Flexibility is a catchall term - there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution

Last night I had the pleasure and honour to join the Swedish Ambassador’s office at the embassy in London to co-host a business roundtable. Bringing together business voices from a number of sectors, including healthcare, hospitality and retail, we sat down to discuss some of the big challenges that companies are facing today, from employee engagement to staff shortages and Brexit.

At Quinyx, we’ve been working to understand how we, and leaders of businesses, can improve the lives of millions of shift and service workers across the UK. And with our latest piece of research revealing that half of UK employers struggle to recruit and retain blue-collar workers, one main focus for our discussion at the event was around the challenges that staff and skill shortages pose to businesses.

As we search for solutions that will help both business leaders and employees to prosper, ‘flexibility’ stands out as a clear path to greater engagement, productivity and – ultimately – success. Last year, when we asked UK workers about their feelings towards flexibility, respondents said that the inability to choose their work schedule has a negative effect on their health and wellbeing. And nearly a fifth said that they’d be more productive if given more opportunities to work flexibly.

But what good “flexible working” looks like can vary from person to person and, as became clear during last night’s discussion, the nature of what “flexible” means, and what is feasible, can differ vastly between organisations, too – depending on your industry, type of business, location or workforce. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution.

That’s why it’s so important for businesses to work together and collaborate with trusted partners who can help them to find the right answers for their organisation’s unique challenges. Learning more about best practice and understanding how others are approaching issues around workforce management are key to strengthening your business’s talent pipeline.

Flexibility, in whatever form it takes, is incredibly valuable to both businesses and the people that work for them. We need to make sure we’re all talking about how we can improve the lives of workers, in order to attract, engage and retain them. Getting this right will not only lead to happier employees, but also mean big business rewards.