What NHS organisations are doing to support flexible working

Via a survey to all staff, the trust sought views on what their individual flexible working preferences were. This data has been used to establish how many members of staff would like to work remotely or in a more hybrid manner. Using this information, the organisation has been able to update their flexible working offer and flexible working policy.

The trust has been operating a flexible working policy for over 28 years. They have several different options for flexible working such as:

• a nine-day fortnight
• compressed hours (working your contracted hours over a shorter number of days)
• annualised hours (staff working long hours in the emergency department during winter pressures and taking off a month or two in February to spend time in a hotter climate)
• term-time working.

Flexible work patterns, such as compressed hours, have allowed clinics to be open earlier in the morning and later in the evening, which enables staff to have a day off every week benefiting their wellbeing.

The trust recently introduced an agile working policy and are continuing to support managers to explore options of flexible working when discussing requests. The organisation established a working group to explore new ways of working flexibility and are looking at the workforce and what each role needs to be for example, a mobile role or a fixed role.

The trust is also:

• using wellbeing conversations to help progress the flexible/remote/hybrid model of support
• using working groups, including operational and staff side groups, to move forward wider opportunities for flexible working approaches
• reviewing live risk assessments for remote/flexible workers.

Their health and wellbeing team has created a wellbeing wheel as a tool for staff and line managers to have conversations about their wellbeing, with one the questions focusing specifically on flexibility.

The trust has a flexible working policy, but this was recently updated in conjunction with staff-side colleagues to take into account learning made during the pandemic and is now far more than just about working from home. It now also includes on-call requirements, rest days, days off for religious reasons, staggered hours, and term-time working.

The trust has integrated flexible working into their wellbeing approach through their wellbeing passport. The wellbeing passport is used during supervision sessions with staff throughout the year and support for managers is being put in place to enable them to have these conversations.

The community nursing staff now start and finish their work from home instead of trust bases. The trust is supporting managers to have compassionate conversations with staff around short term flexible working requests. Rather than staff putting in a formal request they can have a conversation with their manager to discuss a short period of flexible/agile working, such as a fortnight of agile working. This could be to cover being at home with an elderly relative or child while they recover from an operation or injury.