Denise Keating, chief executive of the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion (enei), comments on reports that the Children and Families bill will not reach Royal Assent in January.

“It’s a shame that the legislation that will allow the right to request flexible working for all could be delayed. Moving towards flexible working for everyone is important in this ever changing world. Leading employers recognised this many years ago and are already offering formal and informal flexibility to their staff. “However, to work better in a more flexible world it’s clear some organisations need to become more ‘agile’ in order to embrace flexibility. According to a survey from CIPD, some employers still find there are barriers to working flexibly, including operational pressures (52 percent), maintaining customer/service requirements (40 percent) and the existing organisational culture (36 percent) indicating that flexible working often does not always work for business. It’s clear that flexible working benefits employees, but it’s important, too, that it also works for businesses.

“The really progressive organisations are already adopting agile working, which is based on the concept that work is an activity we do rather than a place we go, and are using communications and IT to enable people to work in ways which best suit their needs. The use of new technologies not only benefits employees, but also benefits business by: reducing organisational and personal carbon footprint, saving on costs on renting or buying office space, improving business continuity because of less disruption due to weather, office security issues and travel problems. Employees spending less time travelling will both save travel costs and be more productive by making better use of their time.  In adopting agile working, both the employee and the business can benefit.”