HR Industry News

9 to 5 on the decline

— 4 December 2007 —

The British workplace is becoming more flexible according to the latest work-life survey by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).

95% of workplaces now offer some form of flexible working, while the amount of workplaces providing childcare facilities, or other arrangements to help parents combine work with family commitments, has more than doubled since 2003, from 8% to 18%.

Minister for Employment Relations, Pat McFadden, said the survey was an endorsement for the Government’s staged approach to introducing flexible working.

“The way we work is changing and in many cases, it is changing to fit in with people’s lives. More people want to balance work with family and lifestyle and more employers are increasingly recognising that flexibility helps retain good staff.”

It has been estimated that employers could save £42 million per year in recruitment costs for flexible working parents of children and £3 million per year for carers.

The survey also found:

• Employers offering reduced hours working had increased (74%, up from 40% in 2003)
• Employers offering compressed hours working had increased (41% up from 19%)
• The availability of job sharing and flexi hours had increased substantially (59% up from 39% and 55% up from 39% respectively)
• 92% of employers said they would consider a request to change working patterns from any employee
• 7% of employers said they should make a special effort to accommodate the particular difficulties parents of young and disabled children face in balancing work and family life.

Paul Avis from Ceridian LifeWorks added, “As one of the UK’s leading EAP providers we find that many of our inbound calls are no longer counselling ones but those that represent support in work life challenges such as legal support, debt, health, sourcing of elder and child care services and so forth. The move away from a pure counselling approach has been long established but by pitching the service as a life partnering service, rather than as a clinical one, has seen increases in usage from employee populations who in the main use the EAP as a work life resource.”

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