As the world of work becomes more flexible, the HR
function needs to adapt with it. HR practitioners have a pivotal
position in consulting staff, developing policies, ensuring employment
law is complied with, training and seeing that the workforce is
developed to meet business objectives.Flexible Working, a
revised guide published by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and
Development (CIPD), sets out with the aim to "show you how to tailor a
policy that is right for your organisation, make the business case,
win over the doubters and implement and manage a system that will
provide genuine competitive advantage for your organisation".
The book covers most forms of flexibility:
- the right to request flexible work
- downshifting
- portfolio working
- part-time work
- career breaks
- leave options
- working from home
- teleworking
- annualised hours
- multi-skilling
- outsourcing
- temporary contracts.
The coverage of these aspects, though, is rather uneven.
There are large sections on annualised hours, multi-skilling and
outsourcing, but the variety of other flexible hours options are
comparatively skated over.
There is also a chapter on the "Brave New World" of remote
working using new technologies. Unfortunately, after a fairly
promising opening, this section avoids specifics and goes seriously
off track. The authors are clearly on foreign ground whenever they
refer to telecoms and IT, leading to some confusion, particularly when
talking about the use of Internet technologies and provision for
remote workers.
Somewhat bizarrely a lengthy case is cited of a teenager committing
financial fraud on the Internet, which is used as a kind of cautionary
tale although it has no possible relevance to issues around corporate
remote working. A half-page case study is also included of a
bottling production line to make the point that you can't take factory
equipment home with you. Useful to know when planning flexible
working!
The case studies in general are disappointing. After the
first few, most of them are reproduced from other published sources,
often several years old.
Overall, this is something of a curate's egg of a book.
Sections of it work as introductory material for people new to ideas
about flexible work, and the sections on annualised hours and
temporary contracts are more detailed and useful. But this is
definitely not one to consult if technology-enabled flexible work is
on your agenda.
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Further Information
Flexible Working, by John Stredwick and
Steve Ellis, published June 2005, is available from the CIPD
bookstore, price £29.99
www.cipd.co.uk/bookstore Flexibility
assessment: Stronger on straight HR issues, and on
annualised hours and temporary labour. Pretty thin
on other flexible hours options, and not up-to-speed on remote
work. |
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