What kind of organisation are you?

What motivated you as an organisation to start your flexible working journey?

Some forms of flexible working existed before Covid, such as part time hours, condensed hours, and flexitime, where people work their set hours but have a choice over their start and finish times.

Then Covid came and demonstrated that organisations could work from home, and that spurred our move to hybrid working. While the cost-of-living crisis together with increasing staff requests for condensed hours got us looking at a 4-day work week.

How and when did you start introducing flex/more flex?

Our move to hybrid working came about, like many other organisations, as Covid restrictions started easing. We surveyed staff on how they felt about coming back to the office and agreed on two days in the office for everyone. We trialled it for a year and now it’s permanent.

In terms of our 4-day work week, the cost-of-living crisis was a contributing factor because our costs were going up and we didn’t want to pass this on to our tenants. We were looking at ways we could keep our costs down. This coupled with the fact that requests for condensed hours had already been increasing, and we were anticipating more flexible working requests as a result of people re-evaluating their work life balance after Covid brought us to thinking about slightly reducing our working hours.

Flex today – what are you doing right now?

Our 4-day working week started in January 2023. Annually we provide staff with a cost-of-living increase, and this is influenced by inflation. But this year we offered staff a lower than inflation salary increase of 2% but with a 4-day week. We calculated we could pay staff for 35 hours, of which they would only work 32 (four 8-hour days). Staff received approximately a 10% benefit, but it wasn’t all in cash.

Everyone now works Monday to Thursday with Friday off. We chose Friday as the day off for everyone as we tend to have fewer queries from tenants on this day. Fridays are now treated like weekend days – our principal contractor provides a normal service on Fridays and will make contact with appropriate staff should an emergency occur.

We consulted with our tenants and showed how this would help keep their rents lower with only a 2% increase, and about 60% of tenants agreed it was a good idea. So far, we’ve had just one tenant complain that our office isn’t open on a Friday.

Our board agreed we could trial it for a year to check that staff were happy, tenants were happy and that our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) weren’t adversely affected. Our KPIs cover various subjects such as tenant satisfaction, repair times, rent arrears and complaints.

Five months on staff are very happy, our residents’ panel hasn’t reported any adverse impacts, and performance has remained steady.

This is alongside our hybrid policy of people working two days in the office each week, and other forms of flexible working such as part time hours and flexible start and finish times.

What challenges have you faced?

With our hybrid programme, there was a hesitancy about coming back to the office at first, but we encouraged people to use the office for team-building purposes, to interact with colleagues, and for the emotional health benefits of being able to chat things through face-to-face.

One or two people were sceptical about the 4-day work week and thought extra cash was more important. But now they’ve tried it, they say that even if we offered them the extra cash, they’d rather keep the 4-day week.

Occasionally people do have to work on a Friday. But this shouldn’t be a regular thing. Managers check that people aren’t working Fridays ‘behind the scenes’. We have to be proactive to make sure people don’t overwork.

Impact of flexible working

It’s been great for our people and our service delivery is unaffected.

Staff use their extra time to do school-runs, see family, or just have some time to themselves to sit in the garden. They have time to do things more leisurely, rather than cramming everything into a two-day weekend. People seem more refreshed and rested when Monday comes around, and that’s good for the organisation too.

Personally, I use my Fridays to volunteer with my church. It can be anything from help with plumbing to chatting to people. I really look forward to Fridays and feel it’s added another positive element to my life.

Our hybrid policy is particularly helping employees who live further away as it reduces their travel time and costs too.

As an employer, we get a reputational benefit from offering greater flexible working because we’re seen as an organisation that really cares about its people. This together with the practicalities of a 4-day week and hybrid working make us a much more attractive place to work, and this helps us find good calibre candidates. We can recruit from a wider geographical area too because people know they won’t have to travel to an office every day.

People tend to stay with Melville anyway, and now we have a 4-day week and hybrid working, there’s even more reason to do so.

The future of flex in your organisation

We will continue to review how the 4-day working week is operating and are actively seeking views of our staff, board, contractors, and our tenants to ensure that we deliver the best possible service.

As an organisation we are committed to excellence, and we recognise that our people are our most valuable asset, so we’ll continually look for ways to support and invest in them in this ever-changing work environment.

Top tips for flex

• Understand your people and what suits them. Ask lots of questions.
• Really listen to your team and do not discount any ideas no matter how ‘off the wall’ they may initially sound.
• Trial new work patterns before you commit to them. We trialled our hybrid working pattern for a year before we made it permanent, and we’re doing the same with our 4-day week.
• Be brave and try new ideas. If they don’t work, fix them, or go back to the way things were and then try something different.