Task 1 –
Define flexible working within the legislative framework within the EU, and Critically discuss the implications , both legally and with regards to good practice, when recruiting staff to work flexibly. Relevant examples must be given to support the answers.
Task 2-
(a) Critically evaluate the impact of the flexible working hours upon the organization (Sysdoc Group) used in the case study, and its employees’ performance. Examples must also be used to collaborate the answer.
( b) Draw conclusions and make any relevant recommendations that may be of benefit to Sysdoc Group and to employers considering implementing similar flexible working practices.
It can be said that increasing as well as elasticity of functioning time is one of the major as well as important element of the European employment strategy. Therefore, it can be stated that the enterprises must become further elastic in regards to counter to the unexpected changes in command as well as adapt to several new and innovative knowledge and stay in a location to innovate continuously to linger spirited (Ajuria et al. 2012). This particular research work would focus on defining flexible working within the legislative framework within European Union and discussing the implications. Apart from that, the research work would try to evaluate the impact of the flexible working hours on the selected organization Sysdoc Group. Moreover, the performances of the employees would be addressed as well and at the end of the study, some of the effective recommendations would be provided.
Workplace flexibility can be defined as the potentiality to have some control over when, how and where work is properly accomplished. European board has stated that workplace flexibility takes into account working hours along with working place and working practices (Dancaster 2014). Therefore, it can be said that there exist a variety of short as well as long term provisions and practices that accumulates under the umbrella of leave, purchased leave along with special leave, study leave and bereavement leave as well as career breaks. However, in a nutshell it can be said that flexible working provides the employees of an organization the flexibility on their working conditions and this help them to keep balance between work life and personal life (Dipoppa and Gutkin 2013). In European Union , it has been seen that it is not only the parents who necessitate flexible working, present demographics as well as an ageing populace and one in six workers have the eldercare responsibilities and demand flexible working hour (Equality-law.co.uk 2016).
In the current years, the government has started to acknowledge the consequence of work-life equilibrium concerns by introducing a variety of laws in order to support the employees. Apart from basically obeying with the legislation, several companies are beginning to recognize the compensation of trying to assemble the demand of flexible functioning (Allen et al. 2013). However, it is important to mention that the public sectors have comparatively better reputation than the private sectors for flexible working practices, but there are some areas where the policies are not properly taken up (Dancaster 2014).
The right to request flexible working is comparatively new idea and provide the employees the authority to request a change to their working pattern and for that purpose, the request is required to consider deeply by the employers. Part time working, flexitime, occupation allocation, condensed hours, home working, V time and Term-time working are some of the most common working requests (Dipoppa and Gutkin 2013). Dancaster (2014) has started that the hours and times populace work have forever been a core subject to modify, but the pace of this transform at present are more rapid than ever due to some crucial reasons.
The CEO of the company sysdoc has always focused on flexibility culture and has embraced such ac culture where the employees enjoy flexibility in their working place. The company focuses on flexible location, flexible hours, flexible patterns and flexible rostering system (Anderson 2015). Euromonitor International, Bank of England and Mediamath are some of the companies that have incorporated flexible working hour in their working culture. All these industries are entirely different in terms of their size and industry; however, they have some common features in terms of flexibility. Unibet, Equal Experts and Holiday Extras as well are also in the list and these all takes into account flexibility in their working curriculum (Anderson 2014).
This is because of the facts that customers at present expected to have goods as well as services obtainable outside the conventional functioning hours and the organizations want to match their business requirements with the style their employees work. Most importantly, the individuals want to achieve a comparatively better equilibrium between work and the home life. In this part, it is required to mention the statutory approaches to the work place flexibility (Equality-law.co.uk 2016).
In UK, there are some specific laws that are explicit laws to the employees caring for their children or the needy adults. It has been found that in different nations this takes form of the part time work throughout parental abscond and an alternative not easily obtainable to the UK parents. In UK, elastic working statutes were introduced in order to increase labor force participation, especially for the mothers and to address the short term as well as long term labor shortages. However, it is required to mention that the gender impartiality has not been the preliminary inspiration for the flexible working commandments with some exceptions of the Nordic counties and the Netherlands (Equality-law.co.uk 2016).
It has been seen that the UK benefits from the widespread tendency data on the elastic working and this is comparatively much fewer the case in other nations and prepares a cross country contrasts of the impact of dissimilar laws complicated. In this regards, it is important to say that several UK surveys have shown that the availability of flexible work options has significantly amplified since the proper prologue of Right to Request and this is unbeaten in opening admittance to the flexible working options that do not lead to diminution of remuneration (Galea et al. 2014).
In UK, it has been seen that the workers in the administrative jobs are less expected to appeal for the condensed hours and when they do, they are less liable to be successful. Therefore, it can be stated that the flexible working statutes are considering one of the key roles in changing this, but this is required to be carried by broader strategy events to confront working time norms in the senior places of the organization (Hörning et al. 2015). It can be found that in absence of the well developed workplace instruments for dispute resolution, more UK employees turn to the tribunals. This point is required to analyze from the gender equity point of view and it can be found that the increased flexibility in the working hours must be rated positively in as much as more individualized working hours can assist the workers to resolve their work compulsions and the personal life (Healy 2014).
