The Uptake of Flexible Working – CIPD Report
Picking up a thread from my previous blogs about the Ageing Workforce and flexible working – I was contemplating what reasons would someone want to work flexibly and what exactly is classed as flexible working? In my case it could be that I want to spend more time sailing, perhaps when the weather is not so inclement for odd weekends in the summer. For others it may be a four-day week to enable them to do voluntary work, a part-time contract for a return-to-work mother or even annualised hours for a worker in an industry that has seasonal demand.
As a result of the changing workforce; where an ageing workforce is continuing to work longer for less hours for financial reasons; young ‘millennials’ are wanting more flexibility to gain a greater work-life balance and a whole raft of Gen X and Gen Y workers are having to look after children and probably care for older members of the family too (I am thinking of all those fellow ‘Baby Boomers’ retiring in droves!) it will certainly mean employers will need to offer a level of flexibility in the work-place that’s never been seen before.
In the CIPD report that was published recently (May 2012) on the uptake on flexible working it is clear that the provision of flexible working has risen over the last 10 years. The Government is also looking at extending the right to request flexible working to all employees, so it seems flexible working is most definitely on the political agenda.
Whilst the CIPD report shows that there has already been a steep increase in the provision of flexible working, for most companies flexibility is around formal part-time contracts – things like home-working and four day weeks, where employees do extra hours on the days they work to make up their time, are fairly informal and still not offered as widely. Key to managing more flexibility will be the ability of employers to manage their workforce. It will be very interesting to see what will happen if the Government does extend the right to request flexible working to all workers – not just parents – I think I will draft my request for more sailing time today, just in case. J
“Best In Class?” You are Probably Using Workforce Analytics
Still thinking about the aging workforce I read an interesting article in the Financial Director discussing the importance of Workforce Analytics data.
“In 2009, IBM found just 28% of 400 HR professionals used any form of analytics for defining knowledge, skills and capability requirements needed to execute the business’ strategy”
A shocking statistic in itself but the article went on to point out that since then an additional 500,000 people are without work, there has been a 10% drop in university applications and the number of people expected to be working beyond 65 is set to be 6% by 2019.
The point here and in my previous blog is that the workforce is changing rapidly, it is well recognized and we will all have to get used to the need to be far more predictive of the future and use Workforce Analytics to predict the future workforce requirements and be ready for them.
One of the studies referred to in the article was by The Aberdeen Group and they found that companies that incorporate Workforce Analytics data into their analytics tools are three times more likely to achieve “Best in Class” than those that do not. In this same article London Waste talks about the way they are using Workforce Analytics to better tender for new work and predict future staffing requirements.
Well worth reading, it helps us all understand why Workforce Analytics are crucial to maintaining a competitive advantage.
Are you feeling old?
Since 2009 more people are leaving the workforce than entering . The lack of skilled workers coming through the ranks and retirement of older workers is starting to take effect.
According to the Office for National Statistics over the last 25 years the population aged 65 and over has increased by 1.7 million people. By 2034, they predict that 23 per cent of the population is projected to be aged 65 and over compared to just 18 per cent aged under 16.
The government has implemented a range of employment-prolonging measures such as extending the flexible working regulations, the introduction of age discrimination legislation and the inevitable increase in the default retirement age. Employers must take this issue seriously and assess the likely impact on their own businesses and then take the necessary measures to alleviate the issue.
So what measures should companies consider?
Well let’s remember that the key objective is to retain the skills, experience and productivity that our older workers offer. That means being mindful of their needs and adjusting their working conditions accordingly.
Without doubt older workers are looking for a better work life balance with many of them having to support both their own families and aging parents. Flexible working arrangements really assist employees in this situation by helping to strike that work-life balance and keep them engaged. Remember, flexible working also benefits your company too. Flexible work contracts mean you can better align your staffing to business demand, thereby reducing wasted labour hours and improving productivity.
Retaining employees that are in the enviable position of being able to dictate when they retire requires organisations to provide meaningful and interesting work. By making jobs more attractive, continuing to provide opportunities to broaden their skill set and getting them involved with the training and mentoring of younger workers, those older employees are more likely to remain loyal and engaged. Never forget that engaged employees have a direct impact on your ability to drive revenue and profit from your organisation.
Technology in the form of Workforce Management plays a crucial role in helping companies to manage their ageing workforce. It ease’s the burden of managing the significant increase in flexible working requests. Workforce Management maximises the business benefits of flexible working by automatically aligning staff schedules to customer demand.
Absence management helps employers spot unusual absence trends and those early signs of serious health problems. Currently ill health is the major cause of early retirement.
In the not too distant future the workforce will look entirely different to that of today; we are already seeing older workers holding the ace cards like never before. Many organisations are embracing change by implement processes and systems to support the needs of older workers. For those that haven’t I’d suggest you start to assess the impact that the ageing workforce will have on your business.
