Should your flex policy be more specific?

If you’re struggling to get employees on board with flexible working, it may be time to explain exactly what’s on offer – that’s the advice from one leading HR head who’s enjoyed significant success in the area.

Robin Davies is the director of people and culture at beverage giant Lion – earlier this year, the firm was recognised at the Diversity Awards New Zealand for its impressive flexible working policy.

“Before we launched this new policy, we found that flex was really seen as just for the carers in our business but now we’ve got 42 per cent of our people working flexibly and most commonly it’s for personal wellbeing,” says Davies.

Part of that success, she says, is down to Lion introducing four distinct categories to make it clear exactly what’s on offer to employees across the business.

The four categories are:

• FlexiPlace – working from a safe and productive location outside of your usual workplace
• FlexiLeave – the ability to purchase up to two weeks’ additional leave, utilising unpaid leave, plus up to two paid volunteer days per year
• FlexiSchedule – varying start and finish times or altering work schedules (for example starting early and finishing early to avoid congestion)
• FlexiRole – redesigning a role to enable job sharing or role sharing (for example part-time or job share arrangements)

“It’s really helped our people think much more broadly about flex and the options available to them so now they see it as something that is available to everybody,” says Davies.

“It also really supports our message that we want to make at least one type of flex available to everybody so it helps to clarify those different options.”