By Nikki, Co-founder, Flexibility Works
These are the thoughts Nikki shared at Making Flexible Working Work, an online session hosted by Future Proof Learning on Tuesday 9th June 2026, exploring the realities of flexible working and what it means for working mothers, wellbeing and workplace culture.
When people hear the phrase “flexible working,” they often jump straight to one thing — working from home. But flexible working is much broader than that.
At its core, it is about giving people choice over when, where and how they work, in ways that work for the organisation too. That might mean hybrid or home working for some roles. But it can also mean different start and finish times, compressed hours, job shares, part-time working, or more predictable shifts that people have input into.
Making that happen well takes open-minded leadership, a willingness to look at how work is actually designed, and managers who feel supported to have good conversations with their teams.
The Demand Is Real and Growing
This is not a niche issue.
- 82% of workers in Scotland either have flexible working or want it.
- CIPD research found around 1.1 million employees left a job in a 12-month period because they could not access the flexibility they needed.
- In our most recent research with 1,000 workers in Scotland, flexibility was the most desired workplace benefit after pay and for a significant proportion, it mattered even more than that.
Flexible working has become one of the main ways people judge whether a job will work for them and whether an employer is somewhere they can genuinely thrive.
The Gap Between Intention and Experience
Many organisations genuinely want to get this right. A lot of them have made a real start: there is a policy, there is an intention, there is good will.
But when you speak to employees, there is often a gap between what is written down and what people actually experience day to day. It can feel uneven, inconsistent, or simply unclear.
That is really the more interesting question now. Not whether flexible working matters — we know it does. The question is what flexible working done well actually looks like in practice, and how organisations can close that gap so that both their people and their business genuinely benefit.
When It Works: A Real Example
We worked with a small organisation in the tech sector recently. Like many organisations right now, they were under real pressure: tight budgets, ambitious targets, and not much slack in the system.
What they did well was build flexibility into the fabric of how they worked. Jobs were designed and advertised as open to flexibility. Work was shaped around people’s needs, whether that meant part-time hours, different working patterns, or time for childcare and other commitments. People adjusted their hours when needed, worked from home when it made sense, and kept each other informed without layers of approval.
It was built on trust.
The results were clear. They attracted talented people, retained them, and saw high levels of motivation and engagement. And the organisation exceeded its targets.
The CEO was very clear about the connection: when people feel trusted and able to live their lives, they give more back.
The Cost of Getting Stuck
We also hear from organisations where flexibility has not quite landed yet. It is worth understanding what that looks like, not to point fingers, but because recognising it is the first step to changing it.
Sometimes people leave because they cannot find the flexibility they need. But often, they stay and quietly absorb the pressure of balancing an inflexible role alongside caring responsibilities, a health condition, or other commitments. Over time, that takes a real physical and mental toll.
It can also breed quiet frustration, not directed at any one person, but at the system. And that is not a foundation for the kind of engaged, high-performing teams organisations are working hard to build. The good news is that it is very much within organisations’ power to shift.
Three Common Concerns and What the Evidence Shows
When we talk to leaders about flexible working, a few concerns come up again and again. They are completely understandable and worth addressing directly.
“If we introduce flexible working, productivity will drop.”
It is a natural concern. But the evidence paints a much more positive picture. In our research with 250 business leaders in Scotland:
- 84% reported increased productivity
- 87% reported reduced sickness absence
- 86% reported an improved reputation
- 84% reported improved retention
For most organisations, the experience of introducing flexible working has been a positive one. And the business case is becoming harder to ignore.
“It won’t work in our sector.”
This is worth unpacking, because flexibility does not always mean working from home. Sometimes it is about hours, start and finish times, shift patterns, predictability, or how work is organised. The real question is: what genuinely has to stay fixed, and what could flex?
We saw this in action at a manufacturing business we worked with. A group of workers in their late 50s and early 60s were starting to feel the physical impact of the job. Several said they would happily stay on longer if they could move to part-time hours. But they had never asked.
When we asked why, they said: “Nobody on the shop floor does part-time.”
Nobody had written that rule down. The business was already finding it hard to recruit, and was close to losing experienced, skilled people over an assumption that had simply never been challenged. A conversation was all it took to open that up.
“If we allow this, we’ll lose control.”
Organisations that do this well are not losing control; they are exercising a different kind of it. They are being clearer about what needs to be delivered, giving people more autonomy in how they get there, and building genuine trust into the relationship. That is a shift in how you manage, not a step back from managing.
Three Things That Make the Difference
If the gap between policy and practice is where things often fall down, here is where to focus.
- Design flexibility around the work, not assumptions.
Look carefully at roles. Talk to your people. Ask what genuinely needs to stay fixed and what could work differently. Too often, organisations decide something cannot flex before they have properly tested whether it could — and the answer sometimes surprises them.
- Support your managers.
Managers are often the make-or-break point. They have a huge influence on how flexibility is experienced day to day and they deserve proper support to do that well. Training and guidance can help them have better conversations, set clear expectations, and make confident, consistent decisions. When managers feel equipped, flexibility feels fairer for everyone.
- Make flexibility visible.
People need to understand what is possible and how decisions are made, because if they do not, they fill in the gaps themselves. And those assumptions often become the barrier. That is exactly what happened in the manufacturing example: nobody had banned part-time working, but people had simply learned it was not really for them.
And if you are already doing flexibility well, do not keep it quiet. Talk about it in your recruitment materials, on your website, in job adverts and in conversations with candidates. It does not just help attract talent; it signals the kind of employer you are. One that trusts people, supports them, and is willing to adapt.
The Opportunity
Flexible working done well is not about having the perfect policy. It is about what happens day to day: what managers say, what employees believe is possible, and whether work has been designed in ways that work for real people in real roles.
When organisations get that right, the benefits are real and tangible: stronger retention, protected skills and knowledge, better performance, and more diverse and resilient teams.
And ultimately, a reputation as somewhere people genuinely want to work and stay.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
Whether you are just starting to think about flexible working or looking to strengthen what you already have in place, we would love to hear from you.
Flexibility Works supports organisations through manager and staff training, leadership and business consultancy, employability programmes and accreditation. Whatever stage you are at, there is a way we can help.
Get in touch at hello@flexibilityworks.org and we will take it from there.
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