February 5 2002 - A conference on trends in working hours and flexible working patterns
in the UK and across Europe will hear from employers who, working with unions, have encouraged flexible
working and work-life balance. Examples featured will include Lloyds TSB and Arla Foods.
Lloyds TSB and UNIFI
Lloyds TSB employees indicated in a survey that work-life balance was more important to many
than improved pay and conditions. Focus groups were then used to find out more about staff views
and consultants asked to formulate policy. A system was then allowing individual members of staff to:
- initiate requests for change
- make business case applications using a guidance pack
- conduct dialogues with their line managers.
The process is monitored and a staff newsletter used to keep people
up to date on ideas.
Requests are approved if they do not have a negative impact on the business. According to
Sally Evans, Head of Equal Opportunities at Lloyds TSB: 'There is a very clear business imperative for us, as what differentiates
us from our competitors is the quality of our people. To maintain that edge we need to recruit
and retain the right calibre of personnel.'
This means that the bank will consider suggestions for part-time work, job-share, compressed
hours, teleworking or a combination of these.
And Ed Sweeney, Joint General Secretary, UNIFI says: - 'This is a good start to the long process of getting a sensible policy on work-life balance for staff and bank.'
Arla Foods and GMB
Arla Foods (GMB, T&G) is a multinational dairy company with 6 dairies in the
UK. It supplies 20 per cent of milk to UK supermarkets. But the demand is seasonal and
production is governed by the requirements of the supermarkets. This makes it difficult to
give staff a choice over their hours and patterns of work.
Before the Working Time regulations were introduced many Arla employees regularly worked
50-60 hours a week - occasionally working as much as 80 hours per week. The GMB and T&
amp;G trade unions and Arla UK came up with a plan to reduce working time and offer employees
more choice about how long they work. The new agreement uses an annualised hours scheme with
the number of working hours per year specified (instead of the traditional number of hours per
week. Workers have some degree of choice 40, 42, 44, 46
or 48 hours average working week throughout the year. And they can apply to increase or reduce
their hours if circumstances or preferences change - providing that there is
enough work to support their request.
At first the scheme did not work too well but Gerry Veart (GMB) and Paul Simpson (Arla)
took responsibility for the scheme and worked together - along with the T&G, - to
redesign it.
They say that, despite considerable constraints imposed by customer-demand, by working in
partnership with its trade unions, Arla has managed to reduce working time whilst maintaining
the ability to meet tight production targets.
Related articles:
-
Bad publicity from large pay settlements won by the victims of work-related stress
are a greater cause of concern to employers than the actual sum awarded says Cary Cooper,
Professor of Organisational Psychology at the Manchester School of Management in the
book ` published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel
and Development (CIPD).
