Interim Human Resources Management - Reasons to be Flexible

Growing numbers of staff wish to work additional flexibly so as to realize a better balance between their jobs and the remainder of their lives. But while growing numbers of organisations are making an attempt to accommodate their staff’ requests, they're doing it not out of altruism but for smart business reasons. Edges range from increased motivation, productivity and retention, to raised client service and considerable reductions in each prices and CO2.
But, many employers still resist the robust business case for flexible working. They worry that workers working from home can shirk, which customers can lose faith if they can’t talk to whom they wish exactly when and where they want. Some employers believe that a want to work flexibly implies a scarcity of commitment, that it's primarily a profit for operating mothers which it will breed resentment among those who don’t work flexibly.
But these very attitudes represent the most important obstacle to flexible working. Alternative key components include winning the obtain-in of line managers by showing them how it can profit the team, the customer and also the business; communicating flexible working as a profit for everyone, not just women; having robust policies and practices; learning to trust human staff; and, crucially, monitoring output, not input.
In companies like DSGI, BT, Lloyds TSB and 1st Direct, which have been sturdy pioneers of flexible working, flexibility for front-line workers and management levels are managed quite differently. The firms provide an array of different flexible working options, as well as term-time or faculty hours working, evening or night working, compressed hours, home operating and rolling shifts, and try to accommodate the requirements of front-line workers as so much as doable by scheduling them in against the requirements of the business on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis.
However, when it comes to back workplace and central support functions, where folks work in smaller groups, flexibility is managed more informally. Melissa Godfray, senior manager, equality and diversity at Lloyds TSB, says that sensible line management, bolstered by training - along with a big dose of wisdom - are crucial.
“In our team, as an example, we tend to have a weekly location planner so that everybody - each internally and externally - is aware of where everybody else is and once they are accessible, whether or not it is on the phone or by email. And you ought to avoid scheduling conferences at 7.30 within the morning if a number of the team will’t create it,” she says.
Indeed, some of the foremost senior and demanding jobs are being done on a versatile basis. Godfray says: “Our head of expatriate banking flies the planet all the time, but works a compressed fortnight so that he will pay sensible chunks of your time together with his family when he’s in the UK.”
Likewise, Caroline Waters, director, individuals and policy at BT Group, works from home one or two days a week, another BT senior government works a compressed week and nevertheless another works entirely from home. “We tend to have examples at every level,” says Waters.
However managing versatile working successfully, particularly at management level and on top of, is additionally a matter of give and take, points out Godfray. “Workers would possibly would like to change their time off from a Friday to a Monday, as an example, to accommodate an necessary meeting, or be prepared to take an urgent decision after they are at home.”
They may additionally want to be versatile if, for a few reason, their request for a given pattern of working is turned down. “But we tend to encourage line managers not simply to turn down a request outright, but to explore additional workable alternatives. Giving individuals time to mull over a compromise solution is additionally important, because these items will be terribly emotive,” says Godfray.
In these leading corporations, versatile working is communicated as a benefit for all workers, not simply operating mothers, and take-up is the identical among both men and women. “Communicating successful versatile operating is enormously vital too, and we tend to take each opportunity to showcase the people - men and women at all levels - who do it,” says Godfray.
Operating a lot of flexibly doesn’t mean operating less laborious; it usually means just the opposite. BT’s analysis shows that the average productivity of a private operating from house is 20% more than when they are in the office. The expansion of homeworking at BT delivers an additional ?8m onto the bottom line each year. And therefore the savings don’t stop there.
Waters explains: “Since 2000 we have a tendency to have taken ?500m off our real estate costs. Our return rate once maternity leave is 99% compared to the UK average of forty%, that saves us between ?4m and ?5m in recruitment costs. Overall, our employees turnover is three% in an trade where seventeen-18% is the norm." People additionally travel less. "In one year alone we tend to used 12m litres less fuel, saving ?10m and fifty four,000 tonnes of CO2.”
Flexible working is nice for business, but for many organisations it requires a shift in mindset and culture.

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