Remote working has come early to the NHS – how can it still be implemented to have lasting benefits?

Flexible working has become a priority for the health service. The new NHS People Plan, published in August this year, made it clear that it is vital for the future of the NHS to address the needs of its workforce better. Crucially, it highlights the importance of building on the flexible working developments that have come about through the pandemic.

What does flexible working look like in the NHS?

While frontline staff were deployed to help with the coronavirus in the height of the pandemic, non-clinical staff switched to working from home, and the average number of remote meetings across the NHS increased from 13,500 to 90,250.

Staff reported higher productivity, with less time spent travelling, and the additional benefits of less exposure to air pollution, better attendance in (virtual) meetings, and better work-life balance.

Maintaining and building on this flexibility, the report states, is ‘crucial’ for retaining talent; between 2011 and 2018 more than 56,000 employees left the NHS because of a lack of work-life balance.

‘We cannot afford to lose any more of our people,’ the report states. ‘If we do not take radical action to become a flexible and modern employer in line with other sectors, we will continue to lose people entirely or see participation rates decline.’

How do HR and leadership teams sustain Social Capital with flexible work?

Research by Microsoft found that 83 per cent of managers expect to have more flexible work from home policies after the pandemic, and 72 per cent of employees and managers want to continue working from home at least part-time. However, it’s important to remember that the pandemic fast-tracked something that will take time and care to implement sustainably.

Therefore, while a lot of the logistical work has already started, deeper changes are required to sustain flexible working. The People Plan highlights this: ‘Getting this right requires managers and leaders to take the time to understand what each person needs. That way, employers can help them incorporate work more easily into the rest of their lives.’

This means managing the challenges that flexible working can bring about, especially with remote working during the pandemic.

The business analyst Benedict Evans talks about the ‘Social Capital’ that is built up when people meet face-to-face. When the lockdown started, work could continue effectively because of the store of Social Capital that different teams had built up. However, the longer people go without seeing each other, the more this store will be used up, and the harder effective collaboration will become.

The Microsoft survey revealed that 62 per cent of workers felt less connected to their colleagues working from home during the pandemic. And parents of young children have a very different experience from their colleagues.

For flexible working to be sustainable in the long run, it needs to work as effectively as possible under the current circumstances, and understand the benefits to their health and wellbeing. Without their enthusiasm, there is no flexible working.

Defining and measuring ‘flexible’ working from recruitment to exit interviews

The People Plan states that employers should be flexible by default, and open to all non-clinical permanent roles being flexible. Board members, it adds, must support and pay attention to flexible working.
There are plans for the NHS England and NHS Improvement to add a key performance indicator to measure the proportion of roles advertised as flexible to performance frameworks. These can be built on to ensure that flexible working is measured across the entire the recruitment process, from hiring to exit interviews. There must also be plans to measure employees’ existing roles to ensure they are flexible, with a consistent definition across the workforce of what flexible looks like.

Leading the way as procurer of services

Public procurement is long-established as a tool to achieve policy goals. In 2013, the UK government’s Social Value Act introduced requirements for public sector bodies to look at the social and environmental benefits of awarding contract to suppliers.

Preston Council started a progressive procurement strategy in 2012 to shift spending towards local goods, services and suppliers in an effort designed to boost the local economy, SMEs and the voluntary sector.

NHS England and NHS Improvement, according to the People Plan, will work with the NHS Staff Council to develop guidance aimed at supporting employers to offer flexible working to their staff. This level of practical support is needed throughout organisations to ensure flexible working becomes an ingrained mindset, rather than a buzzword or perk. This is the only way to sustainably implement policies and practices that lead to lasting and meaningful change.

The pandemic forced years’ worth of progress into a matter of days. However, implementing and sustaining new approaches requires significant effort. The next stage is making sure measures are in place to ensure flexible working continues to benefit the NHS and its workforce for the long term. That means ensuring employees are informed about what flexible working is, and what’s available to them, and have the confidence to request it. Only then can a deeper cultural shift take place, and the full benefits of flexible working will emerge.