Work-life balance: Flex appeal

Georgina Blizzard and Nicky Imrie decided they needed to find a more flexible working pattern when they became mothers. Having had jobs in public relations, which involved long hours and a lot of pressure, they felt their old style of working would not suit their new responsibilities and decided to find a way to make the work they enjoyed fit in with their changed lives. They launched the PR Network in 2005, when Blizzard's eldest daughter, Isabella was just three months old. She now has another little girl, Olivia, who is three, and Imrie's son, Sam, turns four in May. Both women work a three-day week, and built the running of the company around the sort of flexibility they needed. "This model is perfect for our families and that is our key motivation," says Blizzard. "We love the fact that we are so flexible and that we have more input and involvement in both sides of our lives – family and work." They offer the same level of flexibility to the freelance associates who work for them, matching companies of all sizes looking for freelance support with workers with the right skill set who are happy to take on contracts that fit in with their preferred pattern of hours. These might be a series of short, intense ad hoc projects or one longer-term contract taking up a few days a month. Some are parents working part-time balancing their childcare and work needs, or happy to work full-time during term time but want to stop work in the holidays, and some are working on contracts while training in other fields. All are working "virtually", rarely if ever meeting face-to-face with Imrie and Blizzard. "We understand that people need to manage their work in a way that suits them," says Blizzard. While technology now enables many workers to do their thing from anywhere, at any time, recently developed forms of "ultra-flexible" working are providing a way into the workplace for more people with lifestyles that can't easily accommodate a regular working pattern. Shaking up the workplace does not just help individuals. Wingham Rowan, founder of Slivers-of-Time , a social enterprise that has devised a system allowing people to sell their available working time through an online marketplace, believes ultra-flexible working could hold the key to a brighter future for employment in the UK. "We have to start thinking in terms of work, not jobs," says Rowan. Slivers-of-Time developed a web-based system to allow people to sell their time online to employers in tiny blocks of two hours or more, on days that suit them. More geared up for in-house staff than home workers, Slivers workers post their CV and their availability and employers can book them to cover busy periods or do an ad hoc piece of work. Ideal for carers, parents and anyone who wanted to use a few spare hours to earn money but found it difficult to hold down a regular job with one employer because of personal commitments, it was awarded government funding in 2005 as a means to tackle worklessness. It is being used across a huge variety of work, including catering, clerical work, care, retail, distribution and leisure, in both the public and private sectors. Rowan says the problem Slivers has come up against most is creating the demand from employers to meet the supply of willing flexible workers. "We have thousands of people who have emailed us saying "when is Slivers-of-Time going to start in my area?" The answer is: it can't until an employer commits to buy the time of local people in this way on a significant scale. Usually that's a local authority or the NHS. Once they do that there's no issue about numbers of people who want to work this way." But demand is picking up. "The system has been particularly embraced by smaller companies," says Rowan. Smaller firms relish the opportunity to take on workers to cover small chunks of time, minimising costs and enabling them to cover busy periods. "There is an office supplies company that knows the best time to call potential buyers is between certain times on a Tuesday and Wednesday, so it books staff to cover those times. Then there's a T-shirt printing company that books extra staff if they have a big order to fulfil. And the City of London has found that library inquiries are busier during the school holidays, so it takes on staff to cover those periods." The model works well for small companies, but Slivers now has a number of large household names using its system. Helen Turner, recruitment and development manager for John Lewis in Cambridge, used Slivers-of-Time to cover the hectic Christmas period. "Slivers-of-Time meant we could cover gaps as small as two hours," Turner says. "Once they were inducted they worked various hours across the week, depending on their circumstances. We were able to call on extra resources quickly and they supported our partners." She says many of the staff were students, while some were carers, and the flexible model suited both the store and the staff well. Ewura-Adjowa Bossman, who is 18 and lives in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, worked through Slivers-of-Time at John Lewis. She has been working for Slivers for the past year. "I usually try to work Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I've done a few different jobs, mostly admin and clerical or reception work, as well as some retail." Bossman is taking a Teaching English as a Foreign Language course in February, so will simply remove