New data has highlighted that 70% of UK HR managers believe flexible working could work for their business.
The poll, which was run by YouGov for the Trades Union Congress (TUC), spoke to 903 HR managers and found that employer attitudes towards flexible working arrangements have shifted markedly during the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic.
Half (49%) said that greater flexible working could work for their business as a result of Coronavirus, building on the one in five (21%) who already established it pre-pandemic. Conversely, 24% will not allow significant hybrid working following the pandemic.
More than six in 10 (62%) said it would be easy to include specific information about the pattern of home or remote working available in each job advert, or they already do this, and 59% answered the same about the types of hours-based working arrangements on offer in role adverts.
Just over three-quarters (78%) believe it would be easy to identify the types of flexible working that are possible in a home or remote working job before advertising, or that they do it already, and 62% said this would be easy to do for hours-based working arrangements, or that they already do this.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady commented that during the pandemic, many people were able to work flexibly or from home for the first time, and staff and bosses both saw the benefits it can bring.
She explained that she thinks the current system is broken, as a right to ask for this type of working is no right at all, especially when bosses can turn down requests with impunity.
“Attitudes to all types of flexible working changed significantly in the pandemic. Flexible working is how we keep mums in work and close the gender pay gap. Ministers must change the law: all jobs must be advertised with the possible flexible options clearly stated, and all workers must have the legal right to work flexibly from their first day in a job,” O’Grady said.