Flexible working – can the SME Sector cope?
Recently the UK government gave the green light to legislation that extends the rights for a greater number of employees to request flexible working hours. The objective is to allow employees a better work life balance and improve family cohesion. Noble sentiments you might say that the government hopes to take away the pressure of conflicting work and home commitments especially with a growing percentage of women in the workplace. But at what cost?
Help us to promote your flexible working needs
I did mention back in November that I was going to use members and readers as occasional guinea pigs – well here’s experiment 1. Phase II of global domination.
In a very dark room, where we keep our web programmers, a new website is being built to promote the ‘Supporting Parents In Business’ campaign as a standalone project.
Using various methods of guilt and hot-flushes we have managed to secure the support of many large firms from both sides of the Atlantic. Part of the deal being that they have to promote flexible work and post their flex jobs on hmp. In return they get a socially responsible pat on the back and the chance to put their logo on the site.
Flexible Working Bombshell!!
UK ministers are considering giving all employees the right to ask for flexible working hours “from the beginning” of a new job as part of plans to encourage a fundamental shift in working habits.
Yvette Cooper seems to have dropped any softly-softly approach to reforming the British labour market and dropped a big one on the business community, not least the business secretary Lord Mandelson.
Combined with yesterday’s announcement of the 3 month paternity leave, the right for everyone to ‘ask’ for flexible working arrangements clearly defines a new approach to Britain’s labour market in favour of lifestyle/family versus money/working hours. HR departments around the country are staring teary-eyed at the mountain of paperwork that awaits.
Caregivers and Flexible Work
One of the groups of people often overlooked when shouting the benefits of flexible work, on both sides of the pond, are home/family carers. These selfless people help and care for old and sick loved-ones, at no cost to society, and often miss out on working a full time job.
Over 2.6 million caregivers will benefit from the right to request flexible working in the UK alone, with a further 50 million in the USA.
Rosalyn Carter said it best: “There are only four kinds of people in the world – those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers and those who will need caregiversâ€.
2010 – The year for flexible work?
Image via Wikipedia
All of a sudden it seems the world has gone flexible work mad. The South Korean government has outlined plans to increase labour market participation among women, the Aussies have just thrown up their hands and given some of the most pro-flex legislation I’ve come across – probably a bit too ‘pro’ in my view, I’ll get to that in a future post – and in the European Union women have filled 6m of the 8m new jobs created since 2000. My work is done, I’m going to play with the kids.
But hold on a damn minute. Aren’t women still being paid less?
Aren’t the middle classes still juggling with the flex v’s childcare conundrum?
