What are the main motivating factors and problems for The Halifax, in their attempts to establish a reasonable work life balance that is beneficial to both them and their employees?
ABSTRACT
The concept of work-life balance is seeing growing popularity amongst today’s employers and employees alike. It is suggested that employees have an increasing need to be able to combine employment with childcare responsibilities and a desire to have a more fulfilling lifestyle not dominated by their job.
Businesses are also realising the benefits of offering their employees flexible working patterns as not only does it allow them to offer the consumer a twenty four hour a day, seven day a week service, but also aids in the recruitment and retention of staff. The introduction of flexible working policies is not just undertaken on a voluntary basis. Legislation introduced by the UK and European governments has provided a series of basic rights around flexible working, generally applicable to those with young children.
This paper investigates the wider reasons for implementing such policies, how they are implemented, the benefits to both the employer and employee and the problems encountered. By focussing on the Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS), comparisons are made between their experiences and those of their competitors in the financial market. The CIPD conducted a survey on flexible working practices in 2005 and their results are also utilised to compare and contrast.
The paper finds that HBOS’ experiences are similar with those of many organisations and that the key to successful implementation and high levels of take-up lies mainly with the line managers. It is also found that whilst many organisations are keen to demonstrate a desire to assist their employees in achieving work-life balance, many provide only the legal basic requirements and there is a lack of innovation in their policies suggesting that their motivation is more from the business case than a genuine desire to enhance the life of their employees.
INTRODUCTION
The concept of “work-life balance” is relatively new to employers and employees alike and there is no definitive date as to when the phrase was first coined. Torrington et al (2005) suggest that it has found gradual acceptance through the changing “value of work” and that the 1980s culture of long hours without breaks is now moving towards “valuing a slower and gentler pace” 1 which “allows more room for personal interests, environment and family” 1. They trace the origins of work-life balance to the introduction of the concept of “downshifting” 1 which appeared in the 1990s and describes “swapping a life of total commitment to work and possible high rewards, for less demanding, or part-time work, or self employment, or a combination of the three” 1 and note that it has been supported as a concept by national and European government initiatives (Torrington et al 2005).
However, there are other definitions of what the term work-life balance actually describes. The Employers for Work-Life Balance organisation, part of the Work Foundation, defines work-life balance as being about “people having a measure of control over when, where and how they work, leading them to be able to enjoy an optimal quality of life”. They add to this by saying “work-life balance is achieved when an individual’s right to a fulfilled life inside and outside paid work is accepted and respected as the norm, to the mutual benefit of the individual, business and society” . They also, to some degree, contradict Torrington et al’s definition by stressing that “work-life balance is not just for people who want to reduce their working hours” and point out that “many people love their work and for them the perfect “balance” is working very long hours” 2.
From the background research, it is evident that the concepts of work-life balance and flexible working practices are inexorably linked, as a major requirement for employees to be able to achieve a balance necessitates the need to be able to have a degree of flexibility in their work. CIPD (2005), whilst stating that “flexibility in the workplace is a nebulous concept”, tend to agree more notably with Torrington et al as, in their survey, they defined “flexible working practices” as “ the length of time an employee works, where they carry out the work, and the pattern of working, including leave and other absence taken from work” .
LITERATURE REVIEW.
Torrington et al (2005) amongst others, point out that various legislation introduced during recent years by the government and the EU, has led to many companies being legally required to introduce some form of flexible working practices, thereby improving an employee’s chances of attaining a work-life balance. On the whole, these pieces of legislation recognise the needs of employees with family responsibilities, predominantly those with young children. The areas of these laws supporting work- life balance can be summarised as:
Antenatal care – pregnant employees are entitled to request reasonable paid time off to attend medical appointments related to the pregnancy;
Maternity leave – although a longstanding law, this was altered in 2003 to cover:
Ordinary maternity leave – up to 26 weeks leave entitlement from 11 weeks before the due date with full entitlement to benefits excluding pay (covered by statutory maternity pay) and a right to return to the same job unless it has been made redundant in which case suitable alternative employment must be offered
Compulsory maternity leave – for two weeks after the birth
Additional maternity leave – leave can be extended up to one year but benefits may be curtailed, except those covered by the Working Time Directive e.g. holiday accrual and the right to return to the same job only if reasonably practical.
Parental, paternity and adoption leave – 13 weeks unpaid leave during the first five years of the child’s life or the adoption of the child, increased to 18 weeks of the first 18 years if the child is disabled.
Time off for dependants – the right to take a reasonable period of time off during working hours for urgent family reasons. The right of parents of young children to request any form of flexible working .
However, it is not just the introduction of legislation that has encouraged organisations to consider offering flexible work options. The CIPD (2005) survey “Flexible Working: Impact and Implementation” found that respondents gave retention and the need to meet employee’s needs as the most common reasons for introducing flexible working practices. Only a quarter of the respondents gave “supporting business needs” as a “very important reason” for using flexible working, with the same proportion citing “meeting customers’ needs” . Furthermore, nearly a third of respondents said that flexible working practices helped with recruitment 5.
Torrington et al (2005) feel that the benefits to organisations of introducing work-life balance policies include opportunities to “reduce absence (especially unplanned absence), raise morale and increase levels of job satisfaction” . They also suggest that performance improves as employees are less tired and therefore, more effective (Torrington et al 2005). Kodz et al (2002) noted improvements in work productivity and quality as well as in the recruitment and retention of staff. Similarly, Perry-Smith and Bloom (2000) surveyed 527 US firms and found that “higher organisational performance” occurred as a result of “bundles of work-life balance policies” .
Torrington et al (2005) also feel that there is pressure for organisations to introduce policies supporting work-life balance due to “the changing demographic make-up or our potential workforce” . Beardwell et al (2001) refer to the “demographic time bomb” which is the projected shrinkage of the potential employee base due to an increase in the proportion of the population over retirement age. This has motivated employers to introduce policies and practices to attract and retain people of which flexible working options are a common theme.
Torrington et al (2005) also point to the increasing number of women re entering the workforce having had children and wanting to “combine family and work responsibilities” 8 and the desire of the Government and employers to encourage this as being a driving force behind the introduction of “family-friendly” policies. A survey by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that both parents work outside the home of two thirds of families in the UK and that 14% of mothers and 17% of fathers work hours outside the typical range of 9 am to 5 pm during the week and the over a third of mothers and over a half of fathers work weekend shifts every month . Similarly, there is evidence of older members of the workforce close to retirement who want to remain in employment but with less hours or more flexible work patterns. Both these groups could provide some relief from the “demographic time bomb”.
Torrington et al (2005) raise the point that many older workers may have caring responsibilities for their parents, again requiring them to be able to take advantage of flexible working practices. Unison point out that “one in eight adults in Britain look after or provide some regular care to a sick or elderly person” 10. This is also supported by the legislation around time off for dependents.
A further issue felt to be encouraging employers to adopt flexible working policies is that of the “24/7” 8society, whereby customers are expecting many forms of business to be accessible all day, every day. Noon et al identified in 1997 that “individual working hours are being decoupled from operating hours” 8 and that more flexible working patterns would be needed in a wider range of industries that those currently operating around the clock.
The lengthening of business hours is also given by Torrington et al (2005) as one of the reasons for the increase in work related stress. They cite the work of Holbeche and McCartney who found that “employees were experiencing anxiety, work overload, loss of control, pressure, long hours and insufficient personal time” . This is supported by the findings of a survey conducted jointly by the Department of Trade and Industry’s Work-Life Balance Campaign and Management Today Magazine which found that ”almost a third (29%) of employees with high stress levels work more than 10 hours over their contractual hours every week” 12 and that “seven out of 10 highly stressed workers do not have access to any formal flexible working practices” .
Overall, there are a variety of reasons why work-life balance policies are being introduced by organisations and there are not only a solid legal and business case, but also the case for social responsibility towards their employees.
