2012 - the year of flexible working?
2012 could be the year of flexible working, according to the Recruitment & Employment Confederation. It has just launched a Flexible Work Commission which meets for the first time on 30th January.
It aims to take stock of where the UK is on flexible working, what flexible working means for employers and job seekers and to quantify and maximise the benefits by talking about the practicalities of how it is managed.
“There’s a lot of talk about the importance of the UK’s flexible labour market, but we need to know what that means,” says Tom Hadley, REC’s director of policy.
“We are seeing that a lot of jobseekers are asking about flexible working. It’s now a big part of the employer brand for men and women.”
He adds that that labour market is increasingly embracing contractors and temporary staff. “It’s about how we get the maximum value of that market to provide opportunities for jobseekers and promote greater productivity,” he says.
The Commission is made up of a mix of recruiters, HR officers from big corporates and SMEs and think tank members. It is based on a similar commission on youth employment last year.
It comes at a key time for flexible working and a month after transport minister Norman Baker announced the formation of the ‘Anywhere Working’ consortium to help British employers understand the benefits of providing flexible working environments and to enable employees to access the tools that they need to work in a more flexible way.
Hadley adds that the REC is expecting the Government to confirm soon that it will be extending the right to request flexible working to all employees. However, he believes change will not be achieved so much through legislation as through what he calls “the battle for hearts and minds” which involves putting the business case for flexible working across.
Hadley adds that the Commission builds on the Government’s Modern Workplaces consultation which stated that more needed to be done to spread good practice about flexible working. “We will focus a lot on the practicalities and suggest concrete measures which can be taken, for instance, how benefits can be reformed to encourage people to see temporary work as a way back into employment,” says Hadley.
He adds that the Commission will also allow the REC to take stock of the new agency workers regulations which came into effect at the end of last year. “People said they would be the death knell for the UK agency market. My view is that it won’t be,” he says.
The Commission’s work will be supplemented by feedback from REC members on one of its LinkedIn sites.
It will report around June and will come up with a dozen or so clear recommendations which it will then seek to drive through. It will include messages for both the Government and the business community.
“We want to change mindsets,” says Hadley, adding that the young generation expect greater flexibility. “They want more autonomy. More and more will be looking to work freelance. It’s a lifestyle choice. They don’t want to be part of a big machine.”
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