Flexibility Works was founded by Lisa Gallagher and Nikki Slowey, and the story of our first five years is fittingly told in two parts.

In part one, Lisa Gallagher looked back on our early days, our research and our work with hundreds of Scottish employers. Here, Nikki Slowey shares her thoughts on our social purpose to reduce poverty, as well as what’s coming next for Flexibility Works.

Lisa and I set up Flexibility Works because we wanted to create a working culture that truly values work life harmony, and that enables all people and businesses to thrive. This includes addressing the fact so many people are locked out of work because of a lack of flexibility, which impacts them, their families and our wider economy.

Five years on, we believe more than ever that flexible working has the power to help reduce poverty, and this social purpose is a key strand of our social business.

We’ve had time to turn our ‘hunch’ into data-backed evidence that flexible working really does help people get into work, stay in work, and (when done very well) it can help people progress at work too.

Supporting people (back) into work

We’ve always supported women returner workshops with our sessions on how to find flexible jobs and how to ask for flexible working. But in the last few years, we’ve stepped up our work with employability providers because we found that however well-intentioned staff were, some didn’t understand how essential flex is for some people in order to work at all, or they didn’t realise what flexible working could look like in different roles. Our work is helping employability staff to advocate more effectively with employers for flexible jobs that are manageable and sustainable, so people can get into work

In 2024 we published our first poverty-focused report, clearly demonstrating how a lack of flexible working was locking many people, especially parents, out of work. And showing how unequal access to flexible working is – the less you earn, the less likely you are to work flexibly.

We’re also proud to have secured funding to deliver programmes supporting employers to increase flexible working that will help all workers – but especially parents – get into to work and stay in work, such as our Time to Flex project in East Renfrewshire. We’re working in partnership with East Renfrewshire Council to support local employers increase flex options, thanks to funding from the Scottish Government. Ditto our work supporting employers with frontline staff. Just because people can’t work from home, doesn’t mean they can’t have more choice and control in when and how they work.

And we continue to make the case to the Scottish Government, charities and other policy influencers on why leveraging flexible working should be part of wider programmes to reduce child poverty.

Scotland’s first flexible working accreditation

As part of our ambition to bring about systemic change – creating greater flexible working opportunities for all workers including those in poverty – we’re also realising a long-term ambition to develop Scotland’s first accreditation for flexible working.

This will provide a supportive framework for employers to increase their flexible offer and showcase their flexible culture. Employee feedback will be important part of our assessment process to ensure employers really ‘walk the walk’ when it comes to flex, and this is now enshrined in our new accreditation framework. We’re making great progress through our pilot stage and can’t wait to launch fully next year.

What’s next?

We always tell clients that flexible working is a journey, not a destination in itself. The last five years certainly back that up – a global pandemic and (nearly) two new laws on flexible working mean every single workplace will have made changes in how they operate. And we’re not done yet!

Demand from workers for flexibility is at an all-time high. The business case for flexible working has never been stronger. And there are increasing numbers of employers doing flex well that others can learn from. There is still so much more for us to do to help employers unlock the benefits of flexible working, to help people find harmony between their work and home lives, and to play a greater part in reducing poverty by enabling more people to work and stay in work.

After five years we’re starting to mature as a business. We’ve passed through the start-up phase, and we’ve finessed our goals and ways of working. We’re looking forward to growing our business so we can work with more employers, and we’ll continue to work closely with the Scottish Government, UK Government and other policymakers, always making the case for greater flexible working that benefits people and employers equally.

Flexible working is here to stay and, importantly, it continues to evolve. If you feel you’re ready for a flexible working refresh, or a reset on hybrid, you’re probably right.

You know where we are if you need any support.