As has been seen, the concept of work-life balance is defined by many as flexible working hours. Torrington et al (2005) note that work-life balance means “different things to different people, depending on their age, life circumstances, values, interests, personality and so on” . The common options can be summarised as:
part-time – working less than a standard 40 hour week
flexitime – working contracted hours outside the standard 9 – 5 shift
compressed week – working the contracted hours in less than five days
annual hours – achieving contracted hours averaged over a year
term-time working – unpaid time off during school holidays
job share – two or more employees employed to fulfil a full time position
shift swapping – being able to exchange a time period of work with another employee
unpaid leave – taking time off, usually a short period
unpaid sabbaticals – taking time off usually a long period
working from home – working contracted hours away from the usual place of work thereby eliminating commuting time .
CIPD (2005) concur that these are the most common options, but also identified a wider range of flexible working options. They included mobile working, secondments to other organisations and time off to work in the community . Whilst some organisations do offer these choices to their employees, they are in the minority. CIPD (2005) found that “the most prevalent flexible working practice is part-time working, with nine in ten survey respondents offering this option to their employees” . However, CIPD (2005) go on to question the inclusion of the option to work part time as a flexible working policy arguing that it is so “ingrained” in organisations that “it no longer appears to represent an example of flexible working”
Torrington et al (2005) refer to what they call the “take up gap” 13 as the difference between demand and take up of flexible work options. They believe there is a considerable difference between the two and cite the work of Hogarth who found that “47% of employees not currently using flexitime would like to do so” but does not suggest why or how to overcome this problem.
Ward (2005) supports this and cites the TUC survey (Changing Times) which found that whilst 150,000 employees have taken up the right to work flexibly since the introduction of the legislation in 2003, more then three quarters of the workforce do not work flexible hours and that more than 500,000 people have been refused in their request to work shorter hours (Ward 2005).
There are two areas of explanation as to why flexible working is not more widespread in organisations in the UK. Firstly, the employees may not be requesting it. There may be several reasons for this including the concern over the impact of requesting a flexed work pattern on career development. This is supported by the work of Hogarth et al (2001) who found that the majority of male employees felt that working part time would be detrimental to their career prospects. Similarly, Glynn et al (2002) found examples of employees who, having reduced their hours, were faced with a workload the same as they had when on full time hours. This may be due to the external pressure of management or the internal pressure of feeling a need to prove themselves , but can act as barrier to those contemplating flexible working patterns. Furthermore, many employees may find it financially impossible to reduce their hours due to the corresponding reduction in pay.
Flexible working policies are not seen as being beneficial by all and there is evidence that “the emphasis is on family-friendly measures, and not on work-life balance for all” . The issue of flexible working practices being requested most by those with childcare responsibilities is thought by Torrington et al (2005) to create an issue in that work-life balance can be “ghettoised” 18, as something done for women with children who are not interested in real careers” 18 and this may further discourage employees from requesting flexibility.
The second reason for lack of uptake may be due to organisations unwillingness to publicise what is available to their employees or due to financial constraints.
McCartney believes organisations may be unwilling to make the option of volunteering in particular widely known “because they fear an avalanche or requests that they would be unable to handle” .
Bibby (2002) investigated the financial constraints and reports on the problems encountered by the AA who found that the costs of setting up employees as homeworkers i.e. technology and infrastructure, off-set the increased productivity unless the homeworkers were 50% more productive that site based staff. Bibby points out that “to gain such productivity tight management and measurement of home-based teleworkers is necessary” .
Despite this CPD (2005) found that just over a quarter of the respondents employees “make use of flexible working arrangements” with two thirds reporting an average increase in take-up of 20% in the last three years . They also identified the main problems with implementation were “operational pressures”, “concerns about line managers ability to manage individuals working more flexibly and their attitudes to flexible working”, “line managers difficulties in implementing flexible working practices” and “senior level support and the prevailing organisational culture” 23.
This concern with the emphasis on the manager’s role in determining the success or failure of flexible working practices is echoed by several writers. Glynn et al (2002) identify that “whether or not there is a work-life balance policy in existence, it is often line managers who will be the main arbiters of whether work-life balance policies become a reality…both by their attitudes and management practices” .
The Work Foundation also found that managers were “the main barrier to introducing and implementing work-life balance policies” .
MacDermid et al identified three specific problems for managers: the difficulties in developing employees who worked part-time; managing a range of different working agreements and filling those roles which required full time employees . The CIPD survey (2005) investigated the barriers to implementing flexible working policies that the respondents had found. There research found operational pressures to be the main constraint. They do not specify what these are exactly, but it is likely to include the difficulties in management. Torrington et al recommend the use of “work-life champions” to overcome the long hours cultures. They also suggest that management should be encouraged to become “role models” by working flexibly themselves 27. Kodz et al found that “managers felt abandoned and did not get the support they needed” so it would seem therefore, that a key stage of the implementation process should include the training of managers to ensure they have the skills to support the programme. Janman (2002) supports this and suggests that managers should have specific skills in communciation, coaching and empowerment (Janman 2002). Glynn et al (2002) add to this by highlighting the need for managers to be able to resist pressure from other departments in the organisation and plan, schedule and delegate effectively based on the abilites of their team members (Glynn et al 2002) suggesting that the whole culture of an organisation needs to be able to support work-life balance initiatives. Some organisations have provided their managers with training to support the introduction of flexible working practices. McCartney (2003) reported that Ford Europe “provides seminars related to work-life balance topics such as stress management, how individuals should manage their own working arrangements, maternity and returning to work and new father’s workshops” . Similarly, BT “offers e learning packages on skills to enable balance, optimising the performance of flexible teams and judging which roles are suitable for home working” .
The Work Foundation comment that to implement work-life balance policies, managers must “shift the way in which they measure staff, requiring more effort in judging performance and output rather than time spent doing the job” . Managers require the skill to distance manage and this again must be supported by the organisations culture.
McCartney (2003) agrees with the importance of the organisations culture and says that “to thrive, work-life balance needs a supportive organizational culture that has sympathetic values and practices at its core” . McCartney goes on to emphasise the importance of training professionals in this.
Several writers highlight the need to have a robust system in place for employees to request flexible work options and for these requests to be judged. Torrington et al (2005) identify the main problems to be the concerns of the managers regarding responses to requests for flexible hours and the possible outcome to them of a poor decision and the pressure and possible financial implications of not meeting performance targets because of flexible working arrangements. Some organisations have identified these issues and taken steps to address the manager’s concerns. LloydsTSB introduced their programme, Work Options, in March 1999. A key component of their policies is that when an employee requests flexible working, it is considered purely from a business point of view rather than the reason for the request. This freed managers from having to make a “value judgement” on each case .
A concern in flexible working practices is the management of those working from home. Felstead et al (2003) identified this specific issue and found that there is a commonly held belief that home workers are less productive. They also found that home workers were aware of this perception and worked harder and for longer hours to prove themselves. It was also noticed that there are problems in integrating home workers into the team and it produced a barrier to the exchange of knowledge. They went on to suggest that home workers might require specific characteristics to be successful.
In summary, whilst work-life balance policies are becoming more popular and are introduced in organisations under the name of flexible working practices, there are concerns over whether they are viewed as being designed purely to fulfil legal requirements and applied to mothers of young children only. Furthermore, the range of options generally available is limited in most companies further suggesting a response to the introduction of legislation rather than being a committed attempt to enhance the work-life balance of their employees. Where practices are implemented, there can be issues with line managers skills levels in the direct supervision and performance management of employees working outside normal shift hours and many of these managers find it difficult to confidently assess a request for flexible working. To implement flexible working practices successfully, organisations must ensure the culture of the of the business supports it and that the managers are adequately trained.
