Special Report: Flexible Working
Special Report: Flexible Working
June 2010
Welcome to the second Pearlfinders Special Report of 2010, the latest in our quarterly series of topical research and analysis pieces. Previous reports have looked at: business continuity, technology plans of alcoholic beverage companies, housing associations and Premier League football clubs.
The new government is expected to extend rights to request flexible working to all employees. In addition, extensions to the current two-week paternity leave allowance are expected. With 400,000 men eligible for paternity leave each year, there would be major implications for all employers should this go ahead - as it would apply to 1 in 60 of the UK workforce annually.
To find out more about the impact, Pearlfinders has spoken with IT decision-makers in industries that that employ more men than women: we looked at construction & engineering; logistics; financial services; security; and maintenance/automotive services.
From our conversations with 12 organisations, including JPMorgan, Dyno-Rod, Shepherd Construction and the Metropolitan Police, we discovered that although most have a degree of remote/flexible working for business reasons, only three of them had given explicit thought to this question. Our research suggests that in 2010, the male dominated industries are in the main only prepared to think about flexible working as a way to improve standard business functions, rather than to improve employment conditions.
So on the one hand, videoconferencing, rugged PDA's, smartphones, hot-desking and VPN access via laptops are all being implemented, and we uncovered some live opportunities for you in some instances. But conversely, a major cultural shift is required to move flexible working into the mainstream for these industries - as right now the perception is that employees need to be in a specific location to do their job.
The total user-base at just the businesses we've researched is over 300,000. So a 'conservative' estimate (given that they're male dominated) is that a change in policy will impact on around 5,000 of them. A 'liberal' estimate could be much higher.
Please click on the company name to visit our website and read the research on each in full: -
Construction & Engineering
Financial Services
Logistics
Maintenance & Automotive Services
Security