News that employees at BP are to lose their option of working a nine-day fortnight is an embarassment to the company and the government.
The policy allows staff at various BP offices in the UK to take every other Friday off if they work a set number of hours every fortnight. The oil giant is thought to be axing the benefit as part of a cost cutting drive, alongside plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.
BP has been held up as a shining example of flexible working. In 2003 it was named by the government as one of 50 model employers in its approach to work-life balance. The revelation that it is now ditching the approach is a blow to its reputation.
If it wanted to introduce a standardised policy across all its UK operations, why not level up instead of level down? The damage this decision will inflict to both staff morale and employer brand will be hard to measure precisely, but it definitely goes against the grain of most forward-thinking employers.