The origins of the Halifax Bank of Scotland can be traced back to 1852 when it was set up as a mutual society for local investors and borrowers. The Halifax Permanent Benefit Building Society was formally established at the end of the year. The company successfully expanded over the following years and by 1928 was able to merge with the Halifax Equitable to create the Halifax Building Society which automatically became the industry leader in terms of assets. In the late 1980’s, the company was able to expand its portfolio of offerings due to new legislation and entered into the stock broking, insurance, personal banking and estate agency markets. In the mid 1990s, the Halifax Building Society merged with the Leeds Permanent Building Society, and acquired Clerical Medical. In 1997, they converted to plc status and acquired Birmingham Midshires two years later. Towards the end of 2001, Halifax was the largest provider of mortgages and savings in the United Kingdom and they merged with the Bank of Scotland to become HBOS plc . HBOS feel that they have a clearly defined strategy “to have a genuinely distinctive proposition for our customers” and they have expanded into the international market with branches in Australia and Ireland.
They service over 20 million customers whose needs they aim to fulfil by providing essential services through a variety of distribution options, adding to the convenience for customers, and products that offer good value for money.
HBOS is aiming to make further efficiency gains to establish higher shareholder earnings (HBOS website).
HBOS state that they take their corporate responsibilities seriously and say that “as one of the UK’s leading financial organisations we have a huge presence in the community not only through the products and services that we provide to individuals, but by employing more than 60,000 people. We are committed to strengthening and adding value to these communities where we live and work” .
HBOS introduced a range of strategies in 2004 to overcome some major operational issues caused by the merger with Bank of Scotland. Comprising of three phases, the third phase concentrated on the implementation of work-life balance policies known collectively as FLEXTRA . Building on the second phase, which had seen a change of policy to grow the numbers of part-time workers, FLEXTRA aimed to “create a genuine work-life balance for all colleagues within the centre” . There are two main aspects to FLEXTRA, firstly “roster trade-offs” where a variety of shift patterns were introduced to ensure unsociable hours requirements could be fulfilled by patterns of work that complemented different lifestyles. Secondly, employees who opted into FLEXTRA also had access to further benefits that enabled then to “change shifts and get time off more flexibly than before” . The changes to the shift patterns were seen as a major benefit, particularly to full-timers who “no longer work exactly the same shifts each week, which had been common, but now have a rotating pattern which gives them a specific mix of shifts over a 6 or 8 week period that combine some weekend and/or evening working with time off during the ordinary working day” 38. By offering a range of shift patterns, people could select the option that most suited their lifestyle by, for example, working later in the day and having the weekend off. Having identified that weekends were most important to the employees, HBOS guarantees 12 months notice of weekend working. The full range of options available are: “time-banking, shift swaps (with other sites), shift slides/changes (where neutral business impact), choice in lunch break duration, personal choice days, choice of consistent start times or un-clustered patterns, term-time working option and student proposition” 38. Personal Choice Days are two days a year which the employee can specify that they do not want to work. The Professional Planning Forum case study suggests that feedback from the employees on FLEXTRA seems to be positive. They quote employees as seeing the benefits of being able to move a shift start time if their train is late, being able to take a day off at short notice if their child was ill and the option to go home if a day was quiet and they weren’t required and work a different day instead 38. One employee is quoted as saying “this is the best thing that’s happened” 41 and a manager stated that the benefits included “we’re not as busy because we have the right people in the right place at the right time” . The business benefits have been measured as well with Professional Planning Forum reporting them as “halving sickness, reducing attrition by 15% points and increasing the days within service level from 3% to 96% within 6 months” 39. The Head of Resource Planning, Nick Flowers, summarised the success as “like many financial institutions we are looking for more cross-skilling and more cross-sales. FLEXTRA has given the business the headroom to develop people and it’s given people the boost to lift things to a different level” 39.
Amicus, the trade union recognised by HBOS, has reported “numerous positive flexible working stories” from HBOS employees but also comments that they have received “numerous calls regarding the confusion that exists between flexible working, overtime and time-off in lieu” 40.
The Professional Planning Forum found that a major factor in the success of the programme was the “Operations Support Team” 38 which enabled the employees to put in their requests over the phone rather than “the industry trend towards web or kiosk access to book time off” 38. The Professional Planning Forum reports that the employees felt that “having the phone-line open from early to late makes them feel much more in control” 38 . The Professional Planning Forum also report that long-term planning is improved and that “99% of colleagues got first or second choice for all of their holidays” as “there is now more scope for short-notice flexibility allowing more lea-way in the long-term planning process” . The Professional Planning Forum felt that a further measure of the success of the programme could be seen in the take-up of the programme and that “in June 2004, less than 5% (of employees) were on flexible rosters, by March 2005 60% had already volunteered for FLEXTRA” .
The Professional Planning Forum report that a key to the success of the FLEXTRA programme was the implementation strategy. They state that “the project was treated very much like a marketing campaign, with a good budget for promotional materials and as much commitment as when Halifax was launching the new current account” 44. Furthermore, the Professional Planning Forum report that “the full participation of all the operational and team managers was vital” and that ”HR’s role in the project was absolutely critical” and see this as “a clear industry trend for successful resourcing projects” 42.
There were, however, problems in the implementation as all employees were impacted rather than just those who had opted into the programme. This was caused by the high level of multiskilling and the existing roster patterns (Professional Planning Forum 2005). However, the Professional Planning Forum report that “implementation was made possible by the top-level agreement to suspend large parts of the day-to-day work” 42.
Once the FLEXTRA programme had been developed, it’s role-out was carefully planned and involved training managers in it’s content and application, staff briefing sessions including time for questions and answers, posters, articles on the intranet and reminders printed on payslips. Opt-in was wholly voluntary, but much emphasis was given in the communication strategy of the wider options that could be accessed by those who took it up.
Methodology.
In this paper both primary and secondary research have been carried out. The secondary research identified, from a series of published case studies, what actions HBOS’s competitors had implemented in relation to work-life balance practices, how they had implemented them, what the effects were and what problems they had encountered. Primary research was then carried out with HBOS to be able to compare their range of offerings and experiences with those of their competitors.
To evaluate the introduction of work-life balance into HBOS, it was decided to use questions based on those of the CIPDs survey report “Flexible Working: Impact and Implementation an Employee Survey” (CIPD 2005) to act as a baseline. By using many of the same questions as they had done, interesting comparisons could be made between their results conducted over the private, public and voluntary sectors with the responses from HBOS employees and the information form the case studies to examine whether their FLEXTRA programme showed typical characteristics in its implementation, uptake, success and problems. Some of the original CIPD questions were not used in this survey as they were thought to be irrelevant.
The survey population consisted of one human resources department (HR) representative, 12 managerial staff and 50 non-managerial employees. The HR representative was head office based and was questioned via telephone. The other respondents were from five high street branches of HBOS and were questioned face-to-face over a period of three days. It is noted that the CIPD survey questioned HR representatives only. For the purpose of this research, it was considered valuable to question non-HR employees as well to measure their knowledge, awareness and perceptions as these could be compared to both the base line survey and the HR representative’s answers. The managerial and non managerial employees responses are assessed separately only in the area of determining the problems with implementation, as it was felt that this would be a valuable indication of the perceptions of the two different groups. The results are shown in appendices 1 and 2 with the HR representative’s replies being shown separately as appendix 1 to be able to assess the difference between HBOS’ official viewpoint versus their employee’s opinions, perceptions and experiences.
In the CIPD study report, it is not made clear as to whether the answers given were selected from a range of multiple choice options or if the range of answers given has been grouped into the results shown. For the primary research in this paper, multiple-choice options were used for the managerial and non-managerial populations so that an effective comparison could be made. It is noted that a limitation of this research is that using multiple choice options may have led the respondents to select answers they would not otherwise have considered.
The secondary research is noted by the writer to have a limitation in that not all the areas examined e.g. implementation, benefits, problems, are covered in all the case studies. However, it is considered that there is ample information provided to make a valid comparison.
