Member Article

Flexible working benefits business and staff, study suggests

‘Light touch’ legislation around flexible working has benefitted business and staff, suggests research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

The organisation found that only a tiny minority of employers have had difficulties complying with the current right to request flexible working since it was introduced nearly 10 years ago.

96% of employers provide flexible working arrangements to at least some employees, with seven out of ten suggesting the dynamic supports employee retention, motivation and engagement.

Almost two thirds of employers believe flexible working supports their recruitment activities, and half believe it has a positive impact on reducing absence as well as on boosting productivity.

People working for micro, and small firms, are more likely to be working flexibly in some way than those working for medium or large sized employers.

The study showed that while the use of part-time working (32%), flexitime (25%), home working (20%) and mobile working (14%) is comparatively common, other types of flexible working such as compressed hours, job share and term-time working were significantly less common.

Ben Willmott, CIPD Head of Public Policy, comments: “The CIPD has long been calling for the extension of the right to request flexible working to all employees, despite claims from some quarters that the legislation is burdensome for businesses.

“Similar concerns were raised over a decade ago about the plans to introduce the statutory right to request flexible working for parents. Those fears have proved unfounded - regardless of size of organisation.

“Micro and small employers are more likely than larger organisations to manage flexible working informally rather than through formal policies and procedures, which appears to more than compensate for any lack of formal HR support.

“More than seven out of ten employers report that flexible working supports employee retention, motivation and engagement.

“Almost two third of employers believe flexible working supports their recruitment activities, while half believe it has a positive impact on reducing absence as well as on boosting productivity.

“Our report finds that employees satisfied with their work-life balance are more likely to be engaged and less likely to say they are under excessive pressure.”

“Managers are much more likely to be able to work from home or benefit from mobile working than other members of staff and while, this is partly likely to be because of differences in the nature of the work between managers and their employees, in some organisations, it is because of culture and ingrained attitudes.”

“The right to request flexible working has not contributed to any significant increase in employment tribunal claims.

“For example, since 2006, the period for which we have figures, the most number of tribunal claims generated by the flexible working regulations in any one year has been 344, with the vast majority of such claims in all years either resulting in an Acas conciliated settlement, withdrawn or settled privately between the parties.

“Put simply, flexible working works for business, and the Government should hold its nerve and go ahead with the extension to all employees. The result will be good news for business, employers and the wider economy.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .