Why employers should embrace flexible working

How do you support flexible working in your workplace?

We take a pragmatic view of requests and where possible try to support the colleague making the request for flexible working. We have supported most forms of flexible working, including:

• Part-time hours
• Term-time only hours
• Staggered start/finish time eg Late start-late finish, Late start-early finish
• Flexi-time
• Compressed hours
• Zero hours contract and annualised hours contract

Why do you support flexible working, and what are the main benefits?

We support flexible working for a variety of reasons. We know that increasingly people need and/or choose to work in non-traditional ways, and if we are to genuinely be an employer of choice, we need to design work to meet these needs where possible.

There has been a massive increase in the number of both male and femal vets working in flexible ways over the last 10 years, which mirrors a societal change in employment. Increasingly, people chose to design work around their life, rather than their life around their work. There are many reasons why people choose to work flexibly, and there is now an expectation that employers will facilitate family-friendly, lifestyle-friendly, and genuinely flexible work opportunities.

There are numerous well documented benefits of engaging with and offering flexible working opportunities including improved recruitment and retention, enhanced work performance, more discretionary effort and higher employee engagement, positive work culture, it improves employer brand, and it can facilitate diversity and inclusion to name a few.

Finally, two things should be remembered about colleagues working in a flexible way:

1. They can be a great source of short-notice cover particularly if the shift can fit with their outside needs; and,
2. For many colleagues working a flexible pattern, as their circumstances change they may have capacity to increase their hours over time.

How do your team members get to work flexibly?

There is a formal flexible working request process, but for flexible working to really work the colleague’s line manager needs to understand their team member’s reason for making the request and the person making the request needs to understand the context within which the manager will make their decision. It’s important that both parties take time to consider the other person’s perspective.

Any negotiation that takes place following the request has to be conducted with open communication, a flexible approach from both sides, and at most one priority that is key to each side making a decision.

If both sides approach the negotiation with one priority rather than a long list, then it generally makes negotiation and agreeing a flexible working solution easier. For example, the employee’s priorty may be to finish work at 4pm on their workdays, the employer might need 1-in-3 Saturdays covered from 8am to 6pm. If both sides can agree to the other’s priority and flex on other aspects of the work arrangement then you generally arrive at an arrangement.

Have you had to overcome any challenges?

Many employers would worry about not having sufficient cover in the team, but I view things differently. In the current workforce climate, would a practice be better employing an experienced vet for 4 or 5 hours a day rather than holding out for a non-existent vet able to work a fulltime pattern? I think much more willingness on the part of employers to engage with flexible working and a creative, solution-focused approach will bring the best results. Equally those requesting flexible working need to be realistic about what is possible for a practice to reasonably agree to.

Covering out-of-hours (OOH) sufficiently is another common concern, and how best to handle this will be individual to each practice. In some practices, part of the negotiation may revolve around participation in the OOH rota, and that may need to be the practice’s one priority. In others, there may be a trade off with taking on some additional daytime weekend work in return for not working OOH. Each circumstance is unique, but is usually resolveable.

Continuity of care is one of the topics that can make or break a flexible working arrangement. The key to successful flexible working is open communication on all sides. When it comes to case continuity, the onus is really on the vet working flexibly to take ownership of this, to manage owner expectations about availability and reporting results. Simple ideas such as booking a follow-up appointment with the owner at the end of a consultation when the vet knows they will be available can be an effective way to maintain case continuity and provide a great customer experience.

Like most things in practice, communication is the critical factor in making flexible working work. Clear and open communication within the team, between the person working flexibly and their manager, and with clients is the key to successful flexible working arrangements.

My top tips:

1. Understand your needs as a manager are from the flexible arrangement and use this to have one clear priority when it comes to negotiation.
2. Take the time to understand your colleague’s need and motivation to work flexibly, really listen to them.
3. You need to be flexible! Being supportive and listening to your colleagues needs and meeting them where possible will be reciprocated.

More information

Rob’s case study is included in our resource, Flexible working: Embracing flexibility in the veterinary profession. This includes facts, figures and many more examples of how vets across a range of sectors are working flexibly, and offers tips and advice on tackling some of the challenges that can arise when introducing increased flexibility into your workplace.

Tell us about your flexible working experience on social media @BritishVets using #GoodWorkplaces and #TimeForChange