her availability from the website for that time, then log back on when she is able to take on work again. The work has helped Bossman build varied experience that will enhance her CV, while allowing her to fund her course. Flexible hiring also works well for another household name, Adobe, which uses PR Network's associates to support its existing analyst relations team. Timothy Brook, senior manager of analyst relations at Adobe, says: "We were looking for skilled, knowledgeable and motivated individuals who could work without the day-to-day management or direction often required by an agency model, and who could work directly with senior management within Adobe in the UK on a number of projects." PR Network is in the enviable position of having grown during a recession, but although the downturn has pushed a higher number of people into self-employment, organisations involved in flexible working practices say it can't take all the credit. Xenios Thrasyvoulou, founder of PeoplePerHour (PPH), an online service that allows freelance workers to bid for contracts offered by businesses, says the movement towards ultra-flexible working for all skill levels was already under way when the recession took hold. PPH was launched in 2007, and now has 35,000 freelancers registered on its books, and 43,000 businesses, mostly small. Thrasyvoulou says the changes in working practice are "not just a recessionary effect". "What is happening is a longer-term trend which has been accelerated by the recession, and one that is led by small businesses which are always more nimble and innovative." Both the public sector and small businesses in the private sector are moving towards flexible styles of working, according to Andy Lake, editor of the online journal flexibility.co.uk . "In the public sector, more and more contractors are being taken on," Lake says. "There's evidence that things are working in different ways. In the private sector, the biggest growth area is small businesses, which are keen to grow turnover but not personnel." Even larger firms echo this sentiment. As Adobe's Brook says: "Due to the uncertain economy, we wanted the ability to 'dial up and dial down' our commitment based on available budgets and levels of work." This "flexing up and down" of the workforce may be key to the future of industry, opening doors for more people to pursue ultra-flexible styles of working. According to the Confederation of British Business's Shape of Business report, published in November 2009, organisations will increasingly "move to a new employment model where the core of permanent staff is smaller and a greater number of freelancers, consultants and temporary workers are used". All in all, it's good news for people hoping for greater control of their work/life balance. "More organisations have adopted flexible working practices as a way of saving jobs during the recession," says Gillian Nissim, founder of Workingmums.co.uk. "We hope this will not just be a stop-gap measure to save money but will bring lasting changes to the UK's working culture, making it easier for women and men to balance work and family life and giving employers the diverse and committed workforce they need to thrive." Declaration of independence Lingo24 is a global online translation service. Launched in 2002 by Christian Arno, himself a linguist, the service connects companies and individuals that need texts translating with a network of professionals across the world. Translators need to be fully qualified and experienced, and once through the virtual doors can work how and when they choose, registering their availability to work on days to suit them through the website. Lingo24 then sends appropriate projects on the days they are available. Arno says that the work is not necessarily given to the lowest bidder, but rather to the person with the most suitable profile. "Each project has different elements and requires a human eye, so there's no bidding system as such. A project manager decides who is the best translator for the job based on a wide variety of factors, from their location to their track record with us and experience. One of these factors is, of course, their rate." Lingo24 works almost entirely online, and is developing an iPhone app that will allow translators to work on short bursts of copy from any location through their handset. One of its translators, Peter Routledge, aged 62 and based in Dorset, made the move to German to English translation eight years ago, leaving a job as head of modern languages in an Essex grammar school in search of more flexibility. He registered with Lingo24 four years ago and finds he now has the opportunity to vary his workload to fit in with his other commitments. "I do quite a lot of academic writing and examining as well as translation, and taking on work in this way gives me the essential 'bread and butter' translation I need, while allowing me to take time out for other pursuits." Routledge says working flexibly also allows him to keep up to date in his areas of specialism. He has no plans to retire, or indeed to slow down, just now, but Routledge says: "It strikes me that this method of working is a fairly good way for someone in more mature years to go down a gear and not give up working. You can live in your preferred geographical location and gradually reduce the amount of work you do. It allows you to keep activities going, but gives you a vast amount of independence."