, reasoning that if this was done for one person, it would be needed to be offered to all. 

The upshot was the candidate stayed where she was, in a business that valued her enough to offer a small level of flexibility, and the business that had a heavily family-orientated product portfolio missed out on a high-calibre and equally family-orientated candidate.

This wasn’t a unique occurrence, but equally this wasn’t a case of requiring a part-time solution, it was simply a small adjustment to working hours, a flexibility and sign of ‘value’ which would have been rewarded many times over.

Perhaps we should find it sad that it has taken a global pandemic to make the majority of businesses realise that flexible working is an option, but then sometimes we do have to realise that change often takes stimulus and the greater the change, the bigger the stimulus needed – there have been few bigger than the one we have seen in 2020.

When businesses look to make a return to their offices in 2021 as the pandemic hopefully comes under control with vaccination programs progressing through the population, there is an opportunity to look at things with fresh-eyes; initially, to get people back into offices in a safe manner, numbers will need to be limited, and timings will have to be flexed – not just to give more people the opportunity to use the office, but also to reduce commuter numbers on public transport.

So now, the challenge for businesses is not to look wistfully at a time when the organisation was heavily office-centric (described during a Sky News interview with Zurich Insurance’s Alison Martin, CEO for EMEA as ‘Presenteeism’) but recognise the benefits to the business of maintaining the technology driven, work-from-anywhere approach seen during 2020 and couple it with highly productive office usage delivering the best value for businesses as they aim to come back in a tough economic climate.

Let us be clear, the Gender Pay Gap has a number of causes, and we cannot ignore the simple fact is that one of the most significant has been sexism; focusing on other factors and changes doesn’t change the fact that this will still require a shift in thinking; however while a robust flexible working policy will deliver positive change, there may be a long way to go until mindsets are fully transformed; the need for change is clear, the will to change is growing, and perhaps Flexible Working is the key to a solution that few businesses were innovative enough to try. 

One last thing that came out of the Zurich Insurance report that was of interest, is that when all roles offered flexible working, even before the pandemic they saw a doubling of applicant numbers – this wasn’t solely from women, as men too were keen to achieve better balance in their lives – flexibility is increasingly seen as desirable in a job opportunity and high-calibre talent could be secured over a rival, simply by meeting them half-way!