How Supportive Are Workplaces Of Flexible Work?

Key findings

• More than two-thirds of employers report they are supportive or very supportive of flexible working arrangements in their workplaces.
• Employees' assessment of how supportive their workplace is of flexible working arrangements is very similar to employers'.
• Levels of support vary little by size of the organisation, except that small organisations with fewer than five employees are more likely to be very supportive.
• Levels of support vary little by sector, except that the finance and insurance sector is more likely to be supportive.
• Organisations that are less supportive are less likely to offer flexible working arrangements.
• The level of support for flexible working arrangements impacts on how satisfactory and how easy employees find their work-life balance.

How supportive do employers believe their workplaces are towards flexible work?

More than two-thirds of all employers surveyed described the attitude in their workplace towards flexible work as being either supportive or very supportive.

Figure 6: Current attitudes of employers towards flexible working arrangements

Data Table for Figure 6

This varied little by size of organisation, except that those employing fewer than five were more likely to report being very supportive. It also varied little by industry type, except the finance and insurance sector was more likely to report being supportive of such arrangements.

Impact of attitudes on availability of arrangements

As might be expected, those employers who reported that their workplace was not supportive of flexible work were less likely to report that various flexible working arrangements were available to any staff.

On the other hand, employers who said their workplace was supportive of flexible work were significantly more likely to offer the following options to all staff members:

• occasional flexibility in start and finish times
• regular flexibility in start and finish times
• flexibility in choosing when to work the number of hours employed to do.

The cause is not necessarily clear. Is it that employers who have a positive attitude are more likely to instigate flexible working arrangements? Or does the experience of flexible working arrangements make employers more positive?

How supportive do employees believe their workplaces are towards flexible work?

Employees' assessment of how supportive their workplace is of flexible work is very similar to that of employers.

Figure 7: Workplace attitude towards flexible working arrangements as reported by employees (n=1,004)

Data Table for Figure 7

Women were more likely than men to rate their workplace as being supportive. Those in clerical roles were likely to rate their workplace more highly, whilst people working in building, metal, machinery or other craft trades were likely to rate it lower.

Impact of attitudes on work-life balance

How good

Those employees who rated their work-life balance as being very poor gave a significantly lower rating to the attitude of their workplace towards flexible work, while those with an excellent work-life balance gave it significantly higher ratings on average.

How easy

Similarly, those who reported it was very hard to achieve the right work-life balance gave a significantly lower rating to the attitude of their workplace towards flexible work on average, while those for whom it was very easy gave it a significantly higher rating.