The pandemic has shown that flexible working can be successful. For some organisations, switching from 5 days a week face-to-face contact with employees to fully remote working was a doddle. For others, business operations being remote has been a logistical nightmare.

Despite this, the working world in 2021 and beyond the pandemic is likely to remain flexible. In this article we provide a suggested framework to approach the question of flexible working and opportunities to use these ideas to positively impact two areas of the people agenda – the gender pay gap, and increasing talent pools.

What is flexible working?

The perception of flexible working is subjective and unique to every employee – determined by an amendment to working practices that benefits the individual.

Take a working parent for example. Flexible working to them may be being able to work hours suited to the school run, whereas an employee who resides far away from their place of work may perceive flexibility as being able to work remotely for a proportion of the working week to avoid the long commute.

Although the definition is subjective there are a few main types of commonly recognised flexible working arrangements. These include:

• Flexible working hours (sometimes called ‘flexi-time’);
• Working from home or remotely (for some or all of the working week);
• Part-time work (working less than full-time hours);
• Term-time work (working days and hours in line with the school holidays);
• Staggered hours (where an employee has different start, finish and break times from other workers);
• Compressed hours (allowing employees to work longer hours and fewer days); and
• Job-sharing (responsibilities of a role being split between two employees).

When discussing the impact that flexible working will have on areas of business in the future, I refer to the broader sense of flexibility, as defined above.

Communication and the principles of flexibility

A ‘one size fits all’ approach is unlikely to succeed, as everyone’s idea of flexibility differs.

To make flexibility really work, it is vital that organisations have open and transparent conversations with their workforce about what the organisation needs from their employees (past their presence), what flexibility truly means to each employee, and - as a caveat - what employees need from their employer in order for flexibility to work successfully for them.

Consider employees who are concerned that flexibility may hinder their progression. In this case it is about building a narrative between employer and employee saying “this is how flexible working will work in line with your progression opportunities”, “this is what the organisations requires of you in order for flexibility to work and for it not to hinder your development and progression”.

So, as a result, it is important that organisations have well-thought-out flexibility principles embedded in the organisation and in line with their values, in order to guide conversations and decisions pertaining to flexible working. This in turn creates greater accountability, transparency and consistency of these decisions.

In some organisations there can be limited scope for flexible working due to the nature of the job. Conflicts could arise in between those who need to be at the workplace and those who can work remotely, where flexibility is easier to offer to the latter.

This situation is a prime example of how flexibility principles can help in having constructive conversations with all parties, outlining what flexibility could look like (e.g. shift patterns) and the reasons why it is or isn’t possible to implement.

Organisations could take this one step further - reviewing whether roles could be redesigned with flexibility incorporated could help to minimise the risk of losing good talent. Here your flexibility principles will help guide decisions on this matter.

Once the principles of flexibility are in place, this can be used to assist the people agenda in two specific areas – the gender pay gap and the widening of recruitment pools.

The Gender Pay gap

A statistic that resonates with me after attending a Diversity & Inclusion webinar late last year is that 2 in 5 women in the UK are considering quitting their jobs as they struggle with balancing work, home and schooling responsibilities.

There are two things here:

1. Organisations may risk losing talented women, especially those in senior posts who originally helped reduce their gender pay gap.
2. Even if you hold on to these talented women, you may find that some are reluctant to progress their careers in fear that if they are struggling to balance work and home demands now, how will they manage when in a more senior post which demands even more of their time?

But it is not all doom and gloom, flexible working can work to mitigate these challenges:

• Designing flexible roles which allow women to work flexibly, will support their ability to manage home and work demands but in a way that does not hinder their ability to climb the ladder.
• Subsequently this will ensure ensuring women can reach senior roles and limiting the number slipping through the promotion net – and ultimately retain key employees who would otherwise likely look to leave. In turn, this will reduce the gender pay gap!
• Further to this, women at senior levels will also act as role models to those below to show what is possible, encouraging more women to follow suit.
• However, it is important to note that designing flexible roles will also benefit male employees and the promotion of flexible working should be gender inclusive. Encouraging men to also utilise flexible working will:

1. Remove the stigma that flexible working is only for women and could start evening out the traditional balance of home working responsibilities between women and men.
2. This in turn can work to change the social norms around caring duties being the responsibility of the woman, to a more equal role.

The opening of the floodgates to wider talent pools

By offering roles that offer some sort of flexibility, employers could open the floodgates to a much wider pool of untapped talent in two ways

1. Attracting talent from (literally) miles away

Firstly, flexibility will enable talent pools open up in locations hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from the main job location – increasing the organisation’s presence nationally, or even internationally. This enables new joiners to connect with talent in the organisation with specialist skills that they would otherwise have missed.

In turn, candidates who have multiple job offers on the table and are in the position to choose who they want to work for are more likely to choose you, giving you the edge over less flexible competitors.

2. Attracting female talent

Secondly, flexibility can be the key to the attraction and retention of female talent by offering roles that fit flexibly around family life.

In 2019 Zurich Insurance began advertising all of their roles with flexible working arrangements, including part-time work and job sharing. They saw nearly a 20% increase in female applicants applying for senior roles as a result of including flexible working in their job advert.

By attracting and retaining female employees as a result of offering flexibility, organisations are naturally facilitating a greater pipeline of future female leaders, whilst also improving their male to female representation across the organisation.

However, an interesting point to note is that Zurich also found an increase in male applicants when they advertised flexible working, suggesting that flexibility is an important requirement for males too – not just for women who are more likely to have caring responsibilities. Again this supplements my earlier point that offering flexibility should be gender inclusive.

As we begin to emerge out of the damaging effects of the pandemic, a great way to get ahead of the game and to maximize your ability to reach the top talent in the market is to offer flexibility.

Take home messages

1. Understand what flexible working is, not just by definition but more importantly by what it means for each and every employee in your organisation.
2. Have clear principles of flexibility and a well communicated view of what flexibility can look like for employees, which ensures that you achieve transparent and consistent decisions on flexible working.
3. Flexible working can facilitate the introduction of interventions that support the wider people agendag. to assist on narrowing the gender pay gap and increasing recruitment pools.

It is very easy to attribute this shift towards the offering of flexibility as a consequence of the pandemic, but evidence suggests that this shift was happening before these unusual times.

It’s about now reflecting on the challenges and experiences around flexible working faced throughout the pandemic, and using these to ensure your employees are getting the flexibility they need to thrive.

Hattie Edwards, Junior Consultant at QCG - January 2021