Hi
We are a food manufacturing company and we are recruiting for a site manager. We found a good candidate but they are wanting to work from home one day a week. This is something we do not currently do as a standard practice for operational roles, especially a senior role of site manager. I would be interested to hear if others allow this and what your experiences are? Good and bad?
Thank you
Having previously worked in a manufacturing environment we had to reject some flexible working applications due to their being a clear requirement that the person needed to be onsite to carry out the role. However if there is an element of desk based activity that could be done from home then you should absolutely consider it.
I think having a "fixed" day each week at home would be a challenge due to the moving business requirements but with flexibility and the right person it could potentially work.
Whether or not this might work for your organisation is so dependent upon the particular circumstances that I really can’t see much value in knowing how many others allow it or how it works out for them in particular. An effective manager will probably make it work well and vice versa. For example, managers in similar positions are typically very frequently working physically distant from the site they manage and still ‘manage’ the place successfully.
So, wouldn’t really see this as much if anything of a stumbling block, necessarily and if all else looks good, probably worth a trial?
Hi Louise
I work in food manufacturing and throughout lockdown all our managers worked a day at least from home including Operations Manager and Quality and Technical Manager. They took this time away from the floor to do the paper work that they were always getting chased for. Supervisors and team leaders would be responsible on the day and the manager was always contactable by phone or Zoom. All worked well and we had no issues, some still do a day at home.
I don't think you should rule it out, its a good opportunity for others ie junior managers and supervisors to take some operational responsibility to help them develop.
Hi Louise,
Have you thought about treating it as you would if it were a request for flexible working (FWW) from any of your existing team at that level? If you use your normal FWW approach - but potentially speed things up a little if you can, given the current state of the recruitment market! - and consider it against the fairly limited and specific reasons allowed to refuse such a request, does it work? Can you justify saying no? Or rather, in this case, can you justify saying yes? If it's a tough decision or you're on the fence having done that, then do labour market factors/candidate strength push it over to be a 'yes'?
Good luck with it.
