Examples of flexi-hours for full time working parents

[Workingwithchildcare]

Owner of a growing business and I’ve reached the capacity of my HR knowledge. While we recruit a HR manager I need to put in place a Flexible working policy. We are a family friendly business and we want to support working parents.

Does anyone have some examples of good flexi policies for full time working parents. We are happy for our admin team to request PT hours but where they wish to remain FT I’d like to explore options which allow for school runs etc. The positions are office based for the most part (a few days a week at home although they cannot be carried out while juggling children as it’s not appropriate for us, our clients or the health and safety of the children).

I’d love to hear about businesses who do this really well. Thank you ☺️

Early starts
Shorter lunch

Job shares

Increased training so more people can do same job allowing more people to be off on short notice

ACAS have model policies and good advice, it's usually best not to stray too far from what they say.

Don't forget to factor in your business needs. I once took over a team where all sorts of flexible working had been given to people based only on what the staff member needed/wanted. It was very difficult operationally, and I ended up having to move a couple of people to a more suitable role as a jobshare because their flex working pattern was causing them such a lot of stress.

My team work quite flexibly, but at the end of the day there is a business need.

I would start with what your business need is, and think about how flexible your employees can be and still meet that.

For example early starts and finishes is fine, but we often have meetings at 4pm and need someone to cover them.

However I let my team flex their hours so we can all attend school assemblies or change working days for inset days etc. But I know I have an experienced team who really appreciate that and are flexible back

Another vote for looking at Acas. I’d also make decisions about business need and essentially what wouldn’t work from that perspective -but being very clear, eg if they can’t have children at home - what’s the age limit on this as teenagers different from toddlers here.
generally I’d see flexible working at work from home, different start and end and break times, compressed hours, part time, working term time only?

Anecdotal but maybe helpful, I do two short days where I work school hours only, then three longer days when they go to wraparound club.

The only thing to be careful of is those flexi people who work as part of a team but decide to work really unsociable hours - so everything gets delayed. I have colleagues who will email at 5 or 6 but then have disappeared by lunch time. It's quite annoying!

Mine has shifted as the children's needs change, that had been the key.

I used to do 9.30-.2.30 (no lunch) then the rest when the children were in bed.

Now they are older and my role is very senior I do 9.30- 2.30 then 4-6 and then any extra in the evening

However, the flexibility goes both ways and when there are key meetings that can't be changed I have always made myself available for them (after school club/a friend picks up/or now I am with DH he works flexibly too when he can-his role is less flexible due to its nature)

I would add that quite a chunk of my role involved research and drafting so I actually need quiet times to be able to get those bits done

Stay close to ACAS and you won't go wrong.

This is my working pattern too. Monday and Friday I work 9.00 - 2.30 (school starts at 8.30) the remainder of the week I start at 8.00, finishing at 4.30.

I WFH rather than in an office, and not in a client facing role which does make things easier with regards to managing flexible hours.

Not what you asked but how big is your business? Do you really need an in-house HR manager? In the SMEs if worked with/for HR is typically outsourced, it's more cost effective.

Offer core hours? 10-3 everyone working with fixed 30 minutes lunch.

Rest of the time can be made up between 7am & 6pm. I used to work with flexi hours like this and loved it! I used to do compressed hours to accommodate my social life- was in my early 20's, so no kids or other attachments!
Obviously it depends on the job role and you'd need to do some monitoring...

Either an early start or a later start, so the working parent can do at least one drop off/pick up a day

Core hours is great! Ours are till 4 but till 3 would be better.

I do 7-8.30 (when my DH goes to work and I do the school run) then 9.15 to 3pm. And a few days a week an hour or two in the evenings.

It helps that school is close to work. Other colleagues finish at 2pm which means they end up working every evening to catch up.

My work insist on minimum 45 mins unpaid lunch. I don't take it but that makes no difference.

I'm paid FT, which for us is 37h a week.

But I've been there FOREVER and built up a lot of trust pre kids.

Our policy is generous but also flexible. It makes clear that someone must be available at all times to cover. So the newest rector may not be able to have the flex they want if old timers like me already have established patterns.

Most companies I do work for have core hours of something like 9.30am to 3.30pm, or 10am to 4pm. The majority of internal meetings are expected to take place in that time.

Even then allowances can be made as long as you are contactable by phone.

If you deal with clients it depends on where your clients are what hours you work. Again if you have a meeting at midnight with a client then you aren't expected to be in the next day unless it's urgent.

My employer has a "work anywhere (uk) any time as long as it works for your team" policy which actually means "agree with your line manager what works best for your specific team".

This means roles which are needing specific hours and locations (trades, receptionists etc) are managed as such, and roles which don't (most back office functions) have greater flexibility.

We are all told that even if we receive an internal email at whatever hour, we are not duty bound to even open them until we are working so no pressure to reply quickly to an email sent at 9pm etc.

If your place of work has lots of meetings, core hours can work. If you want to be family friendly this would need to be factored into core hours.

If you don't want people wfh with kids, you need to be explicit about it, and designated an age limit on that (eg someone whose 12yo is home shouldn't count as they'd be fine home alone).

We used to do 7:30 - 18:00 with core hours 10:00 - 12:00 14:00 - 15:30, min of 30 mins for lunch.
37:00 / week
Flexi leave with approval of max 1.5 days in a 4week period, carry over + or - 2.5 days credit/debit.

Make sure you word it that the flexi working is available to all, both parents and non parents.

Definitely agree with this. So many people benefit from flexible working. It shouldn't just be available to parents

This

Most of my team work full time hours but with a flexible arrangement in place. You need to trust your team to do the work without dictating when they need to be at their desk. I work compressed 5 days in 4. I do school pick up once a week so don't take lunch break that day although in reality I never take a formal lunch break anyway, I often step away for an hour for a walk or run but at a time that works around meetings. Some days I work until 7pm, some days I log off at 5pm to collect kids from after school club. So just flexibility.

The things that haven't worked for us - team working from Austraila - not kidding this has happened a lot but the time difference is causing problems and people travelling in general, when someone is in another country, is a can be problem for us - so we are imposing a limit.

Also, consider the increased cost of allowing someone to work term time only - they are entitled to get the same number of holidays as full time staff despite working fewer days, so they will be less profitable for you.

Core hours. Mine are 10 til 2. I usually work 9 til 3 pm and make up the rest of my hours once my DC is in bed. Ofcourse, this is helped by the job being fully remote.