At the time of recruiting the staffs in the workplace, the organization must be legally clear to the concerns of work flexibility. The statutory right to request for flexible working was introduced in UK in the year 2002, permits succeeding employees to apply to their concerned managers for some certain changes to their terms and conditions of employment connecting to their hours, times or the location of the work. However, it is important to mention that as practically designed, the right applied to the inadequate categories of the workers with the parental as well as thoughtful responsibilities (Kapelyushnikov et al. 2012).
The Children and Families Act of 2014 extended the right to all the employees with 26weeks continuous employment. Therefore, it is easily understood that the flexible working is considered as one of the means of enabling the employees of an organization to balance their personal and the working lives as well benefiting the employers in terms of the workforce recruitment. These reasons have encouraged the continuing addition since 2002 of the right to request flexible working has been greatly carried by several commerce organizations and are subject to extensive supporting agreement (Leslie et al. 2012).
In order to analyze the impact of flexible hour on the organization as well as the performance of the employees, Sysdoc Group has been taken into consideration. Sysdoc group is a leading management consultancy who has been specialized in change management along with business method expansion and proper administration of knowledge. The companionship has adopted a customer centric approach and thus has tapped into a team of highly capable consultants, who have been looking for more flexible employer (Limited 2015).
It can be said that although Sysdoc group does not have a specific policy on the flexible timing, rather it has a range of measures in order to support proper work life balance like value-based recruitment strategy, recruiting for attitude as well as training for the specified skills, extensive part time working taking into account the senior managers of the company along with encouraging the work life balance amongst all the existing staffs. Moreover, the company has included the goals of life along with the professional goals in case of the performance appraisals (Limited 2016).
The management of the company often says that it often exceed the expectations of the clients whilst making sure that the counselors accomplish proper work life equilibrium. Moreover, working unnecessary hours are tried to keep at the smallest level. Nevertheless, it is identified that is one of the notable two way procedure and desires for flexible working timings, which must be unbiased against the requirements of the commerce. Recent report has found that the company Sysdoc has been delighted to receive a prestigious award for being one of the top 30 employers for the working families UK (Ngui et al. 2014).
At the company, it can be found that the company has gradually developed a set of values along with a proper work culture that embraces the full person, identifying the importance of retaining them and enhancing the talent within the company. Syndoc group look for the people who fit in with company culture as well as share the values. In the part timing working facility, the company tries to facilitate the working whenever it is possible and this has found that it is normally augments successful completion of the projects of the company. In case of work life balance, it can be seen that half of the employees of the company have said that they had taken time off with full company hold up, for the family procedures outside of the working place (Noon et al. 2013).
Google, John Lewis and Microsoft are some of the leading organizations that have embraced flexible working hours in their curriculum and thus the employees in these organizations are highly satisfied with their work experience (Anderson 2014).
One of the major parts of the company is that the company gives pressure to none of the consultants to work on any of the projects that takes them away from the families. If the consultant is required to choose that option, them the company helps the entire family to move to the client location. In case of performance appraisals, the company Sysdoc encourages both the professional and the individual accomplishment by ensuring that the company is well aware of the life goals and the ambition of the concerned team. From the company profile, it can be said that while there is a formal equal chances as well as the diversity policy and Sysdoc does not have a written flexible working policy (Pedersen and Lewis 2012).
The management of the company has demonstrated that at the time of working with the potential clients, the company focuses at several different ways of delivering their projects and this takes into account the building a multi talented team that successfully accommodate the company’s flexible working by the consultants. Therefore, it can be stated that the management of the company is well aware of maintaining workplace flexibility and this enhances the performances of the employees and the company enjoy a growth in their business (Wallace et al. 2015).
It has been observed that Sysdoc is obstinate that 60 hour weeks are not compulsory to distribute any particular projects productively and a senior consultant plays one of the major roles on every project in guaranteeing that it is distributed in line with the set values of the organization along with the rigorous principles of presentations. Therefore, it can be easily seen that the company focuses on flexible working hours within the legislative framework within the European Union. However it has been seen that the company has failed to maintain the flexible hour policy and this has hampered the productivity of the employees to a large extent. Apart from that, it has been found that the company helps in moving the entire family to the client location and this is one of the major causes of disappointment among the employees of Sysdoc group (Wetherly and Otter 2014).
Conclusion and recommendations
After looking at defining the flexible working within the legislative framework, it has been found that this is one of the leading topics to discuss. Moreover, to understand the topic more clearly, Sysdoc Group has been taken into consideration. It has been observed that the company has embraced many policies to maintain flexible working hours for the employees. However, some of the policies of Sysdoc have affected the employees and this part is thus required to revise. The company is required to adopt some alternative policies rather than arranging for the families of the consultants to move to the client location. Apart from that, the company has failed to keep their policies and practices related to flexible working and this has hampered the reputation of the company. It has been already been seen that Sysdoc has received a prestigious award for being one of the top most companies for the working families and to hold on this position, the company is required to incorporate more innovative practices in their system to attract the attention of the employees.
References
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