Managers’ attitudes to working from home and flexible working have improved since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, but many still believe long hours are necessary for career progression.
Research by the Equal Parenting Project at the University of Birmingham found that managers were optimistic about the benefits of working from home, with 52% agreeing it improves concentration; 60% finding it improves productivity; and 63% stating it increases motivation.
More than seven in 10 (73%) felt that giving employees flexibility over their working hours increased productivity, while 60% said the same for working from home.
However, there was a reduction in the proportion of managers stating that their organisations would be more supportive of flexible working requests in future, from 70% in 2020 to 58% in 2022.
Flexible working
Day one right to request flexible working confirmed
The survey of 597 managers also found that many still believed long hours were needed to get ahead at work, despite changes in attitudes during the pandemic. Before Covid hit, 43% of managers believed long hours were necessary for employees to advance. This decreased to 39% and 35% in 2020 and 2021, but has since returned to 42%.
Homeworking requests were seen by managers as the easiest flexible working practice to approve, while job shares were rated the most difficult. More than half said job sharing (53%) and compressed hours (55%) were not available in their workplace.
Going forward, 55% said roles would be advertised as available for flexible working, compared with 50% reporting this in 2020. Ninety per cent said mentioning the availability of flexible working in job advertisements would make them more attractive to candidates.
The study’s authors said: “If we want to press on with the gains made around flexible working during Covid-19, now is the time to strengthen and formalise new flexible working norms and extend them to those working in frontline and precarious roles.
“To do so, some key questions need to be addressed. For example, how do we ensure all industries embrace the journey to more accessible flexible working for jobs at all levels? How do we ensure that the focus on productivity and flexible working does not lead to work intensification, as people work through commuting times and find it difficult to switch off when working from home? How do we ensure that new opportunities for flexible working are not only taken up by female
carers, further gendering the concept of flexible working and creating a two-tier workforce?”
The researchers said employers and managers should encourage the assumption that all jobs will be available for some form of flexible working by default, and add information on flexible working practices to job advertisements; review flexible working policies to ensure they are not ‘gendered’; ensure performance management systems and promotion processes are not focused on ‘presenteeism’; and encourage more men to take up flexible working arrangements.
They also suggested that companies with 250 or more employees should have to report on the use of flexible working as part of gender pay gap reporting requirements.
Other policy recommendations made by the researchers include:
- Offering fathers more non-transferable caring leave after the birth or adoption of their children to encourage a more equal distribution of care
- Exploring the possibility of parental pay being available from day one of employment
- More actively promoting the HMRC scheme for reimbursing companies that pay their employees’ working from home overheads.
Separately, research by HR, payroll and finance software provider MHR has shown a greater proportion of employees would prefer to work in the office with flexible hours (51%) than work from home with structured hours (41%).
Its survey of 1,200 office workers found that 41% noticed a decrease in support from management and team members while working from home. For 11%, working from home had a negative impact on their career progression and only 36% were asked about their preferred work environment before being told to work from home.
CEO Anton Roe said: “What is clear from our research is the atmosphere and comradery that is present among employees in the office simply cannot be replicated in a remote working environment. Instead, HR teams will see more success from offering a flexible working framework.
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“Flexible working puts employees in control over their own hours and work environment, allowing them to tailor their ways of working to their own needs and resulting in increased engagement in the long run.”
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