At a recent London conference on flexible working, Neil Sherlock, a partner at KPMG and chair of the charity Working Families, said there was a simple answer to how to create loyalty and commitment among employees. “The secret is to allow people to manage themselves.”
Flexible working, which requires considerable self-management, is a hot topic across Europe. This month, the UK government pledged to extend the right to request flexible working to parents of children up to 16, following the recommendations of an independent review. Flexibility and work-life balance are strong themes running through the practices of companies in the Best Workplaces in Europe ranking.
But what is the reality behind the policies on work-life balance, which are now widespread? How easy is it for employees to work flexibly? Is it a “career killer”, or an effective way of keeping valued people in the organisation?
A new study of seven leading companies by Cranfield School of Management, in collaboration with Working Families, has debunked some myths and revealed some surprises about flexible working. It found that:
• Informal flexible working, for example working at home one day a week, or working non-standard hours, is far more widespread than formal arrangements, such as part-time working. About 70 per cent of people working flexibly in these companies said they had informal arrangements.
• Overall, women are not more likely than men to work flexibly. Women are more often found in formal arrangements, but informal flexible working is as common among men as women.
• Flexible working is found even in the toughest, most competitive businesses. The companies involved in the research included Microsoft, which comes top of this year’s large company ranking of Best Workplaces in Europe, but also Citi and Lehman Brothers, the investment banks, and the defence aerospace business of Rolls-Royce.
• Nearly half of managers say flexibility has a positive impact on the quantity of work delivered, and most of the other managers say it has no effect. The vast majority of managers also report a positive or neutral impact on the quality of work.
As regards loyalty, flexible workers score themselves significantly higher than non-flexible workers in terms of their commitment to their organisation. Their self-assessment is backed up by managers and colleagues. Moreover, flexible workers are significantly less likely than others to believe that moving between companies is important for their careers.
Not everything is rosy, however. The researchers point out that informal arrangements may be easier to establish but they are also more vulnerable if the individual or the manager who agrees them moves to another job.
The reason why informal arrangements outnumber formal ones could be that there is a persistent belief, even in companies with a stated commitment to flexible working, that it can have a negative impact on people’s careers. People may thus prefer to keep their arrangements below the radar.
Achieving a flexible arrangement still depends heavily on having a sympathetic manager. The study found pockets of resistance and inconsistency among managers in relation to flexible and remote working, with some saying they were unwilling to give crucial pieces of work to people unless they could “keep a close eye on them”.
Finally, while most people feel that working flexibly is positive for their work-life balance, one in 10 report a negative impact because of the blurring of boundaries between work and home life. As one person says: “Clearly the pressure of trying to do what could be a full-time job in three days a week is quite stressful.”
Mr Sherlock of KPMG believes three things need to happen inside organisations. Managers must have more help in learning techniques and tools for managing people working remotely or on flexible hours. More people in senior positions must be open about how they work flexibly without it affecting their career. And companies must “turn up the noise” in reassuring people that promotion does not depend on working long hours in the office.
Neil Hedges, chairman of Fishburn Hedges, the corporate communications consultancy that has featured in the Best Workplace ranking each year, says requiring people to be present at work, even when they have little or nothing to do, is a “dreadful waste of humanity”.
“We’re not in the least interested in the number of hours people spend in the office. Our only interest is serving clients and productivity,” he says. He admits to taking his BlackBerry on holiday and says he checks it once a day so that things do not have to await his return to the office. “It’s a very demanding business. Clients who retain us do require us to be on demand most of the day and indeed sometimes at night.”
But he says everyone works flexibly and the culture is one of mutual trust, which helps explain the lower than average staff turnover rate (18 per cent versus about 27 per cent). He believes it is important for people to be open about what they are doing. “In some work cultures, there’s a tendency to make it covert. We’ve discouraged that … people are pretty good about saying ‘I’m working from home tomorrow’.”
