In reply to Lesley:

It seems very similar to what happens in the UK (and I suspect many other countries) Lesley. If you have an enlightened and supportive boss you get a flexible arrangement. If not you're told it cannot be done in your job!

Hello Anna,

I work in the Construction industry which has its own physical and then attitudinal barriers. Projects are time bound within strict contract agreements, and the planning of building activity takes place long before there is a physical site – plus the number of people required to deliver the project can be massive.
Consideration must also be given to H&S of all on site, scheduled deliveries, and all the external permits, road closures, sub-contractors, etc. it can be tricky to agree to offer flexible working that truly works for both company and delivery. Add in skills shortages with our sector, along with a predominantly male work force and we further add to the barriers – real or perceived.

That said – there is flexibility on our sites which is localised and agreed with managers and is project dependant. Our Business Support functions are also trail blazing the way forward and flexible working is gaining momentum following a few pioneering agreements in these areas. So we are seeing a definite positive shift in flexible working where the business can honestly support.

I hope that helps.
Nikki

In reply to Nicola Reed:

Thanks for sharing your experiences Nikki. I know construction is one of the sectors that's trying to attract more women. Having watched the documentary about the Thames Tunnel I also got an insight into the complexities of large construction projects.
It seems to me that even here there is a genuine attempt to provide some flexibility.

In reply to Anna:

Thanks to everyone who's shared so far. It seems to me that where there's willingness to explore flexibility there is often more scope than at first imagined.

I think one of the important things here is that people often assume they will not be able to have flexibility. For example, last week I was part of a conference organised by the Royal College of Surgeons looking at 'less than full time working'. I was surprised to learn it is possible to train while working reduced hours as the media generally portrays surgery as a long hours option.

Hi Anna,

From a hospitality perspective, we're looking at how we can offer more flexibility at all levels - flexibility of hours, days, location, etc. In terms of operational barriers, some do exist: most operational roles have to be performed on-site (housekeeping can't carry out their work from home, etc.) and hours need to cover periods of guest demand. For example, if a chef is responsible for breakfast service, there's little flexibility on scheduled work time (breakfast time) or work location (in the kitchen), although there is be flexibility on the number of hours and the days worked per week. It really depends on how flexibility is defined.

In reply to Julia:

Thanks Julia. Yes I absolutely agree it depends on how flexibility is defined; and as I said the willingness to consider new options. I guess as skills shortages continue to bite we will all have to be more creative.

A third of my workforce is a field-based team of service engineers. They are based at home but work responsively all over the country, sometimes for up to 14-15 hours a day although we try hard to keep the average to a maximum of 55 hours per week, with a weekend/night-time rota for on-call. We have one female engineer; otherwise the team is a nice mix of ages and ethnicities.

Every now and then I wonder how we could offer these roles greater flexibility (although, it has to be said, there's not much call for it), but I struggle to see how I could, for example, offer an engineer flexibility to work three days a week and then, every two months, be asking him or her to be on-call for seven days in a row. And if an engineer can only be on-call on the days he or she is due to work can we also reasonably ask them to be on-call at the weekend? If not, this becomes unfair to other engineers as we need to ask them to cover more days on-call to accommodate those who want to want shorter weeks.

To a degree, the situation is just waiting for the first person in this to submit a flexible working request. Culturally, it's not something I expect from the current group, but they do like to surprise me...

However, if anyone out there has a similar dispersed, technical workforce and has found a working model for flexibility, please do let me know!

In reply to Robey:

Hi Robey, there's been a lot of talk recently about encouraging fathers to be more involved in family life by encouraging greater takeup of paternity and shared parental leave so that may drive a request from your workforce.

As a specialist in this area my advice would be to get them involved in developing the solution - they can often see possibilities which you may not.

The thing about flexible working is it covers a wide range of different options to address different needs - not everyone has young children they want to see daily; but they may need flexibility for other reasons.

Thanks for contributing to this debate and demonstrating that there are possibilities out there.