CIPD - Flexible working

HR practice

Revised June 2008

This factsheet gives introductory guidance. It:

considers the different forms flexible working may take
outlines some of the potential benefits and advice for implementation
highlights relevant legislation
includes the CIPD viewpoint.

What is flexible working?

The term flexibility can be used in several different contexts in relation to work. These include:

the concept of a flexible labour market
numerical flexibility (for example arrangements for altering the size of the workforce using temporary, fixed term and agency staff)
functional flexibility (training employees so they’re able to perform a wider range of tasks).

For the purposes of this factsheet, 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 form 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.

Visit the full report of the survey

This list above is not exhaustive. Flexible working could also include practices such as employee self-rostering or shift swapping.

Our research found organisations were most likely to make available to their employees:

Part-time working (86%)
Term-time working (38%)
Job-share (63%)
Flexitime (55%).

Flexible working arrangements can be made available to employees on a formal or informal basis. Working from home is the type of flexible working practice most likely to be offered on the basis of informal arrangements according to the survey.

Evidence from Cranfield¹ is that senior workers (who tend to be men) are more likely to make informal arrangements about where they work and that lower grade workers (who are mainly women) are more likely to seek formal arrangements in their working hours. This was confirmed by speakers from BT and HBOS at a CIPD Diversity Conference in May 2008.

Flexible working: the context

The number of organisations offering staff the opportunity to work flexibly has almost doubled in the last six years according to the latest Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS)².

Managers are also beginning to show more understanding of employee’s responsibilities outside work. According to WERS, in 1998, 84 per cent of managers believed it was up to an individual employee to balance their work and family responsibilities. By 2004 this had decreased to 65 per cent. For more information on developments in this area, see our factsheet on work-life balance.

Go to our factsheet on work-life balance

Some of the factors contributing to increased interest in the use of flexible working include:

Its potential value as a recruitment and retention tool in a tight labour market.
The changing profile of the workforce (for example, with more women in the labour market and an ageing population, it is increasingly common for workers to have caring responsibilities outside the workplace).
Advances in technology (facilitating, for example, remote working and hotdesking arrangements).
An increasing need for businesses to be able to deliver services to customers on a 24/7 basis.

What are the potential benefits of flexible working?

CIPD research on employee attitudes and the psychological contract demonstrates a correlation between a flexible working and positive contract - see our factsheet on the psychological contract.

Go to our factsheet on the psychological contract

Our most recent employee survey carried out for CIPD by Kingston University/Ipsos MORI found that 'workers on flexible contracts tend to be more emotionally engaged, more satisfied with their work, more likely to speak positively about their organisation and less likely to quit'³.

CIPD survey research among HR professionals provides an insight into the effects they perceive of implementing flexible working practices on their organisation – as shown in the table below.

Reasons why organisations make use of flexible working practices

	1 = 'Not impor-tant'	2	3	4	5 = 'Very impor-tant'	Don't know	Mean
To help retain staff	1	3	10	39	47		4.3
To meet employees' needs	1	2	16	38	43		4.2
To comply with legislation	2	6	23	21	47	1	4.1
To support business needs	3	4	21	33	38	1	4.0
To meet customers' needs	6	7	21	24	39	3	3.9
To help recruit staff	3	7	20	37	31	1	3.9
To support employer brand	15	14	27	21	15	8	3.1
To maximise use of company premises	37	22	19	10	8	3	2.3

Implementing flexible working practices

Effectively communicating and implementing flexible working in your organisation is likely to require effort and energy. The kind of challenges you might encounter include:

overcoming concerns about operational pressures and meeting customer requirements
line managers’ current ability to effectively manage flexible working
line managers’ current attitudes toward flexible working
your existing organisational culture
a lack of support at senior levels.

The following tips can help you tackle effectively implementing flexible working:

Establish a clear process for how flexible working works in your organisation.
Ensure there clear roles and responsibilities for employees, line managers and HR
Assess the current levels of support you offer your line managers and ensure it is sufficient.
Invest in ongoing communication and awareness raising.
Assess how conducive your organisation culture is to flexible working – and take action accordingly.
Make use of pilots (when introducing new initiatives) and trial periods (for individual flexible working arrangements) in order to highlight potential problems with flexible working arrangements.
Build in opportunities and mechanisms to monitor and evaluate progress with flexible working.

According to Caroline Waters, Director for People & Policy at BT the greatest challenge is to overcome the myths and barriers put up by line managers. She argues that there are clear cost benefits for business in encouraging flexible working arrangements – not least the ‘green’ benefits of tele or home working. The organisation however, does need to invest in changing the mindsets of line managers and in focusing on helping them to manage their people more effectively.

Further advice and practical examples can be found in our Guide Flexible working: the implementation challenge.

Visit our Guides

The legal position

In April 2003 the government introduced the ‘parent’s right to request’. This gives parents with a child aged under six (or parents of a disabled child under the age of eighteen) the right to request flexible working arrangements from their employer.

From April 2007 this right to request was extended to the carers of adults.

In May 2008 the Government completed a review of the flexible working regulations (carried out by Sainsbury's HR Director, Imelda Walsh). This review had a narrow remit to consider raising child-related age limit. The Government has accepted the review’s proposals to raise this limit to 16 and it is anticipated that the amending legislation will take effect from April 2009.

CIPD members can find out more from our FAQ on Flexible working, parental rights and family friendly provisions, and from Recent developments in employment law, both in the Employment Law at Work area of our website.

Go to Employment Law at Work

The CIPD made a strong case to the flexible working review for the right to request to be extended to all workers, since CIPD research demonstrates that many of our members are already going beyond the statutory requirements in areas such as flexible working, maternity and paternity provisions⁵.

CIPD viewpoint

CIPD believes that flexible working arrangements can play a vital role in organisational performance. HR ‘s role should be to identify where and how the organisation can benefit from the great array of flexible working options and then to work with the business and in particular line managers to put these in place. Flexibility is an issue that has become negatively associated with women. The modern HR manager is in a position to make a strong case for using flexibility as a strategic tool to support improved individual and business performance – through greater diversity and increased levels of engagement and commitment from workers at all levels.

Useful contacts

References

CRANFIELD SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT. (2008) Flexible working and performance. London: Working Families. Available at: http://www.workingfamilies.org.uk/asp/employer_zone/
e_publications.asp
KERSLEY, B., ALPIN, C. and FORTH, J. (2005) Inside the workplace: first findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey. London: DTI. Available at http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file11423.pdf
TRUSS, C., SOANE, E. and EDWARDS, C. (2006) Working life: employee attitudes and engagement 2006, Research report. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Available at http://www.cipd.co.uk/bookstore
Focus: family-friendly work legislation. (2006) Labour market outlook, December. pp18-20. Available at http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/hrpract/hrtrends/_lmo1206.htm

Flexible working