- Flexible working is more than just wfh
- The rise in jobs with flexible working
- A surge in candidate and employee demand for flexible working
- The business case for flexible working options
- The sector-specific flexibility myth
- The need for flexible working from a societal and an economic perspective
- What you can do as a recruiter to increase flexibility in your jobs and gain more applications
- Advertising a job that offers flexibility? This is what you should do:
Flexible working is more than just wfh
First off, let’s discuss what we mean by flexible working. Post-pandemic, flexible working seems to have become synonymous with location flexibility, ie the option to work remotely or on a hybrid basis. However, flexibility can and should be much more than about where you work. It’s about when and how you work.
This could take the form of job sharing, part-time, compressed hours, flexitime, annualised hours, staggered hours, or phased retirement. Essentially, flexible working is just that – providing the employee with the flexibility to be able to work at at a time and place that suits their circumstances and enables them to do their best work.
The rise in jobs with flexible working
Pre-COVID, flexible jobs were rare, other than part-time work in certain sectors. The pandemic accelerated the flexible working trend to a degree no-one could have anticipated. Some thought it would be a temporary trend, born of necessity, but one that would fade away once restrictions lifted and business returned to ‘normality’. However, fast forward to just over three years later and flexible working has evolved into the number one candidate motivator, plus data from Wave’s Recruitment Trends Report for 2023 has shown a huge increase in jobs offering it.
There has been a fairly consistent upward trajectory for jobs with flexible, remote and/or working from home options from the start of 2020. Those numbers peaked in March 2022 but generally stayed far higher than at any time in 2020 or 2021 for the remainder of 2022, only dipping when all jobs in a particular month dipped.
The growth is incredible: from January 2020 to its peak in March 2022, jobs advertising flexible working posted through WaveTrackR increased by around 100-fold. There has been some pushback from employers but low candidate availability combined with high candidate and employee demand for flexible working means that it’s undoubtedly a trend that’s here to stay.
A surge in candidate and employee demand for flexible working
The increase in jobs offering flexible working is incredibly positive. However, there remains a huge gap between supply and demand of flexible jobs. The Timewise Flexible Jobs Index 2022 found that 3 in 10 jobs in the UK offer some form of flex but 9 in 10 people want flex. What the pandemic showed us all was that flexible work was not only a viable option but that it actively increased productivity for many. It’s made a better work-life balance possible for workers across the board, no matter your age, health, personal circumstances or background.
So people are now speaking with their feet – moving from organisations that are unwilling to consider flexible work options and applying for jobs that do offer it. If you’re advertising a similar job to several others in different organisations but you offer flexibility when the others don’t, which job are candidates going to apply to?
The business case for flexible working options
Candidate availability remains low. We are dealing with a workforce that has permanently shrunk by around 500,000 thanks to the twin effects of COVID and Brexit. There are skills shortages in many industries and recruiters are finding that receiving enough quality applications has become one of their biggest challenges.
Wave’s recruiter survey on candidate attraction challenges found that hard-to-fill-vacancies are one of the biggest challenges facing 86% of respondents, with 14% saying that they anticipate problems in filling vacancies over the year ahead. Recruiters therefore need to understand and respond to candidate priorities when advertising jobs.
Flexible working is one of those priorities, with the May 2023 LinkedIn United Kingdom Talent Trends report finding that flexibility is the number two priority for employees and candidates, second only to compensation.
The proof, though, is in the pudding – or rather, it’s in the applications. Wave data has shown that, in the past 12 months, jobs offering flexible working received more applications than those that didn’t, with flexible jobs receiving an average of 16 applications per job and jobs with no flexibility advertised receiving an average of 14 applications per job.
The sector-specific flexibility myth
Whenever there’s a post about flexible working on social media or an article on news sites, there will inevitably at least a few comments about flexibility being only suitable for certain industries. However, as discussed earlier, flexibility is not just about where you work. I fully understand that a builder won’t be able to work from home. However, they may be able to work part-time, or have the ability to swap shifts, for example. Teachers can’t work from home or start or finish early but they could job share.
Every industry and role has the ability to offer flexibility in some form – it just takes a mindset shift from both the employer and the recruiter, a willingness to not simply do things one way because that’s the way they’ve always been done. If you want more applications to your jobs and your jobs aren’t being advertised as flexible, it may be time to have a chat with your client. Remember, you’re the expert when it comes to the jobs market and recruitment so use that expertise to add value to your role as recruitment consultant.
The need for flexible working from a societal and an economic perspective
If you need further convincing on the merits of flexible working, it’s that it doesn’t just help give you the competitive edge on those already in the market, it opens up an entire talent pool that simply can’t work without flexibility. Parents, carers, those with disabilities and neurodivergencies – all can struggle to work without some form of flexibility.
And yet each of those categories contain highly capable people that want to work. They can all contribute to the economy and to society but rigidity of hours and of location are barriers to them joining or rejoining the workforce. Enabling these people to work will reduce the skills shortages and bolster the economy, as well as helping to reduce the gender pay gap and a host of other work-related inequalities.
What you can do as a recruiter to increase flexibility in your jobs and gain more applications
As a recruiter, it can sometimes feel like you’re between a rock and a hard place. Even if you think a job can be done flexibly, it’s in the client’s hands, right? Not necessarily. This is where you can fly your consultant flag and advise your client. Perhaps they’ve simply never thought about how the job could be done differently.
Your job is to find the best people for the job and those people could very well be those that need a little flexibility in the role. At a time when it is becoming increasingly hard to find people with the right skillsets, it’s vital to widen the search and explore an untapped pool of talented candidates that simply need a few adjustments to when and/or where they work.
Advertising a job that offers flexibility? This is what you should do:
- Make it really clear in the advert that the job can be worked flexibly. Include its remote or hybrid status in the location section as well as in the benefits section of your job ad.
- Specify the type(s) of flexible working that are possible within the role, whether it’s location flexibility, time flexibility or both – and be clear what you mean by that. If you are open to a discussion about what best suits the candidate, highlight that too.
- Alongside the more generalist job sites, consider niche job boards that promote flexible jobs, for example 2to3days, Timewise Jobs or Working Mums. Wave data consistently shows that niche job boards receive a higher average number of applications per job than the big generalist job boards. And importantly, you’ll be immediately putting your jobs in front of talented candidates that are specifically looking for flexible jobs like yours.
By highlighting flexible working options in your job adverts, you will open up your jobs to a wider pool of candidates, increasing your applications and creating more diverse workplaces. It’s a win-win.
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