Employer Stories:
How commercial landlord Ceteris Scotland moved from ad-hoc flex for some workers to strategic flexible working that’s fair across all roles and teams
Employer Stories:
How commercial landlord Ceteris Scotland moved from ad-hoc flex for some workers to strategic flexible working that’s fair across all roles and teams
Type of employer
Ceteris Scotland is a commercial property landlord and business support specialist in central Scotland. It employs about 40 staff, of which around two thirds are in frontline roles, such as maintenance or reception duties that can’t be done from home.
Motivation for greater flex
The social business recognised people’s expectations around working flexibly had changed since the pandemic and that offering flexible working could help with recruitment and retention.
It already offered various forms of flexible working to staff but felt its approach was ‘ad hoc’. Ceteris wanted to create a more intentional and strategic approach to flexible working across the workforce, including how to make flexible working feel more ‘fair’ for people who had to work on-site or at set times.
Flexibility Works support
We delivered our Go Flex programme, which included:
- Talking to Ceteris’ leadership team about why and how they could establish flexible working as part of their overall business strategy.
- Conducting a staff survey and focus groups with all staff to track what flexible working they have, what they might want, how they could make this work and the impact of this.
- Supporting Ceteris to create a new flexible working framework and policy, covering all aspects of flexible working including in different types of roles.
- Coaching support for CEO Josie Saunders to help roll out a new flexible working pilot project.
- Two workshops for managers (which received excellent feedback) helped embed the new ways of working by increasing understanding and confidence around flexible working among managers.
In addition, we worked closely with the organisation’s two frontline teams (reception and maintenance) to implement completely new ways of working. The reception team changed their shift pattern from five half days to two full days and one-half day each week. While the maintenance team has switched to a compressed hours model. These were ideas that had already been identified by the teams, and we helped show how they could work in practice, supported conversations with the senior leadership team to enable pilots to begin, established a timeframe and provided impact measurement tools. We also delivered coaching for the team managers.
Impact
One year on the pilot projects for frontline teams are still very positively received, with no reduction in output of client service. While staff survey feedback shows the greater flexibility has been a ‘gamechanger’ for their employees.
CEO Josie Saunders said: “Of all the changes we have introduced, I would say this extra flexibility has had the most significant positive impact. Feedback from colleagues has been overwhelmingly positive, with some even saying it has been life-changing. That is extremely rewarding and highlights how simple scheduling changes can make a huge difference. I have noticed an increase in goodwill among colleagues, as well as a greater desire to stay and progress within the business. It is important that we continue to review and listen to colleagues and, where necessary, make adjustments so that flexibility becomes a permanent part of our organisation.
“Training for managers has also been key to the success of flexible working. We have placed a big focus on upskilling managers, who also received training from Flexibility Works to help them successfully manage flexible teams.”
What greater flex means for employees
Same number of hours but more time for family, says receptionist Kerri Stirling
Ceteris’ team of eight receptionists changed their shift pattern from five half days to two full days and one half-day each week. Each site has two receptionists, and everyone works over Wednesday lunchtime, when the team has a quick online catch-up.
Kerri Stirling, a receptionist at Alloa Business Centre, said: “Before it felt like my part time job was full time because I was in every day, and often there wasn’t quite enough time to do other things in my free morning or afternoon. I have two teenage children, so my weekends are full of football and social activities for the kids, and getting the house in order. Now I have more time in the week, I can do practical things like go to the dentist. But I can also spend more time with my mum and dad, or visit my grandad who’ll be 100 in June. He lives in a care home and it was hard to get there and back in time when I was working half days. Even though I’m working the same number of hours, I feel like I have more time. It’s made such a difference to my work life balance.
“Having a quick weekly team meeting helps enormously too. Previously we’d meet up about once a quarter but now we can resolve things much faster. It makes our jobs easier, and means we can provide a better service too.”
Switching to a compressed 4-day week is ‘a God-send’ and has a positive impact on productivity, say Ceteris’ maintenance workers
Ian Spence, a maintenance operative for Ceteris, said: “It’s been an absolute God-send. I have three-year-old twins who started nursery just as I changed shift pattern. On Fridays I can take the twins to nursery and pick them up when they’re finished. It’s amazing to have more time with them, and we don’t have to pay for any additional childcare when nursery closes, which we’d have needed if I was working traditional hours. I honestly don’t think I could go back to working five days now. Even though I do the same number of hours, my life feels so much better.
“It makes sense for work too. We start at 7am and given we’re working in office buildings, it means we’ve got two hours before most people are in when we can do anything noisy. Previously we’d have to arrange with tenants when we’d do work. Now we can usually just get on with it. Similarly, in the winter we clear office car parks of any snow. Now we have longer to do this before people arrive. It just makes sense in so many ways.”
Ian’s colleague, Attila Szabo, said: “It’s great. I feel like I have more energy because I have more time for myself and hobbies, like being able to go cycling on my extra day. There are also practical benefits. The fact I start earlier means I miss most of the rush-hour traffic. And working four longer days instead of five shorter ones is more efficient workwise because it takes us time to load up the van with all the tools we’ll need each morning and put them away again at the end of day. Now we move the tools less often, which means we have more time for jobs.”
What greater flex means for employees
Same number of hours but more time for family, says receptionist Kerri Stirling
Ceteris’ team of eight receptionists changed their shift pattern from five half days to two full days and one half-day each week. Each site has two receptionists, and everyone works over Wednesday lunchtime, when the team has a quick online catch-up.
Kerri Stirling, a receptionist at Alloa Business Centre, said: “Before it felt like my part time job was full time because I was in every day, and often there wasn’t quite enough time to do other things in my free morning or afternoon. I have two teenage children, so my weekends are full of football and social activities for the kids, and getting the house in order. Now I have more time in the week, I can do practical things like go to the dentist. But I can also spend more time with my mum and dad, or visit my grandad who’ll be 100 in June. He lives in a care home and it was hard to get there and back in time when I was working half days. Even though I’m working the same number of hours, I feel like I have more time. It’s made such a difference to my work life balance.
“Having a quick weekly team meeting helps enormously too. Previously we’d meet up about once a quarter but now we can resolve things much faster. It makes our jobs easier, and means we can provide a better service too.”
Switching to a compressed 4-day week is ‘a God-send’ and has a positive impact on productivity, say Ceteris’ maintenance workers
Ian Spence, a maintenance operative for Ceteris, said: “It’s been an absolute God-send. I have three-year-old twins who started nursery just as I changed shift pattern. On Fridays I can take the twins to nursery and pick them up when they’re finished. It’s amazing to have more time with them, and we don’t have to pay for any additional childcare when nursery closes, which we’d have needed if I was working traditional hours. I honestly don’t think I could go back to working five days now. Even though I do the same number of hours, my life feels so much better.
“It makes sense for work too. We start at 7am and given we’re working in office buildings, it means we’ve got two hours before most people are in when we can do anything noisy. Previously we’d have to arrange with tenants when we’d do work. Now we can usually just get on with it. Similarly, in the winter we clear office car parks of any snow. Now we have longer to do this before people arrive. It just makes sense in so many ways.”
Ian’s colleague, Attila Szabo, said: “It’s great. I feel like I have more energy because I have more time for myself and hobbies, like being able to go cycling on my extra day. There are also practical benefits. The fact I start earlier means I miss most of the rush-hour traffic. And working four longer days instead of five shorter ones is more efficient workwise because it takes us time to load up the van with all the tools we’ll need each morning and put them away again at the end of day. Now we move the tools less often, which means we have more time for jobs.”