For the primary research all questions except 14 and 15 were asked of the HR representative and were assumed to be the companies view. This allowed the thoughts and opinions of the other employees to be compared against the actual case. For ease of reference in the methodology, results, discussion and conclusion, the non-HR employees are referred to as the employees as a group and divided into managerial staff and non-managerial staff where appropriate.
Question 1 was asked to determine the employee’s awareness of what was available to all staff and what was restricted to some staff in terms of flexible working practices.
Question 2 was asked to determine what level of importance the employee thought the company placed on each possible reason for introducing the policies. This was to determine whether the employees believed it was for their benefit as individuals or purely for business reasons. Similarly, question 3 was asked to determine the perceived benefits to the company and to themselves of the policies.
Question 4 was asked to determine opinion of the take-up levels of flexible working practices and question 5 investigated the perceived differences in take-up levels between occupational groups.
Question 6 examined what factors the employees believed should be considered when determining the effectiveness of flexible working practices. By asking this question of the employees it could be seen what they would consider to be an effective determination of success e.g. company results or employee opinion.
Questions 7 and 8 were asked to gauge the success of the implementation plan overall and it’s individual components.
Questions 9 and 10 looked at the problems in adopting flexible working practices with question 10 being asked of the non-managerial employees to investigate what problems they thought the management encountered.
Question 11 explored what support was known to exist by managers and non-management employees to help them deal with requests and make requests respectively.
Question 12 looked at the factors that prevented people from requesting more flexible working patterns than they actually currenty have and it was emphasised that this related to them specifically, not the barriers they though others experienced.
Question 13 explored what actions they were aware of the company introducing to overcome the problems that were being experienced.
Question 14 was in four parts and was asked of the non-managerial employees to gauge the impact on their feelings about HBOS as an employer and the impact on their work life balance following the introduction of FLEXTRA. It also measured what proportion of the sample had requested flexible working patterns and what proportion had been agreed. They were also asked what further actions HBOS could take to improve their work-life balance.
The same set of four questions was asked of the managerial group in question 15.
For both groups, the answers to questions 14 and 15 were to gain qualitative data to contrast with the quantitative data collected in the other questions.
RESULTS OF THE PRIMARY RESEARCH.
The non-HR employees were aware that part-time working, term time working and flexitime were available to all staff. However nearly half of them (47%) thought that job share was available, nearly a quarter (24%) thought that compressed hours was an option, 10% believed that career breaks/sabbaticals and secondments to other organisations were possibilities and a small proportion (3%) believed annual hours to be part of the flexible working practices. In all these cases, the non-HR employees who thought these were available thought they were only open to some staff. The HR representative had stated that job-share, compressed hours; annual hours, career breaks/sabbaticals and secondments to other organisations or annual hours were available to any staff. The non-HR respondents thought that senior managers would be able to access these options.
The non-HR employees generally correctly identified the reasons that the HR representative gave for the company’s introduction of flexible working practices. They identified the main reasons as recruitment and retention whilst maximising the use of company premises was seen as not important. They gave recruitment a slightly higher score (4.48 mean) than the HR representative who rated it at 4. The HR representative gave the reason “to support employer brand” as a very important factor, whilst the employees themselves gave it a mean score of 3.7. The employees underestimated the need to comply with legislation rating it at a mean of 4.4 with nearly a quarter (24%) stating they didn’t know of this need.
The employees felt that motivation, absence levels and customer service were the main areas that had been positively affected by the FLEXTRA programme. The HR representative also rated these highly along with retention, recruitment and productivity (all rated as having a major positive effect). The employees rated these three areas as experiencing a positive effect rather than negative, but nto as positive as the HR representative had thought giving them mean scores of 3, 3.9 and 3.3 respectively. The majority of employees (91.9% and 62.9% respectively) thought that teamwork and knowledge sharing had been negatively affected by the FLEXTRA programme whereas the HR representative thought there had been neither a positive nor negative effect by rating them as 3. Both the HR representative and the employees thought there had been no effect in terms of the psychological contract although 95.2% of the employees did not know what the term meant.
Only 27% of the employees estimated the take-up rate as being in the same range given by the HR representative. It is assumed that the HR representative’s take-up figure would be accurate and it does agree with the figure identified in the literature review. The majority of employees (63%) thought that the take-up rate was lower than this.
Estimations as to take-up levels by occupational groups were highly inaccurate by the employee respondents. They believed that senior managers and professional staff had the highest take up rates (81.1% and 80.1% respectively). The HR representative rated these groups take up rates as being low. The HR representative gave the take-up rate for middle/junior management as medium whereas the employee group estimated it to be low. For administrative/secretarial/technical groups, sales and customers service personnel and graduate trainees, the employee respondents correctly estimated the take up rates to be high, high and low respectively the same as was given by the HR representative.
The employees correctly identified most of the factors that were being used to measure the effectiveness of the flexible working practices with all of them believing employee opinion/attitude surveys should be used. However, 74.1% believed that the number of flexible working requests/ appeals against those declined was a useful measure of effectiveness whilst the HR representative said that this was not a measure used. A small proportion (4.8%) of employees thought that the use of resources was a measure that would be useful, but again the HR representative said that this was not used.
The majority of the employees (61.3%) rated themselves as 4 in terms of how aware they are of the flexible working practices available to them. Only 16.1% thought they were either aware or unaware with no respondents giving lower than this. The HR representative believed all the employees to be very aware of the practices.
The HR representative cited all the options of communication as being used for the FLEXTRA rollout. Almost all (93.5% in both cases) of the employees were aware of the inclusion of the programme in regular communication events and of special communication events being held. All of them were aware of the promotional material that had been used although only 24.2% had been aware of the poster campaign. Less than three quarters (74%) had received training in the practices and this number (45) included all the managerial staff.
The HR representative gave operational pressures and line managers ability to effectively line manages flexible workers as the only constraints in implementing FLEXTRA. Whilst the employee respondents agreed with these (95.2% and 58.1% respectively) they placed less emphasis on the line managers and more emphasis on customer service requirements (88.7%), existing organisation culture (59.7%) and lack of senior level support (67.8%).
The HR representative also gave only inability to control the workforce as the only problem encountered when dealing with requests for flexible working whereas the majority of the managerial group found having to demonstrate fairness between different employees (100%), problems with communicating with their team (91.7%), a threat to their ability to manage (83.3%) an inability to control the workforce (75%), reduced productivity (75%) and performance management problems (75%) as being major barriers when dealing with requests for flexible working. The non-managerial group identified the difficulties in demonstrating fairness as the major problem (90%), but also saw communication problems as being relevant (68%).
Whilst the HR representative gave all the options for support as having been used, the option of advice/guidance on the intranet was the only one that all the managers were aware of. Whilst most of them (66.7% and 83.3% respectively) were aware of training courses and written advice/guidance, less than half were aware of coaching and feedback from HR and information about legal requirements as being available (41.6% and 33.3% respectively). A large proportion of the non-managerial employee group were aware of the written advice/guidance and advice/guidance on the intranet (98% and 96% respectively). Only 12% were aware of training courses and non were aware of the options of coaching/feedback from HR or information about legal requirements.
The HR representative and the employees respondents were generally in agreement as to the factors that prevented employees from asking for flexible working with the HR representative and the employees rating all the options as three or below for all the possible reasons. The one exception to this is the fear of their request being refused by the organisation which the HR representative rated as a 1 and the employees gave a mean score of 3.2.
The employee respondents were generally unaware of the steps being taken to address their concerns about requesting/requests for flexible working with only improving communication and including questions of flexible working practice in the employee opinion/attitude surveys given as steps by more then half the respondents (77.4% and 56.5% respectively). Less than a quarter (19.3%) were aware that training and development opportunities were being made available to people working flexibly and under 10% knew of encouraging managers to role model the take up, highlighting the opportunities in job adverts and focusing job descriptions on outputs. All of the respondents giving these three replies were from the managerial group.
