Flexible working "is the future for both the public and private sectors"

David Cameron spoke at the Tate Modern this morning to mark the launch of the Equal Opportunities Commission's report on flexible working. The EOC has coined terms for four models of work it would like to see more of:

• Timelords - work from any location at a timing of their choice
• Shift-shapers - fixed location and timing, but flexibility in shifts
• Time-stretchers - time flexibility but location dependent on customers/technology
• Remote-controllers - virtually the same as time-stretchers

Cameron fully accepted the report, the only caveat was that obviously not all jobs were suited to it such as teachers and firemen. He said it wasn't a fluffy issue but a hard-headed response to changing realities that Britain should be trail-blazing.  He emphasised that it shouldn't be something imposed on business, but a "powerful tool deployed by business".

Describing the different forms of flexible working, he listed flexitime, home-working, part-time working, term-time working, job-sharing, mobile working, compressed hours, annual hours and career breaks.

He warned that in a tight labour market companies were "cutting themselves off from vast pools of talent" by deterring women and older people with rigid thinking and practices. One of his most interesting points was that increased flexibility would increase workers' productivity and motivation, cutting down on the clock-watching, absenteeism and presenteeism in strict 9-5 workplaces.

Giving the macroeconomic case, he said we needed to nurture our every resource to compete with India (which has more English-speaking graduates than we have people) and China, which means getting some of those who are elderly but able as well as some of the 2.7million people on incapacity benefit into some kind of flexible working.

In terms of social benefits, he mentioned reduced stress on families, and the environmental and health benefits of more people working from home.

He concluded by showing how the party was being the change in this respect, by introducing core-hours, the right to request (which he believes should be extended to all parents in the country), and more home-working for all of its employees.

Deputy Editor

Comments

[Ed]

If "flexibility" is such a good business plan, then why do many companies not do it already?

[Yogi]

Oh Golly, twice in two days I agree with Cameron. The more people are terated with respect, the better their attitude to work is and beneficial to society. It is also a very good incentive to make people adapt to changing technology.

[TomTom]

Oh yes - all those Timelords among doctors facing unemployment in 6 weeks time.....

RemedyUK

1) Problem: Not enough training posts.

* Background: Doctors in your constituency are facing unprecedented anxiety and uncertainty about their future. Their major concern is that after progressing so far in training they will have been caught out by a poorly planned transitional arrangement between old and new systems. Only just over 1 in 2 doctors applying will be able continue training. This is in stark contrast to the assurances of Lord Warner in December that “Doctors in training should be confident about securing a training post”. Furthermore the UK posts quoted by Patricia Hewitt in parliament on 19th March of “about 23,000” do not correspond to the 18,500 UK posts on offer on the MTAS site. What happened to these 4,500 UK posts originally on offer?
* MP action: Ask them to
+ register their concern about doctors in their constituency with their party whip.
+ sign the new EDM lobbying for an increase in training posts.
+ write to government directly demanding an expansion of training posts (beyond the orignal 22,000) and for clarification of the number of training posts.

2) Problem: August 1st-2nd Patient Safety Issues

* Background: Traditionally hospital job changeover has been staggered over different dates in the year allowing 1-2 days valuable orientation and induction. With MMC all juniors will now be synchronised to change over on the same day. If the consultant happens to be away from the hospital this will mean that not a single member of a given team will have any knowledge of any of the patients, and that any orientation procedure will render the wards empty of any doctors. Traditional locum cover for the changeover period is going to be impossible also because demand will way outstrip supply.
* MP action:Ask them to write to the Chief Executive of their local Hospital Trust asking
+ how they intend to staff the hospital over this period
+ what contingencies they have if they cannot fill locum posts.
+ to clarify any of their further concerns with regard to filling posts and patient safety over the summer period.

