On the route to flex 

Published: 17 Oct 2023

Prompted by the tenth anniversary of the Executive Shift, the charity designed to support executives foster flexibility throughout their management teams, we revisit the writing by its founder, Sally Bridgend on the similarities between flexible working and cycling in London. Whilst the parallels may not be instantly obvious, there are common themes that cyclists and flexible workers share; the desire to be more in control, to save time and to improve health and happiness, as well as organisational factors needed to facilitate both. And just as there are increasingly more cyclists on the capital’s roads, as an organisation we’ve made huge strides forward towards flexible working for all:  

Empowering parents and carers  

The need for flexible working has never seemed more acute, with families struggling to manage a broken childcare system and a cost-of-living crisis. Our Working Families Index Spotlight Report highlighted that those on lower incomes are feeling this most sharply, being twice as likely to have an informal request for flex denied, and being thrust into debt and having the mental health affected as they struggle to find affordable childcare.  

Almost a million working parents accessed our legal advice pages last year, and our free legal advice helpline is a lifeline for those who need to navigate disputes with employers and exercise their rights at work; 99% of the parents and carers we advised better understood their rights, options and entitlement, and 9 in 10 of the parents and carers we advised intended to act on the advice given. Our live surgeries on Instagram in partnership with Pregnant then Screwed extend our reach to a wide audience of parents and carers.  

Promoting wellbeing  

Flex has huge potential to transforming experiences for families. Our recent research found that almost 9 out of 10 parents (89%) felt access to flexible working has, or would have, a positive effect on their wellbeing. This is borne out in the Spotlight Report that found parents and carers on a lower income whose flexible working request was successful were half as likely to feel their mental health was negatively affected by the struggle to find childcare. 

Having recently started to collect feedback from people who use our helpline, we are able to get qualitative data about the long-term impact that Working Families are having on the lives of people who look to us for help. When asked if our employment advice helped resolve their issue, nearly two thirds said yes and 38% said somewhat; no one said no. We asked people who received advice on benefits and financial support if we helped them increase their household income, nearly three quarters said yes or somewhat. Here is some of the feedback we received: 

“I almost didn’t think I had any maternity leave rights but you advised me accurately on the policies and I was able to get paid maternity leave.” 

“You gave us the confidence to keep negotiating and get the hours we needed from our child’s nursery.” 

“I was able to take time off to care for my family.” 

Making flex more visible  

Perhaps the most tangible achievement in recent times has been driving forward the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act, which will give all employees the right to request flex from day one and encourage employers to think about how flexible working can work in every role. Alongside the Government’s Flexible Working Taskforce, we have launched a logo and strapline, Happy to Talk Flexible Working, that can signal to prospective employees that employers are open to working flexibly.  

The Working Families Benchmark is a tool that helps employers better understand where they’re at, and how they can improve access to flex and family working. The Top Employers are the gold standard, setting a bar for others to reach.  

Our annual campaign, National Work Life Week, is designed to create conversations around flex and wellbeing in the workplace to raise awareness and celebrate working flexibly. Our webinars, that run throughout the year, aim to address hot topics for example fathers and flex, as well as more inclusive issues such as how to make flex work for people in place-based roles, who account for 46% of working parents.   

Providing the tools needed 

As Sally highlights, the right tone from the top is crucial, but without line manager buy-in and delivery, a family-friendly, flexible culture will never be achieved. Therefore, the right training and support is a must. With 160 members, our work reaches over a million employees in the UK. We provide coaching, tools and resources to ensure managers feel equipped to manage teams that deliver both high performance and the flexibility required to support good work-life balance and wellbeing. And to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that cannot dedicate the necessary financial resources to implement new ways of working, we have developed an SME Support Package which gives them access to tools to embed flexible working.  

Laying the groundwork for change 

Just like cyclists, we’re always thinking of what lies ahead. Our focus on a collective voice and collaboration makes it possible to work with like-minded organisations to achieve our shared goals. For example, we convene the Families and Work Group that includes many organisations in the work and family sphere. Together we campaign for better childcare and work rights, successfully putting childcare on the agenda and preparing and navigating future action for childcare reform. We have shared our policy calls with the Labour party in the hope that these will be taken up at the next election, making flexible working the default in the UK in order to make flex fair for all.