The majority (68%) of the non-managerial employees felt much more positive about HBOS as an employer since the introduction of FLEXTRA. Only one person said they felt much less positive with the remainder feeling more positive. In the comments given it is noted that there was awareness that a lot of employers have introduced similar programmes but that this didn’t detract from their positive feelings about HBOS. Also shown was an appreciation that the company had not just introduced FLEXTRA for the employees benefit and that it had a business case as well. Again, the majority (60%) felt that there had been a positive impact on their work-life balance although one person felt it had a negative impact and one thought it had a significant negative impact. The comments suggest that the employees are aware that the biggest benefits were to those who had children and the two with the negative response felt that this put them under the burden of having to do unsociable hours. There were many suggestions as to how HBOS could further improve it’s flexible working practices with providing more options, making them available to everyone and being more fair in who they allow to use them being the most popular (90%, 84% and 76% respectively). A proportion (10%) wanted the company to give full time pay for part time hours and 36% wanted increased pay for working unsociable hours. Career breaks were suggested by 6%. Nearly three quarters (74%) of the sample population had requested flexible hours and of these 70% were accepted with only two people having their request refused.
In the managerial population, only half the respondents said that they viewed HBOS much more positively as an employer since the introduction of FLEXTRA with a further 17% feeling more positive. A significant proportion 33%, felt less positive. From the comments given the concerns would seem to be around the problems encountered with their staff working flexible hours, specifically, the management of these staff. It was also mentioned that despite working flexible hours, they still had to complete the same amount of work.
This was echoed in the following question where a total of 50% of this population felt that FLEXTRA had a negative or significant negative impact on their work-life balance. The impositions on the management group of either working flexible hours themselves or of having staff working flexible hours seemed to make their job more difficult and thereby had a negative effect on their work-life balance. Only one person stated it had a significant positive impact and two, a positive impact. Whilst they gave similar ways in which FLEXTRA could be improved as the non-managerial group, career breaks was a much more popular suggestion (83.3%) and they would also like to see HR take responsibility for deciding whether or not to accept a request for flexible working. Only on person suggested that the options should be made available to everyone.
Only three of the management population had requested flexible hours and two of these were refused.
RESULTS OF THE SECONDARY RESEARCH.
The Employers for Work-Life Balance Organisation has completed a series of case studies on the flexible working options available a range of organisations. These include a number of financial institutions relevant to this study. The practices available in well-known financial organisations are summarised in the table below:
Company Nationwide Building Society Natwest Group LloydsTSB Royal Bank of Scotland Yorkshire Building Society
Part time working Y Y Y
Flexible working Y Y Y Y Y
Job share Y Y Y
Term time working Y Y Y
Annual hours Y
Seasonal working Y
Home working Y Y Y
Paternity leave 5 days 3 days
Subsidised nursery places Y
Childcare vouchers Y
Employee support/counselling/helpline Y Y Y
Various leave schemes Y Y
Extended maternity leave Up to 63 weeks
Career break Y – up to 5 years Y
Compressed working week Y Y
Maternity and adoption “phase back” Y
“wind down to retirement” Y
The case studies also examine why the policies were introduced, problems that were/are encountered and the perceived benefits. The key points are summarised below.
LloydsTSB.
With 77,000 employees in the UK, Lloyds has received a high level of publicity and praise for their work-life balance practices and policies. The key initiatives they have introduced are: flexible work patterns, enhanced maternity and parental leave to a maximum of 63 weeks, 3 days paternity leave, compassionate and emergency leave, up to five years career break and a counselling and employee support programme . The benefits that LloydsTSB give from introducing these policies are interesting as they cite both “extended service provision” and “£350,000 media value of positive publicity” in the top five suggesting that their motivation is not purely for the welfare of their employees but also the business benefits. LloydsTSB introduced their policies following their formulation by focus groups and external consultants (TUC 2005 ). Having initiated a request for flexible working, employees are provided with a guidance pack to help them make a business case which they then discuss with their manager. The case study states that monitoring takes place and that staff are informed of progress through their newsletter (TUC 2005 ). They also state that “of the applications received: 93% were approved, 23% were from managers” and “15% were from men” . They quote the LloydsTSB Head of Equal Opportunities as saying that the benefits are: “there is a very clear business imperative for us, as what differentiates us from our competitors is the quality of people. To maintain that edge we need to recruit and retain the right calibre of personnel” 45.
Nationwide Building Society.
Nationwide Building Society state that the business benefits of introducing flexible working policies are that by “recognising the need for employees to balance their home and working life enables us to recruit and retain high calibre people and ensure that they are motivated and committed to the organisation” . They go on to give an example for the cost savings in saying “the 30% increase in our rate of return from maternity leave over the last ten years has saved us over £3 million” 46. Nationwide give the issues around flexible working patterns as those relating to the management of flexible workers and the case study states that “it presents them with certain challenges, particularly where traditional supervision arrangements by management have to be re-evaluated” 46.
Natwest Group.
The Natwest Group also feels that the benefits of flexible working practices are “reduced staff turnover, increased retention of key skills and experience; raised employee commitment and motivation” and that “it supports the development of a diverse workforce” .
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
The RBS identified that not only did they have a large proportion of female staff with young children but also that other employees “are seeking a fuller life outside work, with time to devote to personal interests” . They also note that “there is a need to retain business agility in an increasingly competitive market” 48. They developed a range of options for flexible working in 2002 which can be accessed by all employees, not just these with caring responsibilities. They supported the implementation with the use of Business Champions and a comprehensive communications strategy. They evaluated the impact through including questions related to these policies in their annual employee attitude survey 50. RBS has identified the business benefits of their policies as being “more flexible and agile business, reduced employee turnover, reduced sickness absence, increased retention of key skills and experience, increased employee commitment and motivation (and) attraction of quality candidates for positions” 48. They do not indicate how these benefits have been identified or measured and are aware that many employees see the policies as being directed to mothers and carers.
The Yorkshire Building Society.
The Yorkshire Building Society adopted flexible working practices due to identified needs relating to “attracting a wider pool of potential employees, supporting the aim of being an “Employer of Choice” in the area, encouraging more applications, improving retention of experienced staff and reducing absenteeism, improving employee satisfaction and productivity, increasing flexibility enabling the Society to adapt to changing business strategy such as the need for longer opening hours etc.” . Their development and implementation strategy was robust. Having conducted extensive research into their competitor’s activities in this area, they engaged the senior management team and non-managerial staff in consultation to gain a full understanding of their work-life balance needs. Following a pilot scheme, the programme was adopted across the business and supported by briefing packs and a “formal evaluation framework” for managers to assess flexible working requests 49 based purely on business impact. Four years after its introduction, 254 employees had applied for flexible working and only 40 had been rejected 49. The Yorkshire Building Society estimate that over half of their employees now work under flexitime arrangements. They have measured the benefits to the business as being that “of all the women taking maternity leave in 2004, 56.25% have decided to return to the Society, 79% of staff are satisfied with the Society as an employer, (and that) 70% of staff feel that they are able to strike the right balance between work and home life, (this being) an increase of 7% on 2003” 49. They feel the key components in their success have been the inclusion of work-life balance issues into “every appropriate training course” 49 and their communication strategy.
DISCUSSION.
The employee survey population of HBOS identified similar reasons for implementing flexible working options as those given by the company itself and those reasons are in line with both the CIPD research and the secondary research of competitor financial institutions. Retention of staff is seen to be a high motivator with the recruitment of staff another important factor. This would support the information in the literature review around employers concerns as to the difficulties in being able to recruit staff in the future. The need to comply with legislation was given as an important factor in the CIPD research and by HBOS, whilst it does not appear to be predominant in the secondary research. This is possibly because the organisations would not want to give this as a reason for adopting their policies as it would not give the image of a good employer as it could be determined that they had only introduced the policies because they had to. It is also interesting that the employee population of the primary research lacked awareness as to the legal requirements imposed on their employer to provide certain types of flexibility. It would be of interest to conduct further research to determine if once employees were made aware of the legal requirements, they felt as positive about the efforts of their organisation. Another area of interest is that of the positive effects on the employer brand. Both the CIPD survey and the HBOS employees rated this as just above average in importance. HBOS rated it as very important. It is perhaps because of the benefit noted by LloydsTSB who calculated that they had received “£350,000 media value of positive publicity” as a result of the introduction of the Work Options programme.
