IoD urges caution over flexible working

This post has been removed because it contravened our guidelines.

Agile working clearly works for the majority of stand-alone office activities, especially when the IT infrastructure and data management systems are in place to support this. There will always be exceptions to the rule, just wasn't expecting quite such a high exception as suggested in this article.

I fully embrace both agile working, flexible working and performance indicators as tools to achieve betterment for both employers and employees ...

Graham Hall

I honestly have no idea - my husband was the IT Director for a medium sized company and even he wasn't able to work flexibly to his advantage, despite having no set contractual hours.

Perhaps employers should be making a more thorough impact assessment before agreeing to flex requests.

=================================================
QUOTE “In a recent survey 18 % of IoD members said that they’d agreed to flexible working arrangements for workers which subsequently caused challenges or problems for their businesses.

"This evidence shows that flexible working isn’t benefiting everyone and supports the IoD view that any more legislation in this area would be a serious mistake. Employers are clearly under too much pressure to accommodate flexible working requests as a result of existing laws already.”
===============================================

In some sectors, employers often ask (or "require") staff to be more flexible, but often complain or refuse when staff ask for even a little flexibility.

I know it's not always the case, but I think that a "take, take" and "you're getting paid, what's the problem?" approach from employers is certainly not beneficial in the long run.

Where does the best road lie?