The many faces of flexible working
Sally works at DuoMe, a tech company that designs ways to improve hybrid working for teams who are not in the same space. Recently she wrote an article about how offices were set up in the past to utilise face-to-face interaction, and how mainstreaming hybrid working will change the game.
Research from the UK Government and jobs website Indeed has revealed that offering flexible working arrangements increases job applications by 30%. A national shift to flexible working would boost productivity and particularly help women and those outside major cities.
Read about it here:
Tell us about your article.
Sally: “My article discusses Thomas Allen’s work in the 1970’s, who came up with the Allen Curve.
“The theory basically says: the further you sit from someone, the less you will talk to them.
“It showed that the standard office design means that people are grouped in similar disciplines and will only talk to others working on similar things.
“Because leaders’ ideas of productivity have been shaped by people being physically present in an office, they haven’t explored different ways of working.The pandemic has finally changed that. The demand for mainstream flexible working presents an opportunity to finally bust the Allen Curve.”
Why might presenteeism make people less productive?
Sally: “Presenteeism is the idea that if people are seen to be hands-on and working at their desks then they are being productive.
“People don’t want to contest this status quo because they’re trying to progress in their jobs, and the workplace has not seen real change until it’s been forced to by the crisis. In Allen’s time we worked like automatums. The office was set up to allow leaders to watch people sitting at their desks and make sure they were working.
“Flexible working practice allows people to contribute how they will be most productive.
“We need to stop expecting people to be available all the time just because we can’t see them. Different methods of working are going to be required. People aren’t necessarily working concurrent hours when they’re not in the office.
“Leaders have to get used to flexibility among their workforce and not shape accomplishment by the length of time people are at their desks. If you work in a hybrid pattern, you are not always working the same hours as people in the office.”
What are your hopes for flexible working?
Sally: “Flexible working becoming a Day 1 right would change the goalposts fundamentally in the UK.”
What are your other favourite theories on flexible working?
Sally: “So, in the 1950’s Cecil Northcott Parkinson wrote about ‘Parkinson’s Law’: the idea that work expands to fill the time available to complete it. If you don’t allocate work efficiently, people spend the whole day on something that should only take a few hours.
“By making people feel they have to be available every minute of the day for a possible call or task, you are making them succumb to Parkinson’s Law. This is sometimes the case when people work remotely.
“There’s an argument to be made that those who need flexible working the most don’t have time for this: they will get things done in the time it needs because they don’t have the hours spare.”
What is the government doing?
The Government has announced plans to make requesting flexible working a day one right. We have opened a consultation to reform flexible working regulations and change default working practices.
This will include introducing a day one right to one-week’s unpaid leave for carers balancing a job with caring responsibilities.
The Government has also worked with the Flexible Working Taskforce to produce advice for employers and employees on the practical and current legal issues associated with hybrid working (a mixture of workplace and remote working). The Taskforce will continue to help the Government properly understand the profound changes in working over the past 16 months — and promote flexible working as we build back better from the pandemic.
Types of flexible working include:
- job sharing: two people do one job and split the hours
- part time: working less than full-time hours (usually by working fewer days)
- compressed hours: working full-time hours but over fewer days
- flexitime: the employee chooses when to start and end work (within agreed limits) but works certain ‘core hours’, for example 10am to 4pm every day
- annualised hours: the employee has to work a certain number of hours over the year but they have some flexibility about when they work
- staggered hours: the employee has different start, finish and break times from other workers.
- working from home: it might be possible to do some or all of the work from home or anywhere else other than the normal place of work
- phased retirement: older workers can choose when they want to retire, meaning they can reduce their hours and work part time
