Partner Article

Flexible working

It’s not just about making adjustments for people with parental responsibilities, disabilities or looking for phased retirement.

Flexible working is about working smarter - working wherever and whenever it is most effective to enable you to get the work done. It can cut costs, boost productivity, motivate people and release potential. It can involve changing hours worked, changing the times required to work and working from other locations.

Flexible working will become more the norm as we move into a future with job growth outstripping growth in the working population and more over 50’s being in work than those in their 40’s.

The severe weather we have had over recent years almost brought parts of the country to a standstill, but some businesses continued more or less as usual, many down to flexible working. Things such as working from home, using phone and video conferencing and out of hours working were used to great effect meaning blocked roads did not mean blocked business.

Trust is a great part of flexible working. Trusting your employees to work from home and them trusting you not to be constantly checking up on them. You need to look at outputs and results rather than hours worked all the time, a fundamental shift in normal management process.

Leadership is also important to set an example, make sure any additional resources are made available such as improved IT services, ensure the correct support is given to employees and to ensure the system is fair, consistent and benefits the organisation. Things need to be in writing either in flexible working policies or written in to contracts so everyone knows where they stand to avoid grievance claims etc. The key here is to consult employees, ask them what systems they would find beneficial and look at those first.

Flexible working involves give and take and different solutions work for different businesses so it is important to analyse your business and get staff involved to come up with potential solutions. It needs to be treated as any business tool to help you achieve your business objectives and if it doesn’t improve systems or aid objectives then don’t do it.

www.petandr.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Petar LLP .