How to make flexible working work

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For flexible working to be effective, consider these points;

Flexible working is most effective if driven from the top – Managers, employees and HR agree that commitment from the top of the organisation makes the biggest difference. At Diageo for example, it is expected that people work from home at least one day a week. Flexible working is heavily built into their culture helping them to remain competitive and attract high quality talent.

Positioning of flexible working – The positioning of flexible working must be your start point – as a business how do you want to manage your people? What is right for a business, its customers and employees will vary.

Evidence is vital – It's essential that you know your business drivers and patterns bahamas phone number list before making any decisions on flexible working requests. Be mindful of your workflow and business peaks. For example if an employee requests to stop working on a Friday, which is also your busiest day, you have a strong case (and hopefully the data) to reject their flexible working request. Consider offering a compromise – a different day could be viable and may still give the employee the flex they need.

Promote honesty and trust – By embedding flexible working in company culture, you can help to promote honesty and trust within your organisation. A recent WorkingMums survey found that women are hiding plans to have children for fear of harming their career prospects. Moreover 50% of women on maternity leave had not yet discussed flexible working arrangements to facilitate their return to work. This lack of honesty and trust means businesses may struggle to plan, manage and deliver for their customers.

Make your policy clear – Simplicity is key. A candidate of mine went into a multinational company on a diversity project to drive more women into senior technology roles. On her arrival she found an extensive Agile Working policy which neither employees nor managers understood. By keeping it simple your staff will know where they stand and will be more able to make the system work for them and for you.

Adopt a team approach – Get the organisation as a whole to consult on the workability of flexible working. By doing so you'll be able to build a pragmatic approach that has the buy-in of your employees. This can also help to reduce resentment for those who are unable to work flexibly. The rise of ‘self managing teams’ may also drive an uptake in flexible working – with an emphasis on team ownership in making decisions, a request for flexibility would be considered and decided by the whole team, reducing possible line manager bias and ensuring any arrangement was workable for all.