The literature review suggests that reducing absence is an important reason to introduce the policies with an emphasise on the possible link between long hours and stress. Neither the primary nor secondary research showed this to be a major consideration except in the cases of the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Yorkshire Building Society who both cited reduced absenteeism in general.
Torrington et al (2005) place importance on customers desire for a 24/7 society as a driving force behind the implementation of policies. The CIPD research as well as the primary and secondary research agree that the customers needs and the business needs are important considerations. They suggestion that people entering the workplace for the first time have higher expectations around work-life balance could be interpreted as employees needs which was given as a reason for implementation of flexible working practices in the CIPD survey and the primary and secondary research. It was initially assumed that this phrase meant employee’s needs related primarily to childcare requirements.
The range of flexible working options offered by HBOS falls well short of those offered by their competitors in the financial industry. All the businesses in the secondary research offered flexible working and many included options such as job sharing, annual hours and seasonal working which were not included in the FLEXTRA programme. Furthermore, HBOS’ competitors offered provisions such as extended maternity and paternity leave, subsidised nursery places, childcare vouchers and career breaks as flexible working options were as HBOS does not currently do so. The range of options found in both the primary and secondary research is limited and this supports the findings of the literature review that little innovative thought goes into how work-life balance can be improved. It also suggests that there is more emphasise on compliance with legal requirements than the research indicates. In particular, whereas the responsibilities on growing numbers of the working population to care for elderly relatives is highlighted in by both Torrington et al (2005) and Unison (date unknown), it is not included as a particular consideration by the employers in the CIPD study or the primary and secondary research. This may be because it is not currently a legal requirement.
The employee survey population were also of the opinion that some staff had access to a greater range of flexible working options than others. It was felt that senior managers and mothers of young children were able to take up options not available to others. This supports the literature reviews findings around concerns of a split within workforces where mothers of young children in particular are viewed unfavourably by other employees, being see as having more access to flexible working options.
In terms of how the flexible work practices were implemented, the secondary research provided some relevant information around how this was done. The Royal Bank of Scotland used a comprehensive communications strategy supported by Business Champions and LloydsTSB provided a guidance pack to assist their employees in making their business case. The Yorkshire Building Society gained employee support through engaging them during the development process and following a pilot study, briefed the entire workforce and supported the managers with a framework to evaluate requests for flexible working. HBOS supported their role out with training, specific communication events, inclusion in regular communication events, promotional material and a poster campaign. The research suggests that these were fairly successful as most of the employees were aware of these vehicles however, their lack of knowledge on the specific options available to them suggests that the implementation was not as efficient as it initially appeared. HBOS did not use either business champions or managers as role models, two practices which were given by Torrington et al (2005) as key to successful implementation.
It was found in the literature review that monitoring and evaluation of flexible working policy take-up and impact was generally ad hoc and the results of the primary and secondary research support this. Little solid statistical information was available and much of the measurement seemed to be estimated and in the case of HBOS, poorly communicated to the employee group.
The CIPD survey found retention and motivation as the main effects of implementing the practices – it is assumed they were improved. Recruitment and the psychological contract also appear as significant. The primary research respondents highlighted reduced absence, motivation and customer service as the main effects of the FLEXTRA programme. This is not surprising as, not being directly involved in the HR side of the business, these are the areas that they would see being impacted in their day-to-day work. They are more likely to notice that less of their colleagues are absent from work due to sickness than they would be aware of an increase in the number of applications for vacancies.
Torrington et al cited various studies suggesting improved staff performance as a result of the introduction of flexible working practices. The CIPD survey rated this as just above the mean score in terms of impact as did the HBOS employees. However, it does not appear in the secondary research. This may also be due to concerns about giving a negative impression as to why they introduced the policies.
The primary research population was generally unaware of the term “psychological contract” although it is accepted by the writer that the concepts of motivation and the psychological contract could be seen as being closely linked. Team working and knowledge sharing were deemed by the primary research group to be more negatively impacted than the results of the CIPD survey found. Again, this may well be an area where they are closer to what is happening and regularly see the effects.
Whilst the vast majority of non managerial respondents in the primary research felt that their impression of HBOS as an employer was more positive as a result of FLEXTRA being introduced, a third of the management survey population felt it had made their feelings less positive suggesting that it had caused them more issues in their job. FLEXTRA was felt to have had a positive impact on the work-life balance of the majority of employees, but a significant proportion felt it had no impact. The managerial survey population were again less positive with half feeling that the overall effect on their work-life balance was negative. This again supports the findings of the literature review in that the implementation of these practices causes more difficulties for managers.
A large proportion of the primary research population underestimated the degree of take up of flexible working patterns although HBOS’ take up rate generally is higher than that given in the CIPD research. The secondary research did not contain details of take up rates amongst HBOS’ competitors.
In the secondary research, only the Yorkshire Building Society cites the number of requests and those declined as a measure of effectiveness whereas the primary research group felt that this was an important measure. The CIPD survey does not measure this at all. This suggests that the TUC’s report “Changing Times” as covered in the literature review, picked up on a key issue. If an organisation introduces flexible working practices, but the refuses a high proportion of the requests it receives but does not publicise this, it will give a false picture as to the actual level of importance it puts on the whole work-life balance issue. It could also be that such organisations use flexible working policies mainly for their own benefit e.g. to cater for the 24/7 society rather than as a way to fulfil employees needs. Of the primary research population, over half had requested some form of flexible working and 90% of these had been agreed. However, in the management population, three had requested flexible working and two had been declined.
The primary research echoes the findings in the literature review as to the main problems in implementing flexible working practices. The employees in the primary research rated operational pressures as the main constraint with customer and service requirements rated as the second most important factor whereas the literature review suggests that the problems are around the skills and abilities of the management group. The primary research did note this as being significant however, and when questioned as to the problems they had encountered themselves, all the managerial respondents cited difficulties in demonstrating fairness between different employees requesting flexible working. The non-managerial survey population also showed awareness of this issue with 90% of them citing it as a problem. A large proportion of the managers also gave communication issues and a perceived threat to their ability to manage as being problems. Managers received support to overcome these issues whilst the non-managerial employees cited less support being available to help them request flexibility.
The non-managerial sample in the primary research generally felt that the main reason stopping them from requesting more flexible work patterns was a fear of the request being refused.
The primary research identified several ways in which HBOS could improve their work-life balance offering. For the employee survey group, there was demand for an increased range of options and for the existing options to be available to everyone one. This suggests, along with other areas of the survey, that the employees believe that flexible working practices are there to support only particular groups of employee e.g. senior managers or the mothers of young children. They also wanted to see more fairness in dealing with requests for flexible working. The management population also wanted a greater range of flexible working options, including the opportunity to take a career break. Also rated highly by them was a desire for the HR department to take over responsibility for deciding whether to allow or refuse requests for flexible working.
The primary research showed that whilst the respondents could identify the problems with the implementation of FLEXTRA, they felt that little was being done by the company to overcome these. They were aware of communication being improved and that questions around FLEXTRA were being included in attitude and opinion surveys, but very few were aware of the efforts to encourage managers to act as role models or the increased emphasis on outputs rather than attendance.
CONCLUSION.
Businesses offer a range of options to their employees to assist them in achieving more of a work-life balance and these are generally termed as flexible working practices. These include such things as flexitime, part time working, job share and compressed hours. Some organisations have taken the concept further and provide opportunities for employees to undertake voluntary work or to take a career break. The general concept of work-life balance has seen increased favour through a combination of employees needs in terms of childcare and desires to attain a more fulfilling lifestyle, businesses requirements to recruit and retain high calibre staff and provide a twenty-four/seven service to their customers and the introduction of legislation by both the domestic and European governments.
