Flexible Working: A Talent Imperative

Transcription

1 Flexible Working: A Talent Imperative Natalie Gill Programme Director, Timewise

2 Aims for today To explore the business case for flexible working & the principles of flexible job design To share and discuss applicability to your organisations To begin to evaluate your level of maturity with regard to flexibility at work & the opportunities to build on this Draw on case studies of good practice across a range of sectors

3 What We Do. Research and Campaigns: new insight to employers & policy makers to stimulate action to grow a quality flexible jobs market Change Programmes: supporting employers & policy makers to drive cultural and operational change on flexible job design and hiring UK s leading marketplace for good flexible jobs: growing the quality flexible jobs market for job seekers

4 Why is flexible working important?

5 To progress talent We need to change the way we work

6 The changing shape of the workforce 5 generations in the workplace: 84% of global millennials expect to have significant breaks over the course of their career, flexing hours up and down at different stages ¼ of UK workers are aged 50+ and of those, nearly 1/3 expect to work part-time to supplement retirement income Of the 32m UK workforce: Working parents: 1/3 of the workforce Mothers: 4.9 million working mothers [ONS 2017] Carers: >3 million working carers [Carers UK] Disability: 3.4m declared disability [DWP 2016] Part-time: 25% of UK workforce (of whom 70% actively want/need it) ¼ of part-timers are men (of whom 52% actively want/need it)

7 Flexible Working: The Demand

8 Flexible Working: The Demand

9 Flexible working is good for business Talent Retention & Attraction incl. internal progression Skills utilisation & productivity Employer brand Tackling Gender Pay Gap Diversity and inclusion Motivation and engagement Reduce real estate footprint

10 What Needs to Change? Shifting the behavioural pattern of offering flexible working as a concession to implementing proactive Flexible Job Design to progress talent & maximise performance at all job levels.

11 What are the barriers? Flexible workers are focussed on life outside work Flexibility is just a childcare issue Senior jobs can t be done on a part-time basis Flexibility is a benefit to the individual, not the business A returner won t be fully committed to their role Millenials will work long hours to build their careers

12 The importance of flexible job design

13 Principle of flexible job design: Matching needs

14 Thinking differently about job design WHERE. Remote working: occasional/informal; home; mobile; other offices WHEN. Full-time flexible: occasional/informal; flexible start/finish times; annualized; compressed; project based HOW MUCH. Part-time; job-sharing; job-splitting; unpaid leave

15 Where you work Do the stakeholders need presence or availability via technology? Performance management: How can outputs be measured? Team protocols on: Communication and knowledge sharing Team cohesion

16 When you work Key concepts: Predictability of the work Substitutability of the team: expertise and relationships Can the job-holder be interrupted during their time off? Pace of the work? Keeping up/catching up in a fast-moving environment

17 How much you work: outputs and hours

18 Discussion where are you now & what is your ambition?

19 Your experiences 1. What does flexible working mean to you? 2. What is the level of flexible maturity in your organisation? 3. Are there areas where it works well? Why do you think that is?

20 Where are you now? 1 10 It s a nightmare Bring it on! We encourage it in certain roles We support it - if someone asks We tolerate it reluctantly We proactively promote it We accept it - if someone asks We want more of it We know we have to accommodate it We want to do more to encourage it

21 1. What does flexible working mean to you? 2. What is the level of flexible maturity in your organisation? 3. Are there areas where it works well? Why do you think that is? 1 10 It s a nightmare Bring it on! We encourage it in certain roles We support it - if someone asks We tolerate it reluctantly We proactively promote it We accept it - if someone asks We want more of it We know we have to accommodate it We want to do more to encourage it

22 How do you move up the maturity scale?

23 Flexibility Audit: Multi-national FMCG AIM: To achieve gender parity by 2020 ACTIONS: 1-1 interviews with ExCo members Focus groups covering staff in Europe, America, South Asia Analysis of existing data & review of existing policies OUTCOME: Agreed global flexible working principles and guidelines Developed a three-year flexible working action plan

24 Flexible Job Design: Retail AIM: To develop flexible career pathways in store to retain and progress top talent ACTIONS: Reviewed the operating models for our 5 pioneers Developed 5-step flexible job design process for retail Includes approaches for rostering managers differently & building a set of flexible/part-time job descriptions OUTCOME: Have a sector benchmark against which other retailers can be measured Running pilots with a view to rolling out more widely

25 Flexible Hiring: Financial Services AIM: To use flexible working as an attraction tool for candidates ACTIONS: Upskilling resourcing team to be confident about the flex on offer Developed agile hiring toolkit for line managers Embedded agile working options into the recruitment system OUTCOME: 90% of all vacancies now advertised as agile 43% of employees are now working in an agile way

26 What can you do? 1. Drive leadership action: Build the business case. Walk the talk. Find role models. 2. Upskill line managers: Move from reactive to proactive. 3. Open to flexibility? Talk about it at the point of hire

27 27