The term flexible working relates to an organisation’s working arrangements in terms of working time, working location and the pattern of working.
A CIPD survey Flexible working: impact and implementation explored the extent to which employers are making use of flexible working practices. These included (with descriptions based on Acas guidance):
- Part-time working: work is generally considered part-time when employers are contracted to work anything less than full-time hours.
- Term-time working: a worker remains on a permanent contract but can take paid/unpaid leave during school holidays.
- Job-sharing: a form of part-time working where two (or occasionally more) people share the responsibility for a job between them.
- Flexitime: allows employees to choose, within certain set limits, when to begin and end work.
- Compressed hours: compressed working weeks (or fortnights) don't necessarily involve a reduction in total hours or any extension in individual choice over which hours are worked. The central feature is reallocation of work into fewer and longer blocks during the week.
- Annual hours: the period within which full-time employees must work is defined over a whole year.
- Working from home on a regular basis: workers regularly spend time working from home.
- Mobile working/teleworking: this permits employees to work all or part of their working week at a location remote from the employer's workplace.
- Career breaks: career breaks, or sabbaticals, are extended periods of leave – normally unpaid – of up to five years or more.