Is your organisation Olympic fit?
For the Olympics, unfortunately in stereotypical form we seem to have made a bit of a mess with the event tickets, although I am sure we will get it right in this next pass.
What worries me more is the readiness of our industry for the disruption that it will inevitably cause. Granted if you are directly affected – construction, security, food and beverage etc you must have taken measures already to ensure the right coverage of staff leading up to and through the Olympic period. However, what of those companies not directly affected?
In a recent survey of manufacturers conducted by BT, a worrying 40 per cent of companies say they are not making any preparations at all. Even though 87 per cent do have concerns about the negative knock-on effects of the event. Issues like unpredictable dips or surges in demand, staff attendance and employee productivity are amongst the top concerns. I would add to that, whatever measures you do take, also think about the supply chain?
Colin Hansen, the former British Columbia Minister responsible for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, said “No manufacturing firm in the UK should expect next summer to be business as usual, but with the right plans in place, they can take advantage of the occasion and seize the long-term economic benefits.”
With less than 6 months to go now I would encourage you all to use the capabilities of your Workforce Management system and think about measures you could take. Flexible working patterns, new shift patterns and delivery schedules, additional breaks, perhaps even provision of TV’s in the staff facilities are amongst some.
The UK is going to be a showcase around the world, if you have not already thought about how you can accommodate the disruption and better still take on some of the advantages the games will bring, now is the time to do it.
The Value of Human Capital
The Value of People
For over three hundred years economists have been interested in valuing the productive capacity of the workers in an economy.
Our own Office of National Statistics the ONS agrees with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development the OECD’s definition of Human Capital. That being: “the knowledge, skills, competencies and attributes embodied in individuals that facilitate the creation of personal, social and economic well-being.” What a mouthful that is….
But here is the point, the ONS valued the Human Capital in the UK at £17.12 trillion in 2010. That is more than two-and-a-half times the UK National Accounts estimated value of the UK’s tangible assets – buildings, vehicles, plant and machinery etc – at the beginning of 2010.
I would wager that far more money is invested in managing buildings, vehicles, plant and machinery than people. Surely it is about time that more organisations invested in Workforce Management systems so that they can make the most of their most valuable asset, their human capital?
I am always happy to debate how to match labour to demand, measure and improve productivity, highlight and remove constraints and turn your human capital to competitive advantage.
It’s Time to Get Flexible!
Yesterday I was interested to read about O2’s ‘Flexible Working’ experiment. Billed as the biggest flexible working initiative of its kind, O2 closed the doors to its Slough office for a period of 24 hours. Instead of battling into the office employees were asked to work from home for the day.
O2 was testing its contingency plans for the anticipated travel disruption around the Olympic Games this summer. Clearly this initiative demonstrates O2′s forward thinking approach to flexible working and the benefits that it can deliver to both the company and its employees.
The statistics for the benefits of flexible working are compelling – 47 per cent of UK employees think flexible working is an important employment benefit, 39 per cent of companies say it makes employees more productive and 43 per cent believe that it improve employee retention.
Halleluiah is all I can say…. I have been extolling the benefits of flexible working for organisations and employees for years. Both companies and employees are facing huge challenges these days and flexible working can really help.
Businesses are challenged with, cutting costs, increasing revenues, improving productivity and delivering better customer service. And at the same time striving to attract and retain good employees by offering an excellent working environment.
And employees face issues such as providing family care – for young children and elderly parents, an ever increasing cost of living and travel disruption and expense.
Flexible working can help. Implemented in the correct way and supported by a workforce management system that ensures consistent administration of complex flexible work contracts will make a significant contribution to meeting these challenges.
We have a FREE White Paper at Kronos entitled ‘Reaping the Rewards of Flexible Working’. This document explains the various forms of flexible working and the things that businesses need to consider when implementing flexible work policies.
Efficient Government Needs a Lean Workforce
Workers Protesting Over Proposed Job Cuts
Some things in life are predictable but too often it’s not good. Take for instance my morning commute of only a few miles. It still consists of road works, traffic jams and the odd shout at the radio to tell Nick Ferrari to “shut up and let the other person speak!” These days, added to that mix is the despondency that comes from hearing of further job cuts, especially in the Public Sector.
Last week the Government was telling public sector workers to expect to take pay cuts in order to keep their jobs. Yes, we know that many private sector companies have been doing this for years to stay afloat yet it still comes as a shock to the public sectors.
If I were one of those people facing a potential pay cut I would want to know that my organisation had done everything possible to maximise productivity. If I was asked to take a 15% pay cut when our productivity rates were so low and our absence is typically 30% or more higher than the private sector I would not be happy!
Every organisation, public or private should be applying ‘Lean Labour’ principles to their workforce in order to maximise productivity and efficiency. Organisations must get smarter about how they use their most valuable resource – their employees.
