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.

Is this a reaction to cuddly Cameron’s ‘broken Britain’? Legislation that will allow Britain’s families to be families rather than chasing the mighty £ at the cost family time. Who cares? If Cooper pulls it off it will finally tip the scales in favour of families.

No longer will parents be the only ones that can claim flexible work – it’ll be a level playing field. If you don’t want flextime, as a non-parent, don’t have it. But it is there if you want it and that makes all the difference in the subtle hierarchies of the workplace. Before parents had something the others didn’t, now they can choose to use what everyone has the option to use. Big difference.

This is Cooper’s email, whether you’re a Brit or not send her a message of support. She’s going up against small-minded business and the Dark Lord himself, she’s going to need it.

BTW – this is the second day in a row I’ve big’d up a labour minister, it won’t become a habit, I promise.

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It is also worth noting that rights including the right to request flexible working, equal treatment rights for part-time workers and stronger protection against unfair dismissal have played a role in limiting job losses during the …

CentreRight: A better system of parental leave requires real …

Further, by changing existing maternity pay into a flexible parent pay that working parents receive at the same rate, bureaucracy can be removed and new flexibility can be introduced. With the payment going to families and not being …

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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.

It could mean mothers taking the first six months and dads the second giving 12 months in total rather than the 9 currently available to mothers alone.

Mr McFadden said there had been “overwhelming support” for the move in a consultations, and ministers will try to legislate as soon as possible.

Now Brown has moved in to claim the glory here, fair enough, it is an election year but I’d like to give a special thumbs up to Harriet Harman. She has championed parental leave and flexible working rights in the UK for many years, and despite a lot of stick recently, she came through on this one.

I usually do a ‘related articles’ bit here but I can’t find anyone saying anything nice about her.

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. Surely the wits of man, combined with telecommuting, can come up with a solution to worker mobility in a modern world; we just have to embrace the tech and promote the lifestyle.

Affordable internet critical to economic recovery

Consumer Groups on FCC Broadband Plan: Fast, Affordable Internet Critical to Economic Recovery, Growth FCC should declare broadband a telecommunications service eligible for universal service fund support … Broadband allows communities to reap the benefits of advanced emergency services, higher-education distance learning, telemedicine, and telecommuting. Without access to broadband, low-income and rural communities are cut off from new models of economic expansion and …

The Environmental Blog: Environmental Benefits of Telecommuting

Telecommuting and outsourcing are really starting to take off as the worldwide economic crisis is forcing employers to find new ways to reduce costs and increase employee productivity. … And if your company is planning to take advantage of the telecommuting trend, make sure to first implement a disaster recovery plan that’s able to handle it. About The Author: Storagepipe Solutions provides email archiving, online backup and server backup solutions that help companies …

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• Spain mandates affordable broadband for all (news.cnet.com)
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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.