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How to reduce your employee turnover and increase productivity

31 October 2014

Heather Scales, director of Redfin HR, discusses the importance of maintaining the right work home life balance and how flexible working can help.

Companies want the best people working for them and one way of attracting and retaining them is by having the right work home life balance.

Flexible working has increased steadily over the years with more and more people working having flexible arrangements.

The provision of flexible working arrangements can have a positive impact on a number of areas of organisational performance as follows:

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Recruitment and retention: They attract and retain key people who would not otherwise be working for them.

Engagement:  Employees are grateful for the chance to achieve a better balance between home and work and as a result show greater loyalty and commitment.  Potentially resulting in their enhanced performance.

Reduced stress:  Many of today’s jobs are potentially stressful, but working flexibly makes it easier for many employees – particularly those with small children.

Reduced absence and employee turnover:  Flexible working means that employees are off work less frequently and are less likely to leave, with a corresponding reduction in recruitment, induction and training costs.

Reputation:  Flexible working helps build a positive image of the employer among clients and in the wider community.

There are a number of ways that individuals can work flexibly, such as part-time working, flexi-time, job-sharing, homeworking, sabbaticals, term time working, compressed hours or annual hours.

But there is a big distinction between flexibility in terms of the hours that are worked and flexibility in terms of where and when those hours are worked.

In some roles where it might be difficult to accommodate a part-time arrangement, but much easier, for example, to accommodate someone working one day a week from home.

Since June 2014 flexible working is available to all employees who have at least 26 weeks continuous service at the date of application for flexible working.

It is important for all Companies to ensure they have a culture where the team feel comfortable in making flexible working requests.

This is achieved by ensuring the employees understand a clear process and how they can apply and Managers know how to implement and operate the process.

The formal procedure for making flexible working requests mirrors the statutory procedure which preceded the extension of 'the right to request' in June 2014.

The procedure states that any request must:

  • be made in writing
  • describe the proposed flexible working pattern
  • give a proposed start date
  • explain the likely effect of the new working pattern on the business and how this could be managed
  • State if and when the employee has made a previous application.

Once the Company has received a request, any of the following can occur:

  • invite the employee to a meeting within 28 days to discuss the request
  • make a decision within 14 days and inform the employee of the outcome
  • if the request has been approved, provide the employee with a new contract of employment
  • If the request is refused the employee has the right to appeal to an independent manager.

Technology has encouraged take up of flexible working arrangements by making it easier for people to work away from the office. The majority of Companies allow for all employees to work remotely.

Although these are some of the benefits, it is fair to say that a Company’s employees are their biggest asset and if flexible working arrangements are implicit in the way the Company operates, employees will be motivated and are likely to increase productivity and therefore increase profits.

 

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