Lean Labour is simply the process of measuring work activity, aligning it to business demand and automating manual processes. By measuring activity you are able to identify wasted time and effort. Aligning to demand means that the workforce is there when business demands it and automating processes means more time can be spent on value added activities. All of this results in greater productivity.
Amongst our clients is one of the largest Fire and Rescue services. They are a great example of how ‘Lean Labour’ principles can benefit the public sector. The service needed to improve productivity and appliance availability. After implementing their Kronos system, to administer annualised duty rosters and optimise their work schedules to meet demand, that Fire and Rescue service were able to greatly increase productivity and appliance availability. Saving money and lives – how good is that!
If the CIPD’s absence statistics and other metrics quoted daily in the press are anything to go by, higher productivity is what we need in the public sector. Download the latest CIPD Absence Report.
It’s that time of year again
Well it’s that time of year again, something I am sure many of us look forward to with trepidation. Off to the shops each weekend and despite the economic gloom, it’s still crowded and queues are long.
Christmas always brings to mind an episode my good friend Bill told me about a number of years ago.
It was the Saturday before Christmas and Bill being a great football fan had just settled into his favorite armchair to watch the match. Just as he got comfortable his wife Janet popped her head round the corner and asked, “Bill honey, did you remember to get the cranberry sauce?”.
Bill panicked, quickly jumped to his feet and offered to pop down to the local supermarket, but Janet, sensing his obvious lack of enthusiasm for the task at hand offered to go herself.
Long after the football was finished, in fact about three hours later, Janet returned. Quick to point out that she hadn’t been enjoying a leisurely stroll round the shops she snapped “Before you ask, no, I wasn’t shopping for fun, they couldn’t get the goods out on the shelves fast enough, only half the tills were open and the queues were 5 deep!”
Ever sympathetic and without thinking Bill retorted, “You should have known that this close to Christmas they would be very busy.”
Janet’s immediate response was, “No THEY should have known!”
So, come on all you retailers, the solution is out there, no excuse this year for not deploying the right staff, in the right place, doing the right things at the right time. Remember, you only get just over two chances to upset a customer before they take their business elsewhere.
Wishing everybody good trading at this special time of year.
PS – in case you’re wondering, Bill did enjoy cranberry sauce with his Christmas turkey!
KronosWorks 2011 – showcasing great product innovation
I’m back home now after a few days in Orlando at this year’s KronosWorks conference – our annual event to showcase new products, meet with customers from across the globe and discuss innovation in the world of workforce management.
After a flight delay of 3 hours on the way out, and time spent trying to amuse myself in Gatwick airport reviewing our new German website on my Blackberry (tricky when the screen is 5cm wide and you don’t speakGerman! ), I finally arrived in Orlando after 11pm.
Even though it was another weekend away from home I was really looking forward to KronosWorks this year, even more than usual. It was great to see the excitement from customers and analysts alike as we released the Kronos InTouch, our new employee data collection and self service terminal and the latest release for Workforce Central 6.3. Bottom line I was not disappointed. You could feel the buzz in the room as InTouch was revealed, a step change in employee interaction devices – you can even use it to order your lunch!
As for 6.3 the 2nd release of Navigator brings an even more intuitive interaction driven by the expectation of modern day consumer products and a raft of new functionality for our global customers, that together with the 2nd release of mobile for I phone, Blackberry and Android brings it to a full house of exciting and game changing offerings from Kronos, that bring even more competitive advantage to our customers.
For the first time we hosted the editor of a well known UK publication Retail Systems. Karen Moss met with a number of our retail customers including the Coop and was looking forward to reviewing the event from her perspective in Retail Systems.
On the final day, I really enjoyed sitting on the International panel session with Toyota of India, National Oilwell Varco, the Coop and Caterpillar. Each year we see the global interest in Workforce Management growing and this year was no exception, with a large group of international attendees joining the session.
Another great year with exciting things to come. And after the slick operation at KronosWorks it was irritating to have a 2 hour delay again on the homeward journey – rescued only by the great service from the Virgin Atlantic staff on the flight home.
Here’s a preview of Kronos InTouch – you can see for yourself how far the humble time clock has come over the years.
Celebrating success at Retail Systems Awards 2011
The Retail Systems awards took place this year on the 26th October, and some of the Kronos UK team were there with our client The Co-operative Group, nominees for several awards – one of which was linked to their fantastic work with Kronos.
It was a great night, The Lancaster London Hotel was a spectacular venue and comedian Alun Cochrane was a hilarious host. We were most impressed, however, by the high calibre of entries – some fantastic projects this last year in the retail sector.
We were delighted to see The Co-op deservedly pick up the award for EPoS innovation of the year award.
The quality of entries really served to illustrate why the Retail Systems awards are so important to the industry, encouraging positive and mutual competitiveness to develop the best practices when using technology in retail. Naturally, it was also a great excuse for a night out!
We’ll see you there next year for sure…..
