Flexible Working: The Business Case
What do the programming of the black box voice recorder and supersonic Concorde have in common?
Both were done by women working from home, part-time.
Freelance Programmers – the software company founded by Dame Stephanie Shirley in the early 1960s – used two simple strategies in its course to success. A ‘trust the staff’ approach, and a telephone. The company was ‘of and for’ women, affording women opportunities to stay in employment, particularly after marriage or when the first baby was expected. Dame Shirley established the company after encountering the glass ceiling too many times.
And in terms of the eight-hour working day, do you know when and why that began? Over a century ago, invented for factory workers. The world has changed a fair bit since.
When pregnant, one of many subjects that will be of particular concern is the transition back to work after having your baby. How will you integrate your work and motherhood?
Most businesses will have a flexible working policy, but many prospective mothers fear that the spirit of the policy won’t be enforced. Despite the success of flexible working, which began decades ago, this fear is frequently valid. In our experience, it remains the case that you may often only benefit from flexible working if you push for this as an individual, instead of relying on the organisation offering it.
It’s pretty obvious how flexible working benefits employees. The purpose of this article is to correlate true flexible working with the multitude of business benefits that arise to help you in your fight for flexible working post-pregnancy – or, possibly, before pregnancy.
What is flexible working?
It’s helpful to consider the three core components of flexible (a.k.a. agile) working:
Where work is carried out (e.g. at home, in a coffee shop, in a different office)
When work is conducted (e.g. flexi-time, shift work, compressed hours)
How much work is done (e.g. part-time hours, job sharing, sabbaticals)
After your maternity leave has expired, it’s likely that you will choose to apply for at least one of these flexible working options, and possibly a mix of all three.
In our view, we don’t believe that gender parity will be achieved in senior roles, including more women at board level, without companies genuinely embracing flexible working.
The eight business benefits
1. Talent acquisition
An increasing proportion of the working population are drawn to positions that offer flexible working, yet still a relatively small proportion of jobs offer it. By embracing flexible working, more candidates will find a position viable. An organisation outside a large city may only draw upon a small local talent pool. But with the ability to work from home and/or from a closer office being included in the job description at the outset, the number and calibre of applications will increase.
An organisation should also be wary of the assumption that it needs to recruit someone full-time. Instead, it may be best to pay someone more senior and experienced on a part-time basis on the same salary, but who is more efficient and effective at their job.
2. Talent retention
A company’s approach to flexible working can make or break a woman being able to continue in her career after her pregnancy. BT has reported that flexible working has increased its retention of female staff following maternity leave from 96% to 99%. This increase equates to savings of £5 million annually in recruitment and associated costs.
3. Diversity
A significant contributory factor to the underrepresentation of women on management boards is the failure to make part-time working more respected in business cultures and more available in the recruitment market. Addressing both would greatly assist in maintaining a pipeline of female talent through middle management to board level. Greater diversity benefits everyone. As well as the social benefits, research has shown that companies are better run and more profitable with more women at board level.
And to give that more meaning, let’s consider the massive impact that diversity could have on the world. Companies currently at the forefront of critical innovations, from low-carbon technologies to combat climate change, to life-enhancing and life-saving medical treatments, and to transitioning to the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ – with more women at board level making key decisions and impacting company culture, which has a trickle-down effect, the evidence that these same companies would be better run must surely equate to an expedited route to successfully achieving these urgent and important environmental and societal outcomes.
4. Costs savings
Two of the most expensive aspects of running a business are labour and property. By embracing flexible working, the use of office space and parking may be streamlined to account for the proportion of staff working remotely on any one-day, representing significant savings in rent, rates and utilities. Not to mention other cost savings, such as those mentioned above under “talent retention.”
5. Environmental impact
If an employee works from home instead of driving, then there’s no impact on the environment from CO2 and NOx emissions from their vehicle. If an employee is allowed to work flexibly and avoid rush hour, then such emissions are again reduced. A reduction in the carbon-footprint of an organisation can only be a good thing.
6. Safety
Linked to the point above, a major utility company allows workers to choose when they arrive and leave to avoid rush hour traffic. As driving to and from work represents one of the greatest safety risks to employees, safety is improved by allowing staff to avoid peak congestion times on motorways and other roads.
7. Employee engagement
Engagement scores – particularly from female staff, but generally across the board – will increase if flexible working is embraced. A third of mothers want to work part-time, and men under the age of 35 with children also want to spend more time at home. It’s important for men to be able to work flexibly too, which would have the added benefit of removing the stigma for women. It’s also known that a key facet to motivation – and in consequence productivity – is to feel in control, and able to make our own choices. By giving employees the freedom to choose how and where to work, they will benefit from the autonomy that is crucial to motivation.
