Seven in 10 HR professionals want to see greater flexible working in their organisations, and many feel it would be easy for them to outline the flexible options that could work in job adverts.
A poll for the TUC found that 70% of HR managers either have already implemented flexible working options or believe greater flexible working would be suitable for their organisation when the pandemic subsides.
Only one in four (24%) said they won’t enable significant flexible working following the pandemic.
The results of the survey of 903 HR managers were published as a government consultation into making flexible working the default closes today (1 December). The consultation sought views on making the right to request flexible working available from an employee’s first day at work, and a potential requirement for employers to put flexible working options in job adverts.
Under current legislation, all employees can make a flexible working request after 26 weeks in a job. One request can be made every 12 months and there is no right to appeal if it is refused.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said staff and employers have seen the benefits that flexible working can bring over the course of the pandemic.
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“Attitudes to all types of flexible working changed significantly in the pandemic. Ministers need to take advantage of this – and make sure all workers can get the flexible working they need,” she said.
“But the current system is broken. A right to ask for flexible working is no right at all – especially when bosses can turn down requests with impunity.
“Flexible working is how we keep mums in work and close the gender pay gap. It enables dads to spend more time with their kids. It helps disabled workers and carers stay in their jobs – and in employment.”
The TUC has called on the government to change the law so that employers would be required to clearly state flexible working options in all job adverts and give all successful candidates a day one right to take them up.
Sixty-two per cent of HR managers polled said they would find it simple to put specific information about the pattern of home or remote working available in each role in each job advert, or said they already do this.
Fifty-nine per cent said it would be easy to include the types of hours-based flexible working arrangements available in each job advert, or said they already do this.
In order put flexible working options in job ads, employers would need to identify the types of flexible working that are possible in a job before advertising. Seventy-eight per cent of HR managers polled said it would be easy to do this for home or remote working and 62% said this would be easy to do for hours-based flexible working arrangements, or that they already do this.
Government must do more
Although it appears that making flexible working a day one right is widely supported, the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) has said the government’s proposals do not go far enough.
In its consultation response submission, the AAT said it was disappointed to note that the consultation “makes no reference to the possibility of making work genuinely flexible by default by introducing an automatic assumption of flexible working for all employees”.
“This would place the onus on employers to justify why they cannot provide flexible working rather than an employee having to justify why they should. Such a change would still need to include some limited exemptions for business reasons but would more dramatically shift attitudes, approaches and outcomes,” it said.
Employers have three months to respond to a flexible working request, which employees felt was too long, said the AAT.
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“The key here is to ensure an employer responds as promptly as possible without placing any undue burden on that employer to respond within an unreasonable timescale. Two months i.e. 60 days, would appear to better strike this balance,” it said.
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