Arnold Clark is proud to support flexible working.

Published: 9 Dec 2021

Working Families, in partnership with Arnold Clark, are looking to find 2022’s leading employers, who are working to create outstanding flexible and employee-friendly workplaces in the Best Practice Awards 2022.

Following a challenging 18 months, and huge changes to working lives, Arnold Clark wanted to move forward by offering employees increased flexibility and introducing new approaches to working so that they could all enjoy an improved work-life balance and have time for the commitments they care about.

To introduce flexible working approaches that would best benefit employees, Arnold Clark conducted several focus groups and management workshops to better understand the needs of everyone in the business. Based on the ideas and feedback received during this process, three strands of flexible working have been introduced, designed to prioritise wellbeing, family and flexibility across Arnold Clark workplaces.

Each flexible working approach offers employees something different and is applicable based on individual job descriptions:

Fully on premise – employees are always based at a branch or workplace.

While employees like product consultants are based in branches full time, they do enjoy a flexible five-day working week and benefit from the Arnold Clark flexible leave process. This allows employees to submit leave requests so they can enjoy a late start, early finish or some time away from work during their shift (up to three hours at a time).

Hybrid – employees can mix home and office-based working.

Hybrid working allows employees to balance three days working in branch or at their workplace with two days based at home. Those working under the hybrid banner can work from their branch or workplace every day if they wish to do so.

Fully flexible – employees are based at home full time.

This approach allows employees to work from home full time. However, they are welcome to come into the office if they prefer, and workspace is available.

Offering flexibility in this way to employees has many benefits. Arnold Clark is committed to fostering a culture that prioritises mental health, family and wellbeing, while increasing productivity and strengthening working relationships. 

Additional changes to improve flexibility

Arnold Clark, have made several additional changes across the organisation that showcase their commitment to best practice. Across various Arnold Clark job advertisements, they proudly include the ‘Happy to talk flexible working’ logo and have removed the minimum 26-week service requirement for flexible working applications; all employees are now able to submit a flexible working application from day one of employment. 

They endeavour to approve all flexible working applications across the organisation. However, when this is not possible, employees and management work together to devise a working plan that supports that individual’s needs. Further to the feedback received from employees, Arnold Clark have worked with departments to adapt working requirements, such as reducing some aftersales department’s Saturday hours.

Further to these changes, they enhanced their maternity and paternity pay, holiday, and sick pay entitlements to better support employees in their day-to-day lives. 

Arnold Clark Group Head of People, Lynne McBurney, said:

“We are proud to champion flexible working approaches and want to lead by example for other organisations. Our differing approaches allow employees across Arnold Clark to strike a better work-life balance which encourages higher productivity, stronger working relationships, and improved wellbeing. We are proud to partner with Working Families on their Best Practice Awards in 2022 to showcase the immense effort and commitment of employers from across a range of sectors to implement flexible working approaches in their organisations.”