8. Quality of output and productivity
Multiple studies have shown that both the quality and quantity of output is often higher where an organisation embraces flexible working. The business will frequently benefit from a more talented, committed pool of better qualified, more able and more engaged employees that apply for jobs where they’re advertised as, for example, part-time jobs.
The General Counsel at a large telecommunications company in the UK asks the question “are you doing your best job sitting at your desk?” The answer for his team is “no,” and so he encourages flexible working, both working from home for two days a week on a day of the employee’s choice, as well as shifted hours and part-time working.
In the USA, there’s more of a notion that as long as you deliver, they don’t care how you do it, and that productivity doesn’t equal activity.
When working from home, with a commute cut out, a personalised home office and potentially better-quality, longer sleep, an employee is more likely to be productive and/or work longer hours.
Objections
If you work Monday to Thursday, what happens if a client needs you on a Friday?
A large City law firm once encountered this dilemma when implementing a four-day working week – this time, one imposed by the firm on formerly full-time employees after the 2008 recession. The firm came up with a creative solution: it pays its staff 85% of their salary for a 4-day week, instead of 80%. The extra 5% is to acknowledge that employees might occasionally have to do some work (e.g. take a call) on Fridays, but only when it’s genuinely necessary in an emergency. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t, depending on how much ‘call out’ is required. This approach also helps to mitigate the sometimes negative connotations associated with part-time, so that you’re not necessarily wholly unavailable on the fifth day. This approach potentially offers the best of both worlds, as the employee benefits from flexibility while the business has assurance that they’re available in the case of emergency, which ought to be relatively rare for most businesses.
What if there’s an emergency on your day off and you’re not available?
This is linked to the previous point, which we won’t repeat here. In terms of availability, the sense of immediacy we often have is frequently nothing more than a bad habit and cultural in a team or organisation. Where jobs genuinely need immediacy like the police, air traffic control or hospitals, people work in shifts and then have a complete break, as there’s a recognition that performance and health deteriorates otherwise. For professionals, there’s a myth of availability, that you need to be available 24/7 to compete with peers for promotion, but it’s an unhealthy habit. Most things can and should wait.
How can I trust that staff working from home are actually working?
Some struggle with trusting their employees when working from home or controlling their own hours, but equally employees could be sat at their desks in the middle of the office and might not be working effectively. Generally, if you have a set of clear objectives in your role, it’ll be difficult to abuse the process without getting discovered. Often the weakest team members work the longest hours. Technology is also helpful e.g. Skype.
It’s important to start with considering what outputs the business wants, and then how this can be achieved. All too often, the potential for flexible working isn’t fully considered (which it ought to be under law). As well as outputs, consider the availability necessary for the role.
There’s arguably a greater risk with flexible working that employees work too hard, and that they end up doing too many hours. There’s also a risk of part-time employees (especially those working 4-day weeks) end up working full-time, but being paid pro rata. Employees and the business ought to consider practical measures to mitigate these risks.
What if clients don’t like it?
In our experience, most often clients have no issue with flexible working. In fact, most see it as a good thing, and progressive clients may already adopt the same approach to flexible working.
Legal advice
ACAS provides an excellent, free helpline for employees and employers. If you believe you’ve been discriminated against on the basis of your maternity or your flexible working request has been refused, ACAS can help: www.acas.org.uk
We would suggest you consider joining a union at least 3 months before you need to negotiate your flexible working arrangements e.g. Prospect, a union for professionals. While on maternity leave, often the fee for union membership is a much-reduced, nominal monthly sum, and is absolutely worth-while as a contingency if e.g. your flexible working request is denied, or your performance review is degraded for the period prior or post maternity leave.
We would also recommend including the ‘Legal Expenses’ option on your home insurance policy, which often covers employment disputes.
Quick tips:
It’s essential for leaders to practice what they preach. So if you’re a business executive who wants to encourage a flexible working culture, there’s no better influence than leading by example and visibly working flexibly.
Most jobs are still advertised as traditional, full-time, office-based roles. Don’t automatically rule out those positions, particularly as the labour market is tight in the UK at the moment, with record employment levels. Go to the interview, smash the interview, and then ask whether they can provide the flexible working you’re seeking.
Cazzana provides luxury maternity workwear and career advice before, during and after pregnancy to empower existing and future female leaders.
Please note that all advice is based on our own experiences and does not constitute formal advice, and is instead general in nature. It does not take into account your personal circumstances.
Baby James busy working from home…without a tie…