“Ultimately you can't have real inclusivity at work without flexibility” argues Molly Johnson-Jones. “If you’re an employer who cares about attracting and retaining diverse talent, then flexibility is one of the most important pieces of that puzzle.”
In this blog, I discuss:
- How candidates can judge how flexible and inclusive an employer is before day one of a new job.
- The aspirations, rights and expert contributions of people with chronic health conditions and disabilities in the workforce.
“Sometimes, I can't walk.” Co-founder and CEO of Flexa, Molly Johnson-Jones, is an Oxford graduate and former data analyst in the City. She’s the ideal interviewee to guide us through this topic of flexible working, and the autoimmune disease she lives with has been challenging from a young age. Mars, Centrica and Virgin Media O2 and many more corporate titans now choose her jobseekers’ website (below) to shine a light on their flexible working policies and overall working culture.
Why might people with a disability or health condition want to know exactly how flexible an employer is before they apply?
Molly: “Having information and transparency upfront about flexible working can be a total game changer for people. We can make an educated decision about whether a company is right for us and will give us the working environment in which we can thrive.
What led me to co-found Flexa was not being able to find the information about a company that I needed to know before I applied there. Because I sometimes can't walk, I need sometimes to be able to work from home. If my face and hands swell up, I don't really want to be around people when that happens. And somebody with autism or ADHD might need a different environment in which to do their best work.
In the past, I had been misled.
I once moved to a new job in a company that said they were open to flexibility. But it turned out they weren’t. It felt almost as if I had been catfished, saying on one hand that they were really open to flexibility, but in reality I was having to send in pictures of my feet swelling up. I was having to take selfies in hospital to justify why I was working from home.
Hours flexibility as well as location, such as being able to start and finish work a bit later, is highly impactful to my health. At its worst, my autoimmune condition would flare up and I could feel it coming, and if I had to get up early after a terribly sleepless night, I'd spiral and get worse and worse.”
What’s to stop an employer just talking the talk about flexibility on Flexa?
To avoid those porky pies, employers have to:
- Have every claim verified by their employees.
- Share their employee survey data, completed independently and anonymously by a statistically significant portion of their employees.
Take a look at the flexibility scores given by Mars employees:
- Location flexibility = 94%
- Hours flexibility = 91%
- Benefits = 84%
- Work-life balance = 80%
- Role modelling = 81%
- Autonomy = 90%
Senior leader role models for flexibility
The role modelling aspect is interesting to me. Molly’s view is that if you haven't got senior leaders modelling flexibility, it won’t be culturally accepted in your organisation.
The same goes for representation. Can candidates see themselves in people that work for you? “That's a key part of attracting the right talent” Molly explains. “If you are in a wheelchair, for example, you being able to see somebody else in a wheelchair working in that organisation is huge when it comes to imagining yourself there. A working parent seeing other working parents that are thriving - that kind of representation is crucial.”
What could we lose without inclusivity in our work teams?
We lose superb talent, ideas, experience, loyalty, commitment and fresh perspectives when we aren’t inclusive at work towards people with a health condition or disability.
That’s why my provocative ‘loser’ is in this blog title.
We have less ability to get into the mindset of our customers who are disabled too, and harness their buying power.
In the UK, 24% of working-age people now report having a disability – and that’s an increase of 459,000 from last year. Could your business be a loser to miss out on the contributions of these people?
If this community values flexibility from an employer, would you be foolish not to try to provide it?
“Flexible working is no threat to business, no threat to the economy, in fact, it would boost productivity” states deputy prime minister Angela Rayner.
What’s the law on flexibility at work?
Of course, an employer risks being more than foolish, they risk breaking the law. As an employee in the UK, you have the legal right to request flexible working - from your first day in a new job. You can request a change to:
- The number of hours you work
- When you start or finish work
- The days you work
- Where you work
For some companies, there will be reasons to be able to say no.
Remember that UK Employers must adhere to the Equality Act 2010; it’s against the law for employers to discriminate against you because of a disability.
“Legally, it's very difficult to not grant flexible working to people with disabilities or conditions” says Molly Johnson-Jones.
“This is why I think it's so important that companies are very clear about what's on offer in terms of flexibility. If your teams are in the office five days a week, be super clear about that. You’ll then attract talent that is going to thrive in that environment rather than keeping everything behind closed doors. It’s a company treating each other like adults at the beginning and saying ‘this is our way of working, does that work for you?’
As an employee, if flexible working is crucial to you, I’d advise you to get your terms in writing, so that they should remain in place if circumstances change, such as a new line manager coming on board in your team.”
Be aware of the opportunities that reasonable adjustments give too. Molly’s working equipment does help her to look after her health, with office items that boost movement and enable position changes helping her to avoid swelling and joint pain. She swears by her ergonomic chair, sit-stand desk, kneeling chair and rocking footrest.
What’s your mental picture of a person who wants to work flexibly?
Parents are far from the only people who might need or want flexible working.
Molly tells me: “In my early twenties, I remember having conversations with recruiters who were surprised that I was asking to work from home one day a week because I was young and I wasn’t a Mum.
Ten years ago, flexible working was perhaps seen as a concession to enable women to stay in the workforce, but to take a slight step back. Whereas I didn't have children, I was ambitious, and I could work just as long hours as anyone else - it was just that I had to be in a certain place.
My reason for needing to work flexibly didn't match their expectations of somebody that needed to work flexibly. And I think that's a really difficult thing for young people that might have disabilities or chronic health conditions; they are battling with how the limitations of how they can work affects how they're perceived in the workplace.”
Do you think that today's work culture is better than it was 10 years ago?
“100% better. We've built more inclusive workplaces that enable people who would have been forced out of the workforce to actually work, which is incredible. There is now a great variety of options of work styles in front of us. Candidates can choose a company that is much more suited to them.
I’m an employer now, and I say our work culture is better now from an employer perspective too. I accept that it can be harder to manage people now in this era of increased remote working. There is no lazy proxy for performance anymore. You used to have the managers going around thinking ‘I can see that my team is at their desks from 9 till 6 and I can tick that box. Yes, they're working’. Whereas now with distributed working, companies are having to significantly adapt to the way that they manage and measure performance, and it has to be much more outcome-focused. This is inherently harder because you can't see it in front of you. But it's more effective.”
Posturite is a Disability Confident Committed Employer; the scheme which helps employers recruit and retain great people, and increase understanding of disability.
Thank you to Molly Johnson-Jones from Flexa for sharing her experiences and expertise.
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