Inside the APPG for flex and family friendly working

If you’ve ever wanted to be at the hub of the conversation about flexible working, if you think there’s lots to celebrate but plenty of ground still to cover, or if you’ve ever felt ‘this should be a whole business conversation, not a parent only issue’ then I’m right next to you. And maybe you’d have shared my excitement when I got the invite to join the first ever APPG for flexible and family friendly working!

Of course, the irony kicked in straight away. I would need to join the meeting virtually as it timed with the same day I’d be waving off my eldest daughter on her first ever residential with school and there was no way I was making it to a Westminster postcode in time. But, if anybody is going to get multiple access points right, it’s going to be this group!

The session was chaired by Yasmin Qureshi MP – an OG in the flex conversation space, and it was actually her bill that will bring about sizeable changes to flexible working access from the beginning of April 2024. Yasmin was joined by Alesha De Freitas from the Fawcett society (who I could listen to all day), Jenny Amphlett from Zurich (sharing first hand transformations for their organisation) and of course the one and only Jan Van Zyl, CEO of Working Families.

So, what did I take away from it?

Apart from the sore neck from all the nodding along, here are some of the conversations and insights, in no particular order, I want to share with you…

1.???? 85% of callers to the Working Families free advice line are women, and they want to stay in work and keep their jobs. When you’re often faced with a polarising narrative that if you have children you automatically want to be with the little darlings 24/7, sometimes you need stats and insights like that on your side.

It’s a complex conversation and many parents have different feelings towards work and childcare set ups – we need to live with space for nuance in there, but for those who need and/or want to combine the two, it’s time for us to accept that the two worlds can co-exist.

2.???? Part time working gives a fifth of the chance of being promoted compared to full time peers (Working Families Index). Now, let me start by saying not everybody wants to get promoted and many of us need to have a long hard look at the definitions of ambition we hold. However. The connection between your working pattern and access to promotion is a troubling one that we need to challenge. How much talent are we missing out on because broken, outdated systems are holding people back?

3.???? Healthcare, retail, and education are the three areas with the least access to flexible working. Areas which have a high representation of women in the workforce. Alesha De Freitas put a call out to these industries to think about how we attract much needed talent in and move through a cultural mindset shift. What are other people doing? What could be trialled? Key questions Alesha left the audience with to explore.

4.???? Let’s not take for granted that hybrid working isn’t the only version of flexible working. It goes hand in hand with the point above. Of course there are examples of roles that can’t be done in a hybrid way – Jane Van Zyl pointed out that in many ways the work set ups during covid will have exacerbated that view. If you’re working in a retail store, there’s no set up around that will bring customers to you for example. However, when we go back to that reminder that flexible working comes in many shapes and sizes, are we really exhausting all the options or are we jumping to unhelpful conclusions?

5.???? 82% of line managers are given no formal training according to the CMI and it was a stat I was glad Jane shared. Because here’s the thing: we put an unbelievable amount of pressure and accountability on line managers, but with very little infrastructure to back it up. We’ve got swathes of folks clinging on for dear life to policies that they don’t really know how to navigate or meet people in their lived experiences with. It’s no wonder the cracks appear. I’m calling time on the line manager lottery – it’s not a game anybody wants a ticket for.

6.???? Jenny from Zurich had some impressive stats on the impact of advertising all roles as part-time, full time or job share. A delicious 33% increase in applications to senior roles from women, 6 women on a 10 person board – and not a whiff of performative action,. By their own admission, they would never go back to old practices.

Zurich also know it wasn’t plain sailing, something they could do alone and wasn’t without challenge. When you’re making a sizeable change that might feel uncomfortable to some, there’s zero-point brushing things under the carpet and hoping for the best. Zurich sent a clear message early on in the trial stages (in my opinion) by bringing in external council, measuring the stats and engaging their people in the journey.

7.???? There’s an assumption of choice when accessing flexible working arrangements. And this really is a big, complex discussion that stretches far wider than a conversation about flexible working. Yes, some things many of us make a choice in. That choice might come with different privileges, navigating different intersectionality and understanding what our individual definitions of success are. But…choice could suggest we should be 100% happy with what we have, that we just need to ‘crack on’. I can’t say that’s been my experience or for many of the people I work with.

8.???? Sticky floors. Not a phrase that was used in the room, but it’s something I use to sum up a challenge Jane shared. When we have people held back by flexible working attitudes, or we start to make mental trade-offs to get access to flex set ups, we may find ourselves in a job that we don’t really want to be in, isn’t letting us achieve our potential and keeps us locked into environments we’ve got no chance of thriving in. Between glass ceilings, cliffs and sticky floors – it’s no wonder we’re navigating mega choppy talent pools.

So where next?

Well, I’m hoping more of this kind of discussion coupled with fresh ideas, but I’d also love to see:

• A more inclusive conversation about flexible working. It’s still classed as a parent and carer issue I think, which on a really practical level, it does help with the juggling logistics. However, many of us without caring responsibilities want to work flexibly, and I think we need to put greater value into that.
• Line manager support and an honest account of organisational culture – personally I think we have to call time on archaic practices of upskilling line managers, AND shake the idea that just because someone is good at their job they’d be great at running a team. The two don’t always go hand in hand. How about we go and ask line managers what they’d love support with, or how they learn best? I doubt we’ll ever be able to bespoke 100% of someone’s training, but having a blended approach on offer would take into account different needs more than not. For example – if you’re landing a new policy, by all means stick it in some e-learning, but also consider some line manager drop in sessions, or encourage a peer to peer support network meet up, or use an internal comms platform to do some story sharing about how individual teams are rolling it out.
• Story sharing and experience swapping – and not just the shiny polished end points. It really is an experience of twists and turns for many businesses, and industry to industry too. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if at different stages of the flex journey companies felt the confidence to speak up? I can understand the nervousness or the worry you might be ‘cancelled’ if you say something isn’t working – but, and it’s a big but, we won’t change anything if we don’t challenge it. Saying something isn’t quite working out or that you need to extend a trial, or you’re looking for external expertise isn’t the same as dishing out the polarising and limited views that ‘flexible working doesn’t work here.’
• Check ins and feedback loops – even if you think you’re doing a cracking job as an organisation when it comes to flexible working, when did you last get insights from your people? I know many organisations had to act quickly on implementing hybrid working during the pandemic – have you genuinely revisited your approach since then? With many different ways to work flexibly, perhaps there are new things you could be offering? Those new ways of working in 2020 were in a time of crisis – we can’t underestimate the power of looking again with fresher, slightly less panicked eyes.

?Ok, I think that’s me done for now! Really looking forward to seeing where this goes in the future and I hope it opens up further debate and action, because it feels like we need it now more than ever.