We’re delighted to announce we’ve received funding to develop Scotland’s first good practice standard for flexible working.
As you may know, we’re flex champions to our very core. We think flexible working can transform people’s lives and enable organisations to thrive. As a social business, we have a particular interest in how flex can benefit lower income workers, and play a part in reducing poverty by helping people get into work and stay in work.
Despite increases in flexible working since the pandemic, a third of Scottish workers still don’t work flexibly and the less you earn, the less likely you are to work flexibly. What’s more, a lack of clarity around what good flexible working really looks like means flex can be patchy depending on your employer, or even your line manager.
Flexible working accreditation
Thanks to funding from the Robertson Trust, we’re about to develop a new flexible working accreditation scheme for employers that will definitively show what ‘good’ flexible working looks like, and it will provide a supportive framework for employers to increase their flexible offer and showcase their flexible culture.
For workers, our accreditation scheme is all about creating more flexible working in more roles, including those that are low paid.
Our co-founder and director Nikki Slowey/Lisa Gallagher explains more in this short video:
Development and pilot
We’re excited to start work on our new scheme with two accreditation specialists, Bonnie Clarke and Simon Kujawa, both at consultancy Taylor Clarke, who have a wealth of experience in developing and designing frameworks, as well as organisational design and cultural change. A crucial element of our scheme will be staff feedback. Senior managers won’t be able to ‘self certify’. We’ll need to hear from a wide range of workers on whether the company is genuinely flexible.
We’ve already had many conversations with groups that run other accreditation schemes, employers of all sizes and industries, business groups and other parties with an interest creating more flexible working, and/or frameworks to improve standards. These conversations will continue throughout our project, and we’ll be setting up an independent advisory board to support and scrutinise our plans.
We plan to pilot the scheme with a small group of employers later this year, before officially launching our new programme to Scottish employers next year. It’s important to us that we include a range of companies, of different sizes and from different sectors, and crucially include not only desk-based roles, but frontline workers too.
What our funder said
Lyndsay Fraser Robertson, Programmes and Practice Officer at the Robertson Trust, said:
“We know a lack of flexibility can be a key barrier to getting into and on in work and can keep specific population groups trapped in a cycle of low pay and limited progression opportunities. By piloting this accreditation for employers to create flexible working practices, there is scope to not only draw more people into the labour market, but also to encourage culture change in the highest priority sectors for those population groups most vulnerable to in-work poverty.
“We look forward to seeing how this innovative work develops and adding to the support available to employers to provide greater protections from poverty to their employees.”
The Robertson Trust’s Programme Awards aim to support projects with the potential to deliver big change that lasts on poverty and trauma in Scotland.
More information?
If you’d like more information, or you’re interested in taking part in our pilot project, please contact us at hello@flexibilityworks.org. If you would like to learn more about funding programmes from the Robertson Trust, please visit their website.
