First Published in Management Skills & Development magazine

THE FLEXIBLE WORRKPLACE

What are the implications for women of the trend towards flexible working? In this article Val Hammond, Chief Executive of Roffey Park, suggests it’s time for a rethink

In our changing workplace there are few trends about which there is consistency or agreement. However, two appear continually: firstly the increasing presence of women in the workplace, and secondly, the proliferation of different forms of employment arrangements. These two trends feature so strongly it’s worth asking if they are linked and, if so, what the implications are.

Women in greater numbers
Around 47 percent of all people in employment are women. Although most are in permanent posts some 43 percent work part-time. Of even more significance than the shape of our workforce is the likely situation early in the next century. It is forecast that by then the majority of employees, 52 percent, will be women. This is due in part to the increasing flow of women into the workforce but also to the trend for men to become self-employed.

Although they have a greater presence in some sectors and occupations, women are increasingly taking up all types of work. They are in the pipeline for leadership in larger numbers than ever before, but will they have access to development?

A multiplicity of work arrangements
The second trend, different forms of work arrangement, reflects the wide-spread business need for flexibility in terms of skill-mix and optimum levels of staffing. The pattern of flexible work is shifting and growing. Virtually all companies, regardless of size, employ part-timers. Very many also offer contract working, flexitime, annualised hours, job sharing and telecommuting.

The reasons for current use and the forecast increase in flexible working practices are extremely varied. They range over meeting customer needs, reducing costs, responding to the de-layered organisation, attracting suitable staff, recognising the family pressures on employees, retaining core staff, making use of technological innovation and increasing productivity. Although flexible work practices are found virtually everywhere, they are particularly prevalent in the service sector which is the major growth area for employment.

Putting these trends together it is clear that there is a match between demand and supply. Women have traditionally been attracted to flexible work because of the way this enables them combine their need for income and family care. Increasingly men too have a need and are attracted by this work/family combination, although, as mentioned, they are also switching to self employment. At the same time, massive restructuring has left many companies with a slimmed down core but the need to employ staff for times when there is peak demand.

Rethinking roles
Traditional views about the role and potential of part-time or flexible workers still prevails however. Although there are examples of part-time or job-sharing managers these are still rare. Flexibility is the prerogative of professionals (doctors, university professors, barristers) or, conversely, of service, office and manual staff but today, everyone is expected to draw on a wider skill set.

If the forecasts about the future workforce are correct, then it is vital that employers regard flexible staff as part of the core resource in terms of the attention given to broadening and deepening the development of these individuals. Thus the resource pool for filling senior posts will have a larger proportion of women full-timers and people who work flexibly, again mainly women.

Rethinking development
Even where flexible staff have access to training and development this is often task specific rather than covering the broader developmental aspects. Moreover even though the number of people working part-time has increased by 25 percent over the last 10 years, the increase in training for part-timers has increased by less than 5 per cent. Of those in full-time employment, 90 percent are funded for training by their employer, who fund only 36 percent of those in part-time employment. Again, this suggests a need for greater emphasis on training and development for the flexible workforce, particularly women.

Farsighted employers already look for development opportunities for flexible staff. For example, in Sainsbury’s the creation of weekend store managers allows staff who are only able or wanting to work for limited hours, nevertheless, to experience a full measure of management responsibility. At National Housing Federation the post of Director of Training and Conference is a job-share. At Armstrong Staff and Executive Consultancy Bureau where the employee development programme is run by a part-time employee, all staff are allowed £100 per annum to spend on training outside the workplace, a scheme that the company says is popular among part-timers. What then are the implications for business?

HR professionals and managers share responsibility for ensuring the company is adequately resourced for the future. However, they have different viewpoints and different possibilities for influencing the situation for women, particularly those who work flexibly .

Issues for HR people
In the move to focus on harmonising the benefits available to employees it is increasingly common for companies to extend their benefits - pension, mortgage assistance, private medical assistance and profit sharing to all staff. Comparatively little thought seems to have been given to the training issue. Yet, it is fundamental for future success to ensure that flexible workers have the same access to training as do full-time staff. This means finding appropriate time for training sessions whilst coping with the concern that this necessarily reduces the period left for the usual working tasks.

The broader development of flexible staff poses particular challenges. By its very nature this type of development takes time and reflection. This may be via training programmes through the work itself or a combination of the two. However, training courses are often organised with full-timers in mind and part-timers may be unable to meet the timetables, especially where courses are long or residential. Offering the training in a variety of ways may help.

Short modular programmes where members meet in or away from the workplace allows input along with discussion of real issues. Learning sets, a feature of many Roffey Park programmes, also offer a way of meeting the need since these are arranged by the participants themselves at times to suit their circumstances. Another approach is to provide a learning group with a number of paid hours of facilitation to organise and use as they wish. Given this freedom of choice groups ‘spend’ their hours in many ways - some valuing a series of half or full days, others investing in a residential burst followed by a string of hours spread over several months. The key factor here is that the control is in the hands of the learning group rather than the trainer.

Where it is beneficial to have residential training then it is worth considering ways of helping the flexible worker to do this without worry. In parts of the NHS, for example, assistance with additional costs for child care enabled women to attend longer programmes without anxiety.

The manager’s responsibility
Line managers also need to check their attitudes and assumptions. It is fashionable to say that everyone is responsible for their own development but this can lead some managers to assume that part-timers will invest in their own training. Not only may this be unrealistic because of the cost and time involved but often guidance is not available on what is appropriate. Managers can help by timing training sessions appropriately, organising flexible work with hand-over time, mentoring part-timers and challenging any assumptions that those who work flexibly are not career-minded.

Women, too must act
We must encourage women who work flexibly to help themselves. They can search out opportunities to update their skills and challenge their own assumptions that career posts are limited to full-time staff. Many supervisory jobs do not require constant cover. Managers go out and about, they visit clients and attend meetings. In their absence work goes on. In BT women developed this line of thought to prove their case that management is not necessarily an office-based role.

For women, a self managed career is not new. In order to find a work/life balance many women pursue alternative paths. Moving beyond requires action - a personal development plan agreed with the manager, together with strong mentoring. In the ICL Learning Consultancy, for example mentoring is available, even for those who are employed on temporary contracts. Where such schemes are not available, women must seek their own mentor working for a person with experience but who thinks ‘outside the box’.

Working together, HR people, managers and women, can build flexibility into the process of development which will help ensure the rich resource-pool of talented people on which future business success will depend.

By Val Hammond
Chief Executive, Roffey Park