Employers lose out on talent due to lack of flexible working

It has been more than two years since the right to request flexible working was extended to all employees with six months’ service. However, new research from My Family Care and Hydrogen has revealed a significant disconnect between the high numbers of people who want to work flexibly and the low numbers of employers who actively embrace it.

The survey found that while more than half (54%) of the UK’s working population wants the opportunity to work remotely or from home, just a third (34%) were encouraged to, with many feeling a constant stigma around it.

Similarly, there was a big disconnect between the hours that people work and want to work. While just over a third (37%) of people have flexible start and finish times, almost double that (63%) said they wanted flexible start and finish times, suggesting that employers could do a lot more to engage their workforce.

Flexible working is in such high demand that it is by far the top benefit that people look for when considering a new role – with 81% looking for flexible working options before joining a company. In fact, 53% of employees would rather have flexible working over a 5% salary increase, and 45% would choose flexible working over a 10% salary increase.

The prioritisation of flexible working when looking for a new role was particularly true among parents of young children, with 86% saying so, while 81% of adult dependant carers agreed. This comes in the wake of another recent study by Digital Mums, which found that more than two thirds of stay-at-home mothers with young children would go back to work if flexible working was an option.

However, there appears to be an enduring stigma surrounding flexible working, with more women (26%) than men (18%) worrying that working flexibly would impact on their career prospects despite the finding that flexibility itself was equally important to both genders.

The research outlined the top five benefits of flexible working being productivity, the attraction of top talent, staff retention, a better work-life balance and happier employees. In fact, 87% of employees and 92% of employers believed that those who work flexibly are just as, if not more, productive than those who work regular hours.

My Family Care and Hydrogen have created a full report entitled ‘The competitive advantage of flexible and family friendly working’. To download, please click here. They will be running a number of webinars to offer support to HR teams looking for advice on how they can use flexible working to gain a competitive advantage across a range of business sectors. To view the full list, visit flexibleworkingreport.com.