The deputy prime minister’s plan to give all workers the right to request flexible working arrangements and to give new parents the ability to share their parental leave allowance should be welcomed. It is a sign that the government has begun to acknowledge the damage inflicted on our society by inflexible employment policies which force parents – usually just mothers – to remain at home and cut off from their careers for far too long. But more needs to be done to institute a genuine cultural shift in the way part-time and flexible working are perceived if we are serious about increasing female participation in the workforce and gender equality in general. I want to argue that with a little imagination from employers, we can begin reversing the negative trends that keep talented and ambitious women out of work to the detriment of both the economy and society.
At present, mothers at the end of their maternity leave are faced with the non-choice of staying at home and trying to scrape by, or returning to work and paying for childcare which the OECD rank as the second most expensive in the world. The middle ground – returning to work on flexible, reduced or compressed hours – is what many women are crying out for. Gingerbread, the charity for single parents, estimates that almost a quarter of single parents who find a job are out of work again and back on jobseeker’s allowance within a year because jobs don’t offer the flexibility that those caring for children need. A study by the charity found that 97 per cent of mothers surveyed had seen no or very few jobs advertised within school hours that they could apply for. Ninety-five per cent had seen no or very few jobs advertised as a job share and an analysis of jobs advertised in two London newspapers over a two week period this year found that 83 per cent were not advertised as flexible.
My colleagues and I on the business, innovation and skills select committee are currently looking very carefully at how more part-time opportunities could transform women’s social mobility as part of a new inquiry into women in the workplace. BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour helped launch the inquiry with a phone-in during which one woman described research scientists, lawyers and accountants ‘twiddling their thumbs’ at home because of the lack of part-time opportunities for ambitious women moving from full-time childcare back into work. This is a huge waste to individuals, business and the economy. Highly skilled work must become something that can be done part-time, not just the low-paid and low-skill work many women are forced to accept.
We politicians can pass legislation with the best intentions, but culture and attitudes often only succumb to change at a glacial pace. So what can be done to ensure that women’s existing right to request flexible working is taken seriously by employers? First, businesses should be fully aware of the benefits of part-time and flexible workers to their business. The government’s careers service website notes that flexible working policies result in a more loyal workforce, increased retention of staff, falling absenteeism and increased productivity. Encouragingly, a 2012 CBI survey found that 96 per cent of businesses offer at least one form of flexible working, with 70 per cent offering three or more. However, few employers were able to offer the compressed hours that many women find useful, and only half of businesses offered flexitime. For women needing to drop children off at school at 8.45am, flexitime can mean the difference between being able to work and not being able to. It is the rigidity of the nine-to-five culture that is so incompatible with the demands of parenting. The much-discussed example of how flexitime has transformed women’s participation in the workplace in Scandinavian countries should be studied closely here. The OECD notes that Denmark, for example, manages to have 84 per cent of mothers in work, compared to only 67 per cent here. This is the result of an enlightened and understanding attitude towards working women on the part of employers, and sensible policy on providing subsidised childcare on the part of the state.
For women returning to work after maternity leave, a statutory right to request flexible working is one thing, but asking for it at interview stage or early in a new job is quite another. Small businesses are understandably nervous that flexible staffing arrangements could bring undue stain and uncertainty to their organisations. The Tory backbenches give a familiar cry to reduce extra burdens on businesses. The reality, however, is that small firms are probably best placed to give flexible and part-time opportunities to women with children. With fewer layers of management and less bureaucracy than large companies, SMEs are able to make flexible arrangements with staff more easily. Small businesses are also much more likely to have an element of seasonality to their business, meaning that term-time only jobs can allow mothers to earn a wage for most of the year but still be able to care for children in the summer holidays. Hiring new workers costs money, so the benefit of flexible working to SMEs is a loyal and experienced workforce with low staff turnover.
The government’s efforts to reduce welfare dependency and increase the speed with which women return to work after having children will amount to nothing if employers do not make a concerted effort to introduce family-friendly employment policies. Not all jobs can be done part-time, but vast swaths of the economy can easily be staffed by part-time and flexible workers. Employers are slowly realising that the part-time and flexible workers can be as productive and hard-working as their full-time counterparts. The chancellor George Osborne has said that he expects new mothers to go back to work when their child goes to school. Most mothers would probably be pleased to do this, but until flexible and part-time work has the same place in our society as it does in the social democracies of some of our European neighbours, this simply won’t be possible, and women won’t be able to exercise their true potential as members of the workforce.
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The business, innovation and skills committee welcome evidence from the general public. Due to the level of interest in this inquiry, the last date for submission of evidence has been extended to Christmas 2012. Written evidence is welcomed and should be sent to the committee, as a Word document, by email to [email protected]. For more information on the scope of the inquiry, please visit the business, innovation and skills committee website.
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Ann McKechin is MP for Glasgow North. She tweets @AnnMcKechinMP