Flex-e (e-learning) - interactive learning for managers on implementing flexibility

Flex-e (e-guide) - step-by-step tool for managers on implementing flexibility

e-news - articles and alerts on flexibility developments

Small business

Small businesses and flexibility: what’s happening now?

Employees of every company, no matter its size, have lives outside the workplace that need time and attention. Often this will involve caring responsibilities, of children or parents for example, or study, other interests and community involvement. Whatever the reason, people look for different types of workplace flexibility at different stages of their lives.

It is often assumed that large organisations can manage employee flexibility more easily than small businesses because they have resources for support, education and implementation. For small businesses, setting up flexible work arrangements might be viewed as more difficult because of the small number of staff and concerns about achieving performance targets and meeting customer needs. They might also be thinking about flexibility mainly in terms of reduced hours, like part-time work which isn’t always suitable. In regards to flexibility then:

What do small business owners want?
Do they want to use flexibility themselves, and/or offer it to employees?
Do they have the knowledge and resources they need to implement flexibility?
Do small business owners understand the scope of flexibility (for example, that it’s not just about reducing hours, but can also be about changing work location or ways of working) ?

These are some of the questions we want to answer through soon to be released survey findings which will be posted on this site.

To get a sense of the numbers of businesses we are talking about, in Australia, small businesses are classified as those employing fewer than twenty people and the 2006 national census figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show:

There were 1.646 million small business operators;
68% of these operators were male and 32% female, and nearly 60% aged between 30 and 50;
Of the male owners, 80% worked full-time and 20% part-time. Of the female owners, these numbers were almost reversed with 39% worked full-time and 61% part-time.

Flexibility has been shown to have significant benefits to businesses in the form of increased productivity and decreased turnover (refer to the articles on the home page of www.workplaceflexibility.com.au for more). However, many managers in large organisations as well as owners of businesses have concerns and questions about flexibility. The Fresh Ideas for Work and Family programme (www.workplace.gov.au) is one avenue that small businesses can look at to get advice and government funding to implement flexibility. There will be more information about the programme coming to www.workplaceflexibility.com.au soon.