Webinar | The Future of Flexible Working: Insights from the pandemic

How can employers successfully navigate the new work environment and adapt to the altered expectations of their workforce?

Measures taken by employers and the government to alleviate the shock of COVID-19 (such as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme) have changed the traditional landscape of the workplace. How can employers successfully navigate this new environment and adapt to the altered expectations of their workforce?

The pandemic caused major disruption for employers but also presented a unique learning experience, causing many to rethink their approach to staffing arrangements and particularly their use of flexible working.

Employers have learned how to facilitate part-time working by re-designing work in ways that suit their business needs, with changes such as team-based availability planning, sharing client relationships and multi-skilling. But what comes next?

In this webinar we will explore:

• Employers’ experiences with non-standard working arrangements during the pandemic, including ‘flexible furlough’;

• How these experiences could help optimise the practice of flexible and part-time working in the future;

• Factors driving and hindering the implementation of flexible and part-time working by employers;

• How employers can adapt the design of work to match their employees’ altered expectations, in the context of an increasingly diverse workforce;

• How to maximise productivity as organisations incorporate flexible and part-time working.

This webinar draws on research conducted by Cranfield School of Management in collaboration with the CBI, which explored employers’ use of, and attitudes towards, flexible working. Results from a survey of 500 UK-based companies will be presented, covering their use of part-time working, remote working, and other forms of flexible working arrangements, before and after the pandemic. The research was conducted by Professor Clare Kelliher, Dr Charlotte Gascoigne and Dr Pierre Walthery at Cranfield School of Management.

Clare Kelliher - Professor of Work and Organisation. Clare holds a PhD in Organisational Behaviour from London Business School, an MA in Industrial Relations from the University of Warwick and a first degree in Management from the University of Surrey. Prior to joining Cranfield she was at the University of Surrey, where she held appointments at the postgraduate Surrey European Management School and the School of Management for the service sector.