Research conducted by online recruitment specialist www.theitjobboard.co.uk reveals that although 61.1 percent of IT professionals work flexible hours, almost half (45.2 percent) of these do not believe the IT industry has adapted itself to a flexible working culture. Flexible working was classified as working from home, working less hours/part time, flexi-time and working a four and half day week.
Nearly one fifth (17.4 percent) went as far as saying that they felt flexible working had a negative effect on their career progression, with several respondents believing that employers saw them as less committed to their job because they were not in the office for the standard working day. In addition, 22.6 percent had considered going back to work on a non-flexible basis because of the constraints imposed on them by this way of working.
When looking for a new job, IT professionals considered flexible working the second most important criteria after salary. When asked to rank the individual factors they believed to be 'Very important', 64.1 percent of respondents said salary, 57.4 percent stated flexible working, 50.3 percent chose location and 41.7 percent selected career progression.1
Of the 38.9 percent of respondents that did not work flexible hours, over four fifths (81.5 percent) were not offered the option by their employer, despite 90.2 percent saying they would like the choice to do so. 65.4 percent felt their work life balance suffered through non-flexible working conditions.
Alex Farrell, managing director at www.theitjobboard.co.uk comments: "With the current skills shortage in the technology industry, employers need to act now to encourage and retain talent in their IT departments. The option to work flexible hours is clearly high on the agenda for IT professionals. It is is worrying therefore to see that many organisations do not offer it, and that many of those that do are not perceived to be getting it right."
The European Commission calculates that by 2010 there will be a shortfall of 300,000 positions in the region's technology sector. Farrell continues: "A key factor in tackling the skills crisis is to encourage more women into the traditionally male domain of the IT workforce. It is widely acknowledged that a flexible working policy is essential to many female IT professionals because it allows them to balance the demands of their career with family and childcare commitments - employers have no time to lose in introducing this practice."
Other key findings from The IT Job Board research include:
- Of the people working flexible hours, 25.3 percent did so because their employer allowed it, 24.9 percent said it was a lifestyle choice and 19.7 percent wanted to avoid busy travel times.
- 34.2 percent of the IT professionals that did work flexible hours worked from home and 32.2 percent worked part time. Only eight percent worked flexi-time.
- However, of the respondents that did not work flexible hours but would like to, 42.7 percent wanted to work from home and 31.5 percent were interested in flexi-time. Just seven percent said they wanted to work part-time.
Currently, only parents with children who are under six or disabled are entitled to request flexible working. However, in May this year, the government announced plans to extend flexible working rights to all parents with children under the age of 16, a move which will give an extra 4.5 million people the right to ask to work flexible hours.
914 people undertook the IT Job Board survey, which was carried out between 16 and 29 May 2008.
Comments (2)
Posted by Recent Trends in Human Resources | June 25, 2008 12:53 PM
With offices becoming an extended home for millions employed in the booming BPO sector, companies are coming out with innovative solutions to keep their employees stress-free and work unaffected from any possible burn-outs.
Be it a racing game on Xbox or PlayStations, work-outs at a gym or a simple talk over steaming cups of coffee -- companies are making use of means available within office premises to pamper their employees.
They have an employee lounge open 24/7 for our employees where they can simply relax or play table tennis, chess, carom or computer games on internet kiosks during their breaks.
The company also has courts for outdoor games such as badminton and basketball, apart from special interest groups that plan weekend trips to hill stations, sports activities, cultural events and in-house rock concerts.
Despite being a UK-based IT services and outsourcing organisation, there is no graveyard shift for employees based in India, adding that the companies also provide a creche, a day-care facility for children apart from flexible working hours to help them maintain a work-life balance.
The active involvement in fun-related activities helps people de-stress and also fosters positive and beneficial inter-personal relations that ultimately translate into effective work relationships.
Experts believe that the companies have realised their role in providing work-life balance which can save the office from becoming a setup full of dissatisfied and tired people that could hamper the effective outputs in the long run.
Apart from recreational activities, conflict management tools are also being adopted to beat the stress levels.
They invite special third-party trainers to coach the employees on conflict resolution techniques and on ensuring an effective and open communication, apart from encouraging transparent two-way communications.
An unresolved conflict could foster under the surface and burst out any moment.
Understanding behaviour patterns is part of their training module. This helps their employees understand their peers and managers and enable them to handle conflicts.
Only when issues do not get resolved at an inter-personal level, a mediator gets involved and helps settle them through counselling.
Regards
Amit
Posted on June 25, 2008 12:53
Posted by David | September 18, 2008 2:30 AM
One thing this does not touch upon is the fact that legislation or not, we still work in a free market environment and therefore the employers hold all the cards. This means regardless of any law, employers simply screen out employees who want flexible schedules using other reasons and excuses.
Bottomline: Bosses and executives get paid bonuses and are judged not for long term (1 year or longer) goals but for quarterly goals. So they aren't really interested in work-life balance issues since those kinds of issues tend to fester over longer periods. And in IT if you quit in disgust after a couple of years, the organization thinks that its OK because that's a "normal" lifespan of an IT employee at a company.
Until or unless more progressively thinking people take the reigns of a company, we'll just continue with the status quo
Cheers,
David
Posted on September 18, 2008 02:30