Today is a key date in the evolution of work. In the UK there is a change to the legislation giving employees a
right to request flexible working. It will now apply to all employees not just
parents and carers.
You could just dismiss this as a minor
change which will involve a quick revision of the appropriate HR policy. Or you
might see it as a fundamental change in our assumptions about work. I think
it’s the latter.
For the last 200 years we have made the
assumption that work consists primarily of full time, permanent employment.
Flexible working, temporary jobs, part-time working, job sharing and working
from home have all been exceptions to the norm. So employees have to ask
permission to work differently from the standard ‘9 to 5’ routine at their
employers premises.
Then the government, in its wisdom decided
to introduce some ‘family friendly’ legislation to encourage employers to at
least consider that work could be done differently. This reinforced the view
that flexible working was only applicable to people who had children and didn’t
really apply to everyone else. So up to now it has been seen as an employee
benefit along with items such as maternity leave and therefore a cost to the
business.
Now we are about to enter an era when
people without children or other caring responsibilities will start to ask for
flexible working. It will become more acceptable for ambitious, career minded
professionals to work in non-standard ways. Employers will come to realise that
by giving people more choice over when and where they get the job done they
will get a more effective workforce.
By giving people more freedom over how they get their job
done their productivity will increase and employee turnover and absenteeism
will reduce. So flexible working will move from the current situation, where it
is the exception, to being the norm. This means that managers will need to
develop new skills to cope with the increased variety in the way their people
work. And that also provides a great opportunity for HR to guide the
organizational culture and management behavior to reflect the new world of
work.
