Juggling life and work is one of the biggest challenges facing us all and it will continue to faze us in the future. Many employers and workers say flexible working is the solution to this conundrum. Yet, the latest Visions of Britain report suggests that flexible working is not the Holy Grail it is sometimes made out to be. Men in particular don’t seem to be taking up the opportunity to work on a flexible basis.
Without a doubt, flexible working can be good for people but also good for business. Flexible working can be an antidote to the inflexibility of full-time employment. Staff working on a part-time basis are often more motivated and can schedule non-work commitments, such as hospital appointments, outside of working hours. Our report shows that 90% of women thought that the offer of flexible working was an important consideration when they were choosing an employer. In order to recruit and retain the very best people, employers cannot afford not to offer flexible working.
Yet our latest report reveals a degree of scepticism towards flexible working amongst many workers who fear that it could be used as a smokescreen by employers to cut costs. Some respondents say that working on a flexible basis could cut them off from the corporate culture of an organisation. Men in particular seem worried that their visibility within an organisation could be reduced which may affect their future career prospects.
This perhaps explains why few men currently take up paternity leave with only one in five choosing to do so. But I also don’t think the contradictions within the current law help! As it stands today, fathers are only entitled to two weeks’ statutory paternity leave compared to mothers who are entitled to 52 weeks’ maternity leave with 39 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay. The new Coalition Government has issued a commitment to redress this imbalance by encouraging shared parenting, including promoting a system of flexible parental leave for mothers and fathers.
These are sensible changes but may not offer an immediate solution, given the low number of men currently taking up the paternity leave to which they are entitled. Legislative change needs to be accompanied by behavioural change to convince fathers of the benefits of flexible working. Whilst the Coalition Government’s commitment is a step in the right direction, this may not be enough on its own. The challenge for the future will be to confront the scepticism which both employers and workers sometimes hold about flexible working.
Gillian Fox, HR Director at Friends Provident
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