Nowadays, achieving a work-life balance is increasingly gaining importance, especially as people are now working for longer hours in more stressful jobs. However, even though the idea of flexible working has been around for quite a long time now, and for some people has become a way of life, for the majority flexible working opportunities still elude them. In fact, a survey carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers entitled “Managing Tomorrow’s People: Where will you be in 2020?”, suggests that flexible working is the most important benefit that organizations can offer their employees, rated by 47 per cent of the 1,200 UK workers surveyed. At the bottom of the list and cited by only six per cent of the respondents were social activities, paid training and development, and networking. This suggests that flexible working is the preferred benefit among all the other performance-related bonuses.

Joe Camilleri, HR manager of Baxter Ltd, stated that the organisation believes in the idea of flexible working hours. He said: “After carrying out a focus group with our employees, it transpired that flexible working was the one thing that they really needed. Employees wanted to achieve a better balance between their working life and their personal life. We developed a system where employees cover 160 hours over a four-week period. The most important thing is that they are present during the core-hours of the business, that is from 10 in the morning to three in the afternoon. Before and after that period it is up to the employees to decide the schedule that they want to work. The system has been an instant success and this is attributed to the flexibility it gives to employees to reconcile their obligations and family responsibilities.”

However not all organisations offer flexible working to their employees. Some barriers that hinder organisations from offering flexible working include the administrative costs of drawing up new policies, as well as the perceived or otherwise, difficulty of re-organising work practices. There are also operational pressures, concerns about service requirements, as well as the potential negative impact that flexible working may have on matching the expectations of clients. Moreover, certain systems of flexible working are perceived as being inaccessible and unfair. The main reason for being perceived this way is that most often employees feel that they now have to carry a heavier burden of responsibility especially when the new flexible working arrangements mean that their colleagues are now working reduced hours.

Mr Camilleri commented further: “Certain flexible working arrangements might not be appropriate due to the nature of the work involved. For example, our work is manufacturing in a ‘cleanroom’ environment, which means that for those employees who have to be present on the production line, certain systems such as working from home is not possible. Nonetheless, we have been able to introduce a limited amount of positions on ‘reduced hours’ which have been much appreciated by our working mothers.”

However, despite these limitations there are things that businesses can do to encourage flexible working in their organisation. First and foremost, businesses need to create the right culture and procedures. Moreover, organisations should keep track of the logistics. Proper scheduling becomes very important because staff will not necessarily be at the beck and call of the manager; however, flexible working hours tend to improve the quality of planning and therefore effectiveness. In addition, organisations have to maintain a level of fairness among its employees, which must also seen to be as such by staff in order to avoid misunderstandings and bad feelings. Systems need to be put in place to measure, monitor and evaluate the benefits of flexible working hours, for example sickness, retention, productivity and turnover. This is important because in a flexible environment one has to manage by objectives as opposed to attendance and presence. Flexibility and family-friendly measures have to be framed in a policy that motivates staff and at the same time achieves set objectives within the organisation.

If these aspects are taken into consideration, most firms should be able to find ways of encouraging flexible working. If well-planned and executed, flexible working promises many benefits to the business.

“The benefits that stem from flexi time are vast but mostly are related to increased motivation levels as well as employees’ loyalty to the organisation,” Mr Camilleri said.

Given that the upturn is expected to see an increase in competition for talent, one can conclude that those organisations that do not recognize the business benefits of flexible working will risk losing valuable employees to competitors who are able to offer the flexibility needed by the employees.

Ms Camilleri is a researcher at the Foundation for Human Resources Development