Speeding Up Culture Change

According to reports published today by Personnel Today,  companies need to speed up culture change in the workplace.

This is an excerpt from their article......

A report published today sets out to “speed up culture change” act as a blueprint for change and ensuring that the gender diversity agenda leads to real change in UK workplaces.

The study, from flexible working specialist Timewise and Deloitte, lays out a five-point plan designed to help employers do away with outmoded working practices and secure progress in the wake of last month’s focus on gender pay reporting. These are:

• Leaders must provoke cultural change – challenge the status quo
• Flexible working to be gender neutral – emphasise the value of male and female role models
• Design flexibility into the job – ask “why not” rather than “why”
• Influence the attitudes and actions of managers – provide the permission and tools to support a flexible workforce
• Collect the data – measure the success of flexible working

A Manifesto for Change: A Modern Workplace for a Flexible Workforce is the result of a large-scale study, which includes a survey of almost 2,000 employees in addition to in-depth interviews with a diverse range of UK business leaders.

The research found that one in three of survey respondents felt they were regarded as having less status and importance because of their flexible working pattern.

Of flexible worker respondents, 25% reported missing out on promotion because of their status. Of those who would like to work flexibly but who currently do not, 39% believed their role could not be carried out on a flexible basis and 24% that their workplace was not supportive of flexibility.

When it came to wanting more flexible working, 73% of all respondents wanted their workplaces to reward people for the job they did rather than the number of hours they spent there.

The report’s findings reinforce the view that barriers to embedding flexible working are mainly cultural, often coming down to the attitudes and behaviour of managers. Most respondents agreed that organisations needed to reject passive policies and recruit and train managers who truly supported their team to achieve work/life balance (7 in 10) and implement a range of suitable flexible working options (6 in 10).

Emma Codd, director of talent at Deloitte, described the advantages a flexible working policy had brought to the services giant. She said: “Now, work-life balance is no longer the main reason people choose to leave our firm; people actually choose to join us because of our approach to agile working. We have achieved this change simply by focusing on our culture, and ensuring we offer people options that really work for them and the firm.”

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