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DTI new ways to work conference:
Speaking on 9 May at the New Ways to Work Conference, Stephen Byers, the secretary of
state for trade and industry spoke of the challenges people face trying to balance work
and life.
In addition to addressing issues relating to the number of parents returning to work,
maternity/paternity leave etc, he also referred to work/life balance and how employers and
employees can work together for the benefit of all. The UK Government has launched the
Partnership Fund - a project providing £5 million to support projects that foster good
partnerships in the workplace and promote good practice.
They have conducted extensive investigations into the needs of both employer and employee.
In a 1998 survey, 60 per cent of employers provided at least one form of flexible working
arrangements. More recent research shows that while many small firms may not have formal
policy statements in place, in practice they often have flexible working that are family
friendly. The 1998 survey revealed that three-quarters of managers said that having
flexible working arrangements had only minimal (or zero) additional costs, while 84 per
cent said the arrangements were cost-effective.
Byers added: "With the introduction of new technology, opportunities for flexible
working - such as homeworking - are greater than ever and costs lower."
Stephen Byers and the minister for women, Margaret Jay, are working closely to identify
the barriers that exist for women returning to work after childbirth. They are researching
what the benefits are for women, their children and their employer, of returning
part-time, working from home or on flexible hours.
He concluded: "The Government wants to make work pay. To provide minimum, decent
rights at work. And, to ensure that legislation doesn't hinder but actually supports
flexible working. A framework which enables people and businesses to find new ways to
work.
Based on their research, they outlined the benefits of adopting flexible working:
a.. Ensuring that all staff can fulfil their potential; enabling the business to maximise
the contribution of all.
b.. Ensuring the more effective use of resources, by tailoring the needs of the job and
the individual more closely and by using part time working imaginatively.
c.. Creating a more motivated committed workforce.
d.. Promoting a forward-looking working environment that helps to attract the best new
recruits.
e.. Helping to retain the experience and expertise of staff who may well otherwise leave.
f.. Reducing levels of stress - which in turn reduces absence rates and improves
performance.
According to Byers these benefits are not just theoretical, they're real benefits which
forward thinking employers are realising.
He outlined how the UK Government wants to ease the financial burden for small businesses
wishing to follow this route of flexible working. Although he hastened to add that the
Government doesn't have a blank cheque.
For further information you can visit: www.dti.gov.uk
John Carvel Reports:
Margaret Hodge, the junior equal opportunities minister, last night sought to "kill the myth" that employees without childcare responsibilities resented workmates on flexible contracts who rushed home to look after families.
She published early results from a national survey of 7,500 employees showing that demand for flexible working was equally strong among those with caring responsibilities and those without. In both groups 19% want to be able to work part-time.
Demand for flexitime was similar among both groups, with 37% of the carers and 34% of non-carers wanting that option. Just over a quarter of both groups wanted to be able to work from home.
"A better balance between work and life is an issue for everyone," Ms Hodge said.
The survey in 2,500 workplaces and 250 company headquarters showed 24% of all employees currently work flexitime, but 36% would like the opportunity to do so.
It is no longer essential for support staff to be in the same place as their bosses. As a result, more PAs are choosing to stay at home.
Guardian Monday March 6, 2000
Bill Saunders reports:
Many of the received wisdoms about secretaries have been proved wrong in recent years. They are not all women, many are highly qualified, and they certainly do more than take memos all day. But while the role of the office support worker may have changed beyond recognition, we at least expect them - by definition - to work from the office.
Increasingly, even this assumption cannot be relied on. As developments in communications outstrip the importance of being on the premises, a new generation of secretaries has realised that they can report to work without ever leaving the house.
Paula Graham, a senior secretary to a director of a department in the Royal Mail, is something of a pioneer in this area. She has worked from home for six years - since the days when email was new to most of us - and describes the original decision as "a wild Friday afternoon idea". But her manager had the imagination to see it might work, and after a successful six-week trial, Graham established her office at home.
Having linked her PC to the office main frame for such traditional jobs as diary management, she is available to answer the telephone from 9am to 5pm. But she also has the time to take her daughter to school. There is a great deal of flexibility on both sides, she says. "Sometimes I will work for an hour or two at weekends." But never more - "because it's not fair to my family".
You don't necessarily need a flexibly minded employer in order to work from home. "Portfolio employment" - working for more than one employer on a consultancy basis - was one of the buzz concepts for managers in the 1990s. And now secretaries are following the example.
Sarah Pugh made this move out of necessity. Last February her youngest son, aged eight, was left temporarily paralysed after being knocked down by a car. With the prospect of five or six hospital visits a month, she felt it was no longer fair to her family or employer to continue as a PA at Lewisham College.
She decided her skills would suit freelance life, invested £1,500 in computer equipment, and set up an office in what had been the au pair's bedroom. So far she has worked mostly for "small local companies where there is a shortage of hands". But her work is concerned more with professional advice than taking in typing. "I help put in systems for people who aren't necessarily systems-minded," she says.
Jane Littlefield, head of the secretarial division at City recruitment firm Joslin Rowe, says the freelance PA is a growing trend. "With advances in technology increasingly allowing people to work from home, it is now possible for someone to have a secretary or PA who supports them from a completely separate location," she says. "For small companies, those in remote locations, or for any business where full-time secretarial support is either unnecessary or too costly, freelance PA or secretarial services are becoming a popular alternative solution."
BT has even launched a website designed to encourage employees to work from home, cleverly marketed as a way to stop work taking over your life in "a world where time has become the most valuable commodity". The attractions to BT are not hard to fathom - all those extra phone, fax and internet lines if more of us worked from home - but the site is nonetheless a well-designed and informative resource for workers wanting to investigate the possibility of working more flexibly.
But even if the technology is available, some of us will never be suited to working from home. It demands a certain self-sufficiency, agree both Graham and Pugh, and many people find it difficult to motivate themselves when isolated from colleagues. Graham goes into her office once a week, "because it is important to keep the social link". But, accustomed to working at her own pace, she admits she now finds the constant interruptions of office life distracting: "I usually have to find a quiet corner to work in!"
• BT's Timesmart website can be found at www.bt.com/