3)Problem: Poor Workforce planning

* Background: Poor workforce planning with a political agenda is at the root of the problem of 34,000 doctors applying for 18,500 Training posts. Medical student numbers have nearly doubled in the last 10 years while consultant expansion has been considerably less, with the lamentable consequence of doctor unemployment. There is no single body that takes responsibility of forecasting and implementing employment numbers. The NHS is a massive monopoly employer with responsibilities as such for intelligent planning. There needs to be a new approach to this issue and it needs to be divorced from the pressures of party politics and expediency.
* MP action: Ask them to
+ write to the Secretary of State for health asking for the establishment of a truly independent and apolitical Standing Commission on workforce planning for doctors.

[Rachel Joyce]

Absolutely agree with DC and TomTom makes important point about workforce planning (and as a doctor who has worked 120 hour weeks as well as part time, I understand the challenges involved).
The other point is about pensioners being able to continue to work, particularly flexibly if they want to, without penalising their pensions entitlements.

[Matt Wright]

Generally of course this has to be good. However it is a culture shift and for some it will take a lot of adapting. I think there are other aspects to flexibility that are interesting but not discussed. There have been experiments where employees are allowed to develop other jobs and even companies alongside their main job. In some cases this has been highly beneficial to the parent company and given the employee new insights/experience. I think we just have to be open to new ideas in the same way that we were open to free enterprise reforms during Lady Thatchers time,

Matt

[Dan Hassett]

I wholeheartedly agree with DC on this one. Interestingly, in the oil boom province of Alberta, the free market is providing flexible working, with the resultant higher productivity. I think that it will happen, given time, as businesses adapt to the 21st century, where we simply don't have a 9-5 mindset.

For a long time, we've been trying to work out what post-Thatcherite Conservatives should be about, and I think that this is a large part of it. Deregulating the economy and freeing businesses should be followed by deregulating our lives and freeing individuals.

Apart from freeing up individuals to run our own lives, another advantage of flexible working is that it reduces congestion - through people working from home or choosing to travel at less busy times.

[Traditional Tory]

I always appreciated flexible hours when I was a civil servant, but whether private firms want to adopt symilar systems should be purely up to them. Obviously it would not work at all in very small organisations.

And what is fine from the employee's point of view may not cut both ways.

Where I worked one of the senior clerical staff was in the habit of taking a bunch of his mates down to the pub soon after noon. Just before 2pm (end of 'core' lunch time) some poor sap would be deputed to return to the office and stick umpteen keys in the clocking-on machine.

The party would then roll back into work (well 'work' wasn't quite the word for what they were fit for) some time between 3 and 4.

Happy days...

[Mark Fulford]

I love the idea that I'm a timelord, but none of the four terms describe the flexible job that we're currently advertising -- fixed shifts, working from any location. Suggestions for a fifth term?

[601]

I thought he wanted to take us out of the social chapter from the E.U ?

[a-tracy]

What's the term for the worker who is doing the couple of hours each day that no one else wants to?

[Traditional Tory]

Cameron emphasised that it shouldn't be something imposed on business, but a "powerful tool deployed by business".

He's right, but why should business need to be told such things by politicians?

The EOC, of course, is a total socialist waste of space which adds no value whatsoever to the UK economy.

The Tories should commit to abolishing it.

[Yet Another Anon]

Surely patterns of employment are primarily a matter for employers (whether public, private or third sector) in response both to business needs and market availability and are not something that should be regulated by the state.

[Graeme Archer]

It's sort of tricky to celebrate this as much as I would like, because I benefit massively from working for a grown up corporation that doesn't ever ask where I'm working from (a trad blue chip by the way, not some trendy media outlet!) yet I'm aware that lots of people doing v important stuff don't have the luxury that makes my working life, frankly, bearable. I couldn't do this job were I expected to be in same office same time every day.

No-one's mentioned one valuable effect of flexible and in particular home-working: when I work at home, I don't commute. This makes me feel great, cuts down on the south-eastern early morning traffic crush, and reduces my carbon emission to practically zero.

Greetings from American Airline departure lounge, Raleigh-Durham airport, North Carolina. Am about to make up for all those saved carbon emissions.

