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.

–>Read On

Harriet Harman Rocks! (that hurt)

New fathers are to be given the right to take six months off work in the UK after the birth of their baby.

Dads are only allowed two weeks off at the moment while mums get a year, with nine months of that paid.

But following proposals by Gordon Brown, Business Minister Pat McFadden is to push for laws allowing parents to split leave.

–>Read On

Telecommuting Saves The World

Been surfing the telecommuting web and came across Telecommuting Could Speed Economic Recovery by undress4success.com where it’s written that Business Week reported that, based on interviews with a number of esteemed economists, the lack of worker mobility was significantly stifling our economic recovery.

It turns out that mobility in the workforce is essential to prosperity but with the growth of telecommuting that doesn’t mean you have to physically move. We live in a world where a surgeon in Florida can perform an operation, via the web and a robot, on a crushed skull in Manila. –>Read On

The Rise Of Flexible Work – Not

The Society for Human Resource Management’s 2009 Employee Benefits Survey found that 45 percent of surveyed employers offer telecommuting on an ad hoc basis as a benefit. About 34 percent offer telecommuting on a part-time basis and 19 percent offer telecommuting on a full-time basis as a benefit. Bullshit statistics.

The key word in that last paragraph was ‘offer’. I really don’t care how many employers ‘offer’ flexible work – I want to know how many people take them up on it. I then want to know the pay, time-off and chances of progression for those that work the flexi time offered.

It is not enough to simply offer flexible work as a carrot to entice top employees or improve the company’s public relations message. The whole corporate mentality has to shift from using it as a gimmick to actually seeing it as the way the 21st century will work. If business doesn’t embrace this change in society then society will change business – and any company still stuck in the 9-5 rut will lose its employees and its customers.

Today in Flexible Work:

Why Women Lawyers Leave: A Quest for Flexible Work and Supportive …

More than 70 percent of the job-hopping lawyers said their previous employer was not supportive of full-time flexible alternatives, while only 30 percent described their current employer as unsupportive of such arrangements. …

Flexible work options bring thanks – » Welcome to Careers 2.0 …

They work long hours, yet can arrange a work schedule that starts earlier (in pajamas if desired), accommodates family time and is all around more flexible. It’s hard to hide from the office, but you are the boss. …

European Unemployment Levels

This is thanks to a large developed service market, part-time work and especially acceptance of flexible work with interim job placement bureaus …. all creating a very flexible labor market. Thus, it is much easier to balance supply …

Related articles:

• Top Ten Ways to Find Joy at Work (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• Small-Business Guide: Buying the Best Insurance for Your Business (nytimes.com)
• Making Jobs: Can the Government Really Boost Employment? (time.com)

That’s your flexible work update for today.