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Flexible Working - A small business guide

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As times change, so do the needs of your customers and employees, and businesses are quickly learning the benefits of supporting the work-life balance of their most valuable assets – their employees.

Flexible working means changing the pattern, length and location of your employee’s work. It includes a number of working structures such as part-time or shift work, working from home, job-sharing, flexi-time, or compressed working hours. Self-rostering, for example, allows employees to choose which shifts to work, while flexi-time enables staff to pick hours that suit them and the business. The important thing is to choose a method that suits your business and your employees, one which will contribute to your overall goals while giving your staff the freedom to manage their working and personal lives. Of course, when your employees feel valued and supported in their work-life, you may find this helps increase productivity within the workplace and can even increase customer satisfaction.

Why work flexibly

As your employees’ lives change, so also will their priorities and requirements. However, you don’t necessarily have to lose a good employee simply because their circumstances have changed. Letting your employees work flexibly allows them to maintain other commitments they might have, including caring for children or other dependents.

By allowing staff to work to a schedule that enables them to accommodate other aspects of their lives, employers can increase worker morale and productivity, as well as encourage better use of working hours by reducing commute time and downtime during travel. Flexible working also helps to make a business more versatile, often allowing for longer opening hours, through shift-based staffing or mobile working.

Be creative

There are other options. Some may see the benefit in schemes such as career breaks and paid sabbatical schemes. These are a cost-effective way to retain valued staff or reward those with long service. Another option may be to allow your employees extra days off work, paid or unpaid.

Whether it is ‘time-in-lieu’ or holiday purchase schemes, these arrangements give employees a measure of control over how their working lives are organised and foster greater employee loyalty and commitment.

How to do it

Introducing flexible working does not need to be complicated, as long as you plan how you’re going to implement it. Ultimately the benefits your organisation gains from a workforce that works flexibly will depend on how suitable it is for your business type.
 

• Work-life balance can include improving lives by redesigning jobs to provide some variety of method, location or skills. Perhaps further training can be introduced, with regular feedback on performance.

• Consider the impact on daily operations, deadlines and processes – which of your staff are responsible for getting what done? Do they necessarily have to be based within the office for all deadlines to be met? What technology would staff need in order to maintain access to systems and continue with daily operations?

• Be aware of legislation – know which of your employees has the right to request flexible working and what you, as an employer, need to provide if you grant them permission to do so. Managing requests to work flexibly can be easily handled using free online tools and advice such as that provided on www.businesslink.gov.uk/flexibleworking

• Existing contracts may have to be changed with the prior written agreement of the employees. With alterations to the working relationship, it would be wise to reflect this in your formal contract. Consider using the www.businesslink.gov.uk/writtenstatement tool which can help quickly and cheaply create, or recreate, working terms and conditions.

• If you chose to make it a formal business-wide policy, keep employees informed and consult them before you introduce the policy. This should help employees consider the question of work-life balance from your perspective as well as their own.

In a time when demands from home and work are becoming increasingly complicated and striking the right balance equally challenging, employers that help their employees to achieve this could find a fall in stress, absenteeism, and greater staff morale, their just reward.

Remember, there are no hard-and-fast rules on what constitutes an acceptable work-life balance - this will depend on your organisation’s operational requirements and the needs of your employees.

Monitor how well the new system works

Once the new schedules have been properly bedded down, keep a close eye on operations to ensure that flexible working is indeed benefiting the business. Talk to employees regularly to ensure they are still happy with their new way of working.

About the Author

Written by Kim Fletcher, Business Link Adviser Kent. For more information on how to implement a flexible working policy in your organisation and for other helpful advice that can save you time and money, visit www.businesslink.gov.uk/employingpeople

Posted August 6, 2008