[Graeme Archer]

It's sort of tricky to celebrate this as much as I would like, because I benefit massively from working for a grown up corporation that doesn't ever ask where I'm working from (a trad blue chip by the way, not some trendy media outlet!) yet I'm aware that lots of people doing v important stuff don't have the luxury that makes my working life, frankly, bearable. I couldn't do this job were I expected to be in same office same time every day.

No-one's mentioned one valuable effect of flexible and in particular home-working: when I work at home, I don't commute. This makes me feel great, cuts down on the south-eastern early morning traffic crush, and reduces my carbon emission to practically zero.

Greetings from American Airline departure lounge, Raleigh-Durham airport, North Carolina. Am about to make up for all those saved carbon emissions.

[Peregrine]

I can't really understand the problem with this. I work in a flexible hours operation but choose to work what many would perceive as normal hours because that is when I can get hold of the people that I need to do my job.

Surely this is about outcomes versus outputs, it is no longer sufficient to show up for work (as all those idiot office staff who ring me at 7am when I am still asleep do just so they can catch Neighbours when they get home) but it is about what value you add to organisation you work for.

If you are a speechwriter, you may do your best work at 3am after an evening at the roulette tables but if you are delivering the speech you will be expected to show up on time.

As long as organisations have the flexibility to hire and get rid of staff as they wish (within constraints already enshrined within employment law) then flexible hours can only be an advantage rather than a burden.

PS with regards to the time that nobody wants to work, let market forces deal with that.

[John Irvine]

I think these schemes are simply an invitation to "skive"

There is absolutely nothing wrong with an employer setting office hours and demanding that his employees shall be at their desk at a particular time.

As a young man I was never late and when I became a manager unpunctuality was one thing I did not tolerate indeed Ive actually had people dismissed for persistent unpunctuality.

All this talk about employers arranging their hours round pregnant etc women really irritates me. Everything has to revolve round the selfish wishes of individuals these days. It's typical of the socialist "Im all right Jack" attitude.

Personally, I would like to see a return to hard work, family life and duty. Im sorry to have to say it but part of the problem is that these people never spent any time in the forces. Look at the people involved in this weeks Falklands celebrations. There's no comparison.

Its no wonder the country has been going down the drain ever since Maggie was removed.

[Paul Kennedy]

I guess if these proposals become reality, the state sector will embrace them wholeheartedly and accelerate the decline in its productivity, whilst the wealth creating private sector will look to export jobs to those areas of the world where more "traditional" working practices are still in place.

Comments in some of the posts do highlight some benefits of a range of flexible working practices, and no doubt businesses will introduce these if they are of tangible benefit to them in order to remain competitive or indeed improve their competitiveness.

This Labour Government has already introduced too much employment legislation, without us proposing to add to it.

[Paul Kennedy]

"and as a doctor who has worked 120 hour weeks" 14:33

If that was the case, you were both a serious danger to yourself and to your patients.

I was married to a junior doctor in the early 80s and whilst I recall she worked some very onerous work patterns, I do not recall 120 hour weeks......100 maybe from time to time which included "on call" time during which she was able to rest as she was not called.

[passing leftie]

Other "flexible" working practises:
A time bandit. Pretends to work at home.
A pornmaster. Browses the internet all day looking for porn.
A shitshifter. Person who works in the sewers.

[Rachel Joyce]

Of course you are right Paul that 120 hour weeks are not a good idea. But they did happen (not every week but when covering colleagues and on 1 in 1.5 and doing all weekend from Friday morning to Monday pm and then many of the evenings it happened. Luckily that would include some sleeping time, but you could be called at any time, and we were. I was very much in favour of regulation against this when I did it, and still am. But the European target now has gone too far- reason why so many hospitals are closing (need larger teams to staff them) - and dumbs down training - number of hours of real time experience is going to be about 1/3 what is was - cuts not just in hours but years of training.