Security & Flexibility - resource pack

How to ensure security & flexibility for your workforce

Providing flexibility and job security where possible is an important element of Fair Work.

To get the best from your employees, allowing them the flexibility to accommodate their work within the reality of their daily lives is essential, particularly in today’s challenging recruitment climate. And to be recognised as a Fair Work employer, you should always be fair and transparent with your staff about the requirements and expectations of each role.

Here are just some of the ways in which offering your staff security and flexibility can benefit your business:

• Being flexible and ensuring your workers feel secure in their roles will promote fairness across the organisation and help to build trust from your teams.
• Giving your employees more control over their work life will help to increase retention rates as it reduces stress levels and boosts employee engagement. CIPD research found that flexible workers are likely to be more engaged, reducing staff turnover by 87%.
• Providing flexibility in job-design, working hours and remote working can have a positive impact on how productive your workforce is, with 9 in 10 employees stating that they class flexible working as a key motivator to their productivity at work.
• 1 in 4 workers in the UK experience moderate to high levels of precarious working, which is associated with unfair work. This is not only damaging to their health but also to their productivity and levels of commitment at work. Providing secure contracts and providing sufficient notice of shift patterns and any changes, can help address this.
• The cost of living crisis is also adding to the challenge for both employees and employers. According to the UK Financial Conduct Authority, 67% of employees are currently struggling financially.4 By offering as much security as possible around your staff’s roles, you can help to reduce some of the stress associated with their money worries, and in turn improve productivity and business performance.

What can I do as an employer to ensure security & flexibility for my employees?

So you understand the benefits of offering security and flexibility to your employees. But what steps can you take to make these a reality in your business?

Here are some practical things to consider:

Provide security by guaranteeing your employees’ hours

Commit to ensuring workers are offered the security of guaranteed minimum hours. Do not unilaterally impose non-guaranteed – or zero hours – contracts upon workers, and give all employees sufficient notice when making any changes to their shift patterns or hours.

Consider new ways to offer flexible/remote working

The Welsh Government has set a target of enabling 30% of Welsh workers to work from home or near to home.  By giving more people the choice to work in a way that helps them to improve their work/life balance while possibly also managing caring responsibilities or long term health conditions, employers can benefit from increased loyalty and productivity.

Some examples of different types of flexible working include:

• Flex time
• Compressed schedule
• Hybrid working
• 100% remote
• Job sharing
• Results-only Work Environment
• Split shifts
• Unlimited annual leave
• Four day working week

Before introducing a flexible work policy fully, it’s worth doing a trial run first with a limited number of employees for at least a month to gather enough data to determine its feasibility and work out potential problems.

You’ll also need to make sure your managers are trained in the best way to effectively oversee remote employees and ensure optimum performance.

Consider flexibility when designing jobs

Use flexibility in job design, working hours and remote working to promote inclusion and a better work-life
balance. Enable employees to co-create their own ‘good jobs’ that are supported by managers and aligned with your organisational practices and policies. By working with your employees to design their job roles in this way, you will not only more accurately meet the needs of the individual workers, but will also be able to improve your organisation’s performance.

Keep some standard work arrangements too

If possible, try to keep in place some standard work schedules for those employees who prefer to work on-site and during traditional hours. The idea behind flexible work  policies is to give employees more options to work when and where they are the most productive but you don’t want to alienate those who are happy with the existing arrangements or make life more difficult for them.

Stay connected

Remote policies only work well when employees stay engaged and connected to each other and to their
managers. As leaders, you and your management team will need to continue to encourage collaboration among team members and maintain opportunities for them to interact and socialise with other colleagues.

Toolkit - Security & Flexibility

We’ve prepared these handy resource packs – one for each Fair Work principle – to help you on the path to becoming a Fair Work employer.

There are many ways in which you can introduce more security and flexibility for your workforce and a wealth of online tools and resources to help you implement this principle across your organisation. But knowing how to navigate your way through all the information can be a challenge so we’ve compiled some of the most useful ones here:

Living Hours Accreditation | Living Wage Foundation

The Living Wage Foundation has developed a new standard of what good looks like for those employers that can offer ‘Living Hours’ alongside a real Living Wage.

Job Design | Factsheets | CIPD

This factsheet from the Chartered Institute of Professional Development examines job design and its links to work motivation, empowerment and job quality.; It looks at the principles of job design, the role of job analysis and how assessing job quality can help.

Inclusive remote working | Toolkit - Business in the community

This toolkit from Business in the Community explores how to ensure home-based, hybrid and office-based ways of working can be as inclusive as possible, and recommends different ways for businesses to approach the new future of flexible and remote working.

What if your job was good for you? – Business in the community

This report identifies various actions that employers can take to transform wellbeing at work. It sets out how business leaders can create an environment in which employees feel supported to do their best work. It also outlines how to achieve good jobs for all that drive sustainable positive outcomes.