How rising expectations are influencing flexible working and carers

Bright Horizon’s head of thought leadership, Jennifer Liston-Smith, offers her take on flexible working and the rising expectations surrounding supporting carers.

As summer began to wane the media appeared to reignite the contentious issue of a “four-day week” mischievously giving life to a subject that is not as new as some would have us believe. It began in the Daily Telegraph, was amplified by the Daily Mail, and spread across to Sky and then the BBC.

The message, however, was tempered by LBC, Metro, The Guardian and indeed Personnel Today, all of whom underlined that the government was not directly advocating a four-day week under its Plan to Make Work Pay and the Employment Rights Bill.

Baroness Smith of Malvern, the minister for skills did indeed acknowledge to LBC that requesting to work full hours across fewer days is one of the many types of flexible working that might appeal to some, where work deliverables permit.

Nothing new here

What is puzzling about this media flurry is that compressed hours has been included in most discussions of the right to request flexible working since that right was first introduced more than 20 years ago in 2002.

So, pointing to this as a type of flexibility that workers may request is not really new news.

And is ‘making flexible working the default’ (promised by the proposed Employment Rights Bill) really so out-of-the-blue-new, either?

As recently as December 2019, the Queen’s Speech, under Boris Johnson’s premiership promised an Employment Bill, laying out that “subject to consultation, the Bill will make flexible working the default unless employers have good reason not to.” This can be found on p44 of the background briefing notes.

So was this all just a case of the media trying to attract our attention with shock tactics?

Consultation on the Plan to Make Work Pay

The promised conversation about the Employment Right Bills is under way with major businesses, representative organisations and trade unions and the responses seem broadly supportive and positive so far.

However, a warning about the need to avoid or reduce “unintended consequences” is repeated by the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce and the CBI (Confederation of British Industry).

The need to involve employers in shaping the plans is real.

Ben Willmott, head of public policy for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, told The Times: “It would make sense for the government to take stock of the impact of recent changes introduced only in April to enable people to request flexible working from day one of employment, before seeking to make further changes.”

This does seem wise as those changes are quite similar and have only just come into play.

As discussed previously in this blog, the proposed Employment Rights Bill also includes the aim to:

Ban exploitative zero hours contracts
End fire and rehire
Introduce basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal
Strengthen the collective voice of workers, including through their trade unions
Strengthen the minimum wage, removing age bands, and changing the remit of the independent Low Pay Commission so it accounts for the cost of living.

There will be a Fair Work Agency to enable enforcement, which is also an idea that goes back to at least 2017, when former PM Theresa May looked to implement recommendations of the Matthew Taylor review of modern working practices in the UK.

There are also plans to introduce a Right to Switch Off under the Employment Rights Bill which the CIPD similarly says needs consultation and “needs to be applied flexibly”.

It is likely that businesses will draw up a code of practice with workers, setting out their normal working hours and when they can expect to be allowed to ignore work calls and emails, with exceptions for emergencies.

Rising expectations on supporting care

HR News reported Towergate Health & Protection’s research showed a rise in employers perceiving their workforce will expect expanded supports.

This includes 29% expecting a demand for help with caring responsibilities.

At Bright Horizons, we certainly know our clients value family support and our research shows strong links with productivity, wellbeing, loyalty and more.

Another push for greater support – in this case for carers of adult dependants – comes from Carers UK, signalling that the productivity benefits of making the unpaid statutory carers leave into a right to paid leave would outweigh the ‘£5.5 to £32 million’ required to fund it.

Carers UK says the gains could amount to an estimated at £8.2 billion a year modelled on savings made by carer-friendly employer, Centrica, through “increased worker retention, reduced recruitment costs and a reduction in other productivity costs”.

Carers UK is urging the inclusion of paid carer’s leave in the Employment Right Bill, to address “economic inactivity in the over 50s, a tight labour market, skills shortages, an ageing population and UK-wide productivity levels”.

These extracts are taken from the On the Horizon – September 2024 blog.