May 2008 – Reverting to natural working patterns

During the late 18th century when the UK’s first textile mill owners were seeking employees to work in their factories they weren’t exactly inundated with volunteers.

While agricultural labourers were used to long hours during the planting and harvesting times, the rhythms of the seasons and a profusion of holy or saints’ days allowed plenty of time for relaxation and sport.

Before accurate time-measurement people weren’t used to clocking in to work or working in shift patterns. When David Dale, one of the early textile magnates, was trying to find workers for his factories based in New Lanark, Scotland, he persuaded a ship-load of Scottish highlanders to abandon their plans for starting a new life in North America and work for him instead.

Though they were provided with factory housing, the highlanders never did warm to a standardised work regime that proved alien to their way of life.

Today we take for granted a working week structured around fixed hours. Or at least we did so before many offices, free from trade union influence, began to adopt more informal hours, particularly among professional workers. Typically this involved chipping away at the 5pm home time and overlooking people’s rights to a proper lunch hour while allowing, perhaps, a little flexibility over starting times,

The move to greater informality, however, should not be presented, as it so often is, as a kind of exploitation of goodwill. If it is, then it should be admitted that the exploitation works both ways. Nipping outside for a cigarette, popping out for an errand or extending a lunch break with a friend are not unknown and should be tolerated if people are still accomplishing their work. Flexibility needs to be double-edged and that should not be a problem if outputs are being maintained.

Now the UK government has announced plans to extend the right of parents to request variable hours to those with children of 16 and under. It’s a pity that such legislation was thought necessary. Employers should already be thinking of ways to extend such flexibility.

By and large, I think most companies do find some pattern that works. But informal work arrangements can be wrecked by shirking employees who abuse more relaxed office regimes or by unreasonable managers who expect people to work late as a matter of routine.

The extent to which formal lunch breaks have been allowed to disappear became evident in a Reed Employment poll this month of almost 5,000 workers registered on its web site, www.reed.co.uk. Eight out of 10 of those questioned said they were taking less than 30 minutes for lunch.

Nearly half, some 44 per cent, were eating at their desks and almost as many – four out of 10 admitted that they felt guilty if they took a full hour. More than half of those questioned said there was no culture of taking hour-long lunch breaks. They didn’t see their bosses doing it so didn’t think they should do so either.

Reed describes this emerging picture of office life as “unhealthy and unproductive,” particularly since long hours of working are becoming the norm in many workplaces.

Contrast these findings, however, with the Confederation of British Industry’s annual absenteeism survey that published its results last week. The average number of days lost through sickness absence in 2007 was 6.7 days, down slightly on the seven day average in 2006.

This still means, says the CBI, that absenteeism is costing the UK economy £13.2bn a year. While I accept that tackling absenteeism is important, I think that the “cost to the economy” argument is wearing a bit thin.

If everyone worked all of the time the economy would be in tatters since no-one would have time to do much spending. There has to be a balance, therefore, between work and leisure. Leisure spending is an important part of any modern economy so time off needs to be appreciated as an economic good. Disposable income is all very well, but people need the time and opportunity for discretionary spending.

In her book, The Leisure Economy, published late last year, Linda Nazareth, forecast a big boost for leisure spending in the next few years as many of the post Second World War baby boom generation move in to retirement.

While some in this generation will continue to work, many of those with well-funded pensions and equity in home ownership, she noted, would be in a position to spend on leisure activities.

As the aging chunk of our society begins to work through its deferred savings, however, the necessary work will be divided among a shrinking workforce.

According to new research by Deloitte, the business advisory firm, which has been investigating the recruitment needs of 58 of the world’s largest employers, together employing more than 2m people, demographic change is already beginning to bite.

“In spite of current economic uncertainty and recent job cuts, 2008 is the year when there will be more jobs than there are people. Demand for the right people is outstripping supply. Talent management strategies will need to be deployed more broadly and extend way beyond individuals in leadership positions,” says Anne-Marie Malley, the partner in Deloitte’s human capital consulting practice who led the research.

Demands of a new generation for greater flexibility and development opportunities, says Deloitte, will mean that employers will need to offer a broader-based approach to keeping and recruiting the best people that must extend beyond the so-called “high potentials” who have been identified as future leaders.

That would seem self-evident, but too many employers are failing to change their attitudes in line with those of a younger generation. If anything we have a generation that, in its attitudes, is moving back to the kind of free-thinking mentality that would have been recognised by those 18th century highlanders.

That is not to say that younger people are work-shy; far from it. But many of them do take a less formal approach to work and appreciate greater freedom in the workplace. The danger is that overzealousness in work regimes among employers will backfire.

Stephen Sidebottom, director of HR Europe for Nomura, the financial services group, reminded the CBI /AXA Absence and Wellbeing Management Conference in London last week that people were beginning to work in ways that valued connections more than hierarchy.

He said that if employers were prepared to encroach in to people’s out of office time, there needed to be a quid pro quo allowing people some social contact in normal office hours. For this reason, he said, Normura had decided not to ban access to internet based social networks, such as Facebook, in office time.

Over-use of such sites, he suggested, is symptomatic of some other factor such as poor management or boredom at work. If employees are treated like adults with straightforward ground rules and clear job expectations focused on output, he argued, employers should be able maintain healthy work environments.

Ultimately, to attract the people they need, companies will have no choice but to redefine work expectations in a way that is less attached to something resembling the nine to five office routine, allowing people greater scope to match their lifestyles with their jobs.

See also: A flexible future