Greater than one million UK employees have stop their jobs up to now yr because of an absence of versatile working, in keeping with a brand new ballot from the CIPD. The organisation’s newest report highlights a rising pressure between employer calls for and worker expectations, notably amongst youthful employees. The survey of two,000 employers and 5,000 workers means that round 3 p.c of the workforce left their roles since January 2024 as a result of they had been unable to entry the flexibleness they wanted. The findings come greater than a yr after UK employees gained the authorized proper to request versatile working from day one.
Whereas most organisations (91 p.c) provide some type of flexibility, greater than half of workers say they really feel strain to spend extra time within the workplace. In lots of circumstances, that strain seems to return from the highest, with 70 p.c of employees saying it originates from senior leaders.
Over half of the employers surveyed require employees to be within the office for a minimal variety of days every week, mostly three. An extra 14 p.c specify a set variety of days monthly. These measures are sometimes launched to assist collaboration, onboarding, and engagement, however the report suggests they might even be contributing to retention challenges.
The CIPD is urging organisations to take a extra balanced method. It says employers ought to weigh operational wants in opposition to employees’ expectations, notably in gentle of ongoing expertise shortages and difficulties filling vacancies.
The report additionally calls on employers to supply a broader vary of versatile choices, equivalent to flexi-time, compressed hours, and job sharing, in order that those that can not work remotely are usually not excluded from versatile working preparations. In line with the findings, the advantages of flexibility lengthen past comfort. 4 in 5 workers say it has improved their high quality of life, and a 3rd report a optimistic influence on their profession prospects, up from 22 p.c in 2022.
The CIPD says that supporting flexibility extra constantly throughout completely different roles and features will assist employers appeal to and retain expertise in a extremely aggressive labour market.