The implementation of these flexible working practices is not without its problems which can affect both the organisation and the employees themselves
In 2004, HBOS introduced a range of flexible working practices in a scheme known as FLEXTRA, designed to improve the work-life balance of their employees. This paper has found that HBOS has experienced similar problems to other organisations in the implementation of this programme. Whilst the non-managerial employees are generally pleased with FLEXTRA there are concerns around who benefits most from them with a perception that they are aimed mainly at the mothers of young children. The management population are less pleased with FLEXTRA having experienced problems in dealing with the requests for flexibility and the management of their teams when sections of them take up the flexible working options. It has been found that HBOS is probably not taking enough effective action to overcome these problems. This paper also shows that the range of options available under FLEXTRA is not as far ranging as those offered by their competitors. It can be concluded that whilst the introduction of FLEXTRA shows a degree of commitment to helping employee achieve some work-life balance, it by no means goes far enough.
It would be naive to suggest that organisations would introduce flexible working practices purely as a response to the desire of their employees to achieve a work-life balance. The benefits of such policies will always have a combination of direct and indirect benefits to the organisation itself. The direct benefits can be measured in terms of complying with legislation, meeting customer needs for a 24/7 society and supporting the business needs to provide the 24/7 service. Flexible working policies also benefit the organisations by providing a vehicle for their employees to achieve a greater balance between their work and leisure time which would be expected to produce a happier, more motivated, more productive and/or efficient workforce thereby reducing recruitment, absence and turnover costs as well as benefiting the bottom line.
Hogarth et al (2001) cite the research undertaken by the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick and IFF Research Limited which found that “91% of employers and 96% of employees felt that people work better when they can balance their work with other aspects of their lives” and that “(e)mployers can also find that such policies can meet business needs for flexibility and so can be a way of addressing diversity issues” .
Kodz et al (2002) concluded that “ there is an increasing acceptance that choice, control and flexibility are important in work, that personal fulfilment is important outside work, and, furthermore, that satisfaction outside work may enhance employees contribution to work” (italics in original).
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APPENDICES.
APPENDIX 1.
Questionnaire HR Representative
1. What are your organisation’s current practices regarding flexible working in the following areas?
Available only to some staff Available to all staff
Part time working Yes
Term-time working Yes
Job-share No No
Flexitime Yes
Compressed hour (e.g. 4-day week) No No
Annual hours No No
Working form home on a regular basis Yes
Mobile working Yes
Career break/sabbaticals No No
Secondment to another reorganisation No No
Time off for work in the community No No
2. Why has the organisation introduced flexible working practices?
5 (very important) 4 3 2 1 (not important)
To help retain staff Yes
To meet employees needs Yes
To comply with legislation Yes
To support business needs Yes
To meet customers needs Yes
To help recruit staff Yes
To support employer brand Yes
To maximise use of company premises Yes
3. What are the effects of implementing flexible working practices on the organisation?
5 (major positive effect) 4 3 2 1 (major negative effect)
Retention Yes
Motivation Yes
Recruitment Yes
Psychological contract Yes
Productivity Yes
Absence Yes
Customer service Yes
Teamworking Yes
Knowledge-sharing Yes
4. What is the take-up of flexible working practices in the organisation?
0 – 24% 25 – 49% 50 – 74% 75 – 100% Don’t know
HR representative Yes
5. What is the take-up of flexible working practices to be by occupational group?
high Medium Low
Senior managers Yes
Professional staff Yes
Middle/junior staff Yes
Administrative/secretarial/technical Yes
Sales and customer service Yes
Graduate trainees Yes
6. Which of these factors are used to evaluate the effectiveness of flexible working practices?
Take-up rates Yes
Employee opinion/attitude surveys Yes
Absence rates Yes
Percentage of women returning from maternity leave Yes
Exit data Yes
Business outputs Yes
Turnover rates Yes
Number of flexible working requests/appeals against those declined No
Employee focus groups Yes
Information from staff appraisal No
Use of resources No
7. How aware do you believe the employees are about the flexible working practices available to them?
5 (very aware) 4 3 2 1 (not aware at all)
Yes
8. How was the organisation’s FLEXTRA programme communicated?
Training Yes
Regular communication events Yes
Specific communication events Yes
Promotional material Yes
Posters Yes
From colleagues Yes
9. What do you feel are the main constraints in implementing FLEXTRA?
Operational pressures Yes
Customer/service requirements No
Line managers ability to effectively line manage flexible workers Yes
Line management attitudes No
Existing organisational culture No
Lack of senior level support No
Financial restraints No
Technological restraints No
Employee lack of interest No
Employee resistance No
10. What problems have been encountered when dealing with requests for flexible working?
Inability to control workforce Yes
Having to demonstrate fairness between different employees No
Technical problems in restructuring/redesigning jobs No
Threat to managements ability to manage No
Reduced productivity No
Need to recruit more workers to maintain service/output No
Problems in managing the performance of their team No
Problems communicating with their team Yes
11. What support has been provided to deal with requests for flexible working/request flexible working?
Coaching/feedback from HR Yes
Information about legal requirements Yes
Written advice/guidance Yes
Advice/guidance on intranet Yes
Training courses Yes
12. What factors prevent employees asking for flexible working patterns?
5 (major factor) 4 3 2 1 (not a factor)
They believe it will not be practicable to accommodate the kind of flexibility they would like, given the nature of their job Yes
They are worried about the effect on their career/promotion prospects Yes
They fear the request will be refused by the organisation Yes
They fear negative response from colleagues Yes
They are not aware of their specific rights within the organisation Yes
13. What steps are being taken to address the employees about requesting flexible working arrangements?
Improving communication of the flexible working arrangements available Yes
Ensuring training and development opportunities are available to people working flexibly Yes
Including questions on flexible working practices in employee opinion/attitude surveys Yes
Highlighting flexible working opportunities in job advertisements Yes
Gearing performance management to focus on individual output (not presenteism) No
Encouraging managers to role-model the take-up of flexible working options Yes
Focusing job descriptions on outputs Yes
APPENDIX 2.
Questionnaire – non-HR employees
1. What are your organisation’s current practices regarding flexible working in the following areas?
Available to some staff Available to all staff Not available
Number % Number % Number %
Part time working 62 100
Term-time working 62 100
Job-share 29 47 33 53
Flexitime 62 100
Compressed hour (e.g. 4-day week) 15 24 47 76
Annual hours 2 3 60 97
Working from home on a regular basis 37 60 25 40
Mobile working 6 10 56 90
Career break/sabbaticals 6 10 56 90
Secondment to another reorganisation 6 10 56 90
Time off for work in the community 2 3 60 97
2. Why has the organisation introduced flexible working practices? (Results in numbers)
5 (very important) 4 3 2 1 (not important) Don’t know Mean
To help retain staff 48 3 9 2 0 0 4.5
To meet employees needs 25 12 23 2 0 0 3.96
To comply with legislation 32 0 15 0 0 15 4.4
To support business needs 35 16 11 0 0 0 4.25
To meet customers needs 37 19 4 0 0 2 4.1
To help recruit staff 40 12 10 0 0 0 4.48
To support employer brand 23 16 22 0 0 1 3.7
To maximise use of company premises 0 0 0 2 58 2 1
3. What are the effects of implementing flexible working practices on the organisation? (Results in numbers)
5 (major positive effect) 4 3 2 1 (major negative effect) Don’t know Mean
Retention 6 12 32 0 12 0 3
Motivation 35 22 0 0 5 0 4.3
Recruitment 16 26 20 0 0 0 3.9
Psychological contract 3 0 0 0 0 59 3
Productivity 27 3 0 28 4 0 3.3
Absence 38 17 0 0 5 2 4.4
Customer service 29 23 0 0 5 5 4.2
Teamworking 5 2 0 32 25 3 2.1
Knowledge-sharing 3 1 16 21 18 3 2
4. What do you know/estimate the take-up of flexible working practices to be in the organisation?
0 – 24% 25 – 49% 50 – 74% 75 – 100% Don’t know
6 (10%) 33 (53%) 17 (27%) 4 (6%) 2 (3%)
5. What do you know/believe to be the take-up of flexible working practices to be by occupational group? (Results given in numbers).
