Case Study - Opening the door to flexible working

Opening the door to flexible working

The common resistance to a good work/life balance is that it is a nice idea that won’t work in practice. At a recent Open The Door workshop, our delegates tackled just this issue.

The Delegates at the workshop came from a variety of organisations that had implemented flexible working policies to some degree, but had not always provided effective manager and staff training. In some cases, some negative feelings about women in the workplace were developing because flexible working was not being implemented in the best way.

The main issue was that when the work/life balance policies were introduced, managers then felt they had to grant every flexible working request presented to them. A delegate from the police force, for example, said that every woman who became pregnant automatically asked for evenings and weekends free. She felt she had to grant these requests, but this left the police shorthanded and so created a negative image of women in the workplace – particularly as male staff had to provide cover and were unable to take advantage of flexible working themselves. According to another delegate, this same situation was affecting the care industry.

As a solution, we examined how requests for flexible working should be made. We discussed the idea that business needs come first, and that the applicant for flexible working should make a business case for how business needs could still be met within their requested flexible working pattern. We also discussed these requests being open for all staff, not just women.

By the end, everyone was much more positive about work/life balance and could see how it should benefit everyone in the workforce, including women and men at every level. They also produced actions plans to take these ideas back to their organisations.

In evaluation, one delegate wrote: ‘The training gave me guidance on how to address difficulties I’m coming across in relation to work/life balance… it benefits the organisation if correctly managed, improves performance and customer satisfaction.’