High Medium Low
Senior managers 50 (81.1%) 6 (9.7%) 6 (9.7%)
Professional staff 50 (80.1%) 6 (9.7%) 6 (9.7%)
Middle/junior staff 18 (29%) 6 (9.7%) 38 (61.3%)
Administrative/secretarial/technical 37 (59.7%) 24 (38.7%) 1 (1.6%)
Sales and customer service 40 (64.5%) 21 (33.9%) 1 (1.6%)
Graduate trainees 2 (3.2%) 3 (4.8%) 58 (93.5%)
6. Which of these factors are/should be used to evaluate the effectiveness of flexible working practices? (Results given in numbers)
Take-up rates 58 (93.5%)
Employee opinion/attitude surveys 62 (100%)
Absence rates 45 (72.6%)
Percentage of women returning from maternity leave 32 (51.6%)
Exit data 12 (19.4%)
Business outputs 45 (72.6%)
Turnover rates 58 (93.5%)
Number of flexible working requests/appeals against those declined 46 (74.1%)
Employee focus groups 54 (87%)
Information from staff appraisal 54 (87%)
Use of resources 3 (4.8%)
Don’t know 0 (0%)
7. How aware do you believe you are about the flexible working practices available to you?
5 (very aware) 4 3 2 1 (not at all aware) Mean
14 (22.6%) 38 (61.3%) 10 (16.1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 4.1
8. How was the organisation’s FLEXTRA programme communicated?
Training 45 (72.3%)
Regular communication events 58 (93.5%)
Specific communication events 58 (93.5%)
Promotional material 62 (100%)
Posters 15 (24.2%)
From colleagues 3 (4.8%)
9. What do you feel are the main constraints in implementing FLEXTRA?
Operational pressures 59 (95.2%)
Customer/service requirements 55 (88.7%)
Line managers ability to effectively line manage flexible workers 36 (58.1%)
Line management attitudes 16 (25.8%)
Existing organisational culture 37 (59.7%)
Lack of senior level support 42 (67.8%)
Financial restraints 27 (43.5%)
Technological restraints 3 (4.8%)
Employee lack of interest 2 (3.2%)
Employee resistance 0 (0%)
10. What problems did you encounter when dealing with requests for flexible working/requesting flexible working?
Managerial staff Non managerial staff
Inability to control workforce 9 (75%) 5 (10%)
Having to demonstrate fairness between different employees 12 (100%) 45 (90%)
Technical problems in restructuring/redesigning jobs 8 (66.7%) 4 (8%)
Threat to managements ability to manage 10 (83.3%) 9 (18%)
Reduced productivity 9 (75%) 3 (6%)
Need to recruit more workers to maintain service/output 1 (8.3%) 2 (4%)
Problems in managing the performance of their team 9 (75%) 19 (38%)
Problems communicating with their team 11 (91.7%) 34 (68)
11. What support was provided for you to deal with requests for flexible working/request flexible working?
Managerial employees Non managerial employees
Coaching/feedback from HR 5 (41.6%) 0
Information about legal requirements 4 (33.3%) 0
Written advice/guidance 10 (83.3%) 49 (98%)
Advice/guidance on intranet 12 (100%) 48 (96%)
Training courses 8 (66.7%) 6 (12%)
12. What factors prevent you asking for flexible working patterns? (Results given in numbers).
5 (major factor) 4 3 2 1 (not a factor) Mean
They believe it will not be practicable to accommodate the kind of flexibility they would like, given the nature of their job 14 12 3 6 27 2.7
They are worried about the effect on their career/promotion prospects 21 2 0 0 39 2.45
They fear the request will be refused by the organisation 15 8 20 11 8 3.2
They fear negative response from colleagues 7 3 10 3 39 1.97
They are not aware of their specific rights within the organisation 6 1 0 8 47 1.6
13. What steps do you believe are being taken to address your concerns about requesting flexible working arrangements?
Improving communication of the flexible working arrangements available 48 (77.4%)
Ensuring training and development opportunities are available to people working flexibly 12 (19.3%)
Including questions on flexible working practices in employee opinion/attitude surveys 35 (56.5%)
Highlighting flexible working opportunities in job advertisements 3 (4.8%)
Gearing performance management to focus on individual output (not presenteism) 2 (3.2%)
Encouraging managers to role-model the take-up of flexible working options 6 (9.7%)
Focusing job descriptions on outputs 2 (3.2%)
14. a) what impact has FLEXTRA had on your feelings towards HBOS as an employer?
Much more positive More positive The same Less positive Much less positive
34 (68%) 15 (30%) 0 0 1 (2%)
Comments:
A lot of other companies do the same thing but it is good.
It shows that they appreciate that we have other things to do around work and this gives us more useful time to do it.
It is a much better place to work than other places I’ve been where you have to do set hours.
Many of my friends who work for other companies are jealous of the work pattern I have.
Most of it is good, but sometimes I can’t get the time off I want.
It is not just for our benefit, it helps them too.
b) what impact has FLEXTRA had on your work-life balance?
Significant positive impact Positive impact No impact Negative impact Significant negative impact
4 (8%) 30 (60%) 14 (28%) 1 (2%) 1 (2%)
Comments:
I wouldn’t be able to work here without being able to change shifts as I have two young children.
Because of the hours we have to cover, I still have to work some unsociable hours which I don’t like.
I think the main benefits are for those who have kids. I don’t have any and I think I have to work the times they don’t have too. It’s not really fair!
c). what further actions should HBOS take to improve your work-life balance?
Provide more flexible options 45 (90%)
Make them available to everyone 42 (84%)
Be more fair in who they allow to use them 38 (76%)
Allow career breaks 3 (6%)
Allow part time hours on full time pay 5 (10%)
Give more money for unsociable hours 18 (36%)
d). have you requested flexible hours and was your request accepted?
Have requested 37 (74%)
Was accepted 35 (94.6%)
Was refused 2 (5.4%)
15. a) what impact has FLEXTRA had on your feelings towards HBOS as an employer?
Much more positive More positive The same Less positive Much less positive
6 (50%) 2 (17%) 0 4 (33%) 0
Comments:
I can appreciate that my staff benefit from FLEXTRA but it has made my job more difficult.
I am working flexible hours but I still have to do the same amount of work.
It seems to be the people who I have had problems with that now do different hours and it is difficult to manage them when I don’t see them every day.
b) what impact has FLEXTRA had on your work-life balance?
Significant positive impact Positive impact No impact Negative impact Significant negative impact
1 (8.3%) 2 (16.7%) 3 (25%) 5 (41.7%) 1 (8.3%)
Comments:
I have started a degree and flexitime has made it easier for me to attend lectures.
I work part time now but I have to take work home with me to be able to get it finished. Hardly work-life balance and less pay!
It’s not so much my work-life balance that has been affected, it has made my job more difficult so I find I worry about things when I am at home.
c). what further actions should HBOS take to improve your work-life balance?
Provide more flexible options 7 (58.3%)
Make them available to everyone 1 (8.3%)
HR should decide whether to agree or refuse a request 10 (83.3%)
Allow career breaks 10 (83.3%)
Allow part time hours on full time pay 2 (16.7%)
Give more money for unsociable hours 3 (25%)
d). have you requested flexible hours and was your request accepted?
Have requested 3 (25%)
Was accepted 1 (33.3%)
Was refused 2 (66.6%)
