Introduction

opportunity : flexible workplace :
Introduction

Tips and Tools

Model administrative arrangements: flexi-place

Model administrative arrangements:
flexible working hours

Tips for working at home

This section deals with the following key issues:

what defines a flexible workplace
why a flexible workplace is important for inclusion
why a flexible workplace is particularly important
for CGIAR Centers
what CGIAR Centers need to achieve flexibility
what these guidelines provide (model policy, sample practices, and tips and tools for implementation)

The Gender and Diversity Program (G&D) recognizes that many Centers in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) already have initiated flexible workplace practices. However, these practices often do not cover the scope of issues that need to be dealt with in today's competitive world of scientific research. Some are not as relevant to contemporary workplace issues as they might be or may lag behind those of organizations competing with us for skilled and motivated staff. Recognizing this, G&D has developed these guidelines to assist CGIAR Centers in refining their existing practices.

These guidelines include a model policy ready to be adapted or adopted by the Centers as well as related sample practices, and tips and tools. All are linked to make it easy for you to tap into our best recommendations for improving workplace flexibility.

Many Centers contributed their best practices to help us develop these guidelines. We share them with you now, along with our models and guidelines, through this Inclusive Workplace e-Resource Center – the platform we designed for ongoing exchange and improvement of inclusive workplace practices in the CGIAR Centers.

WHAT IS A FLEXIBLE WORKPLACE?

The flexible workplace
A flexible workplace is a work environment with:

flexi-place: flexibility of work location
flexi-time: flexibility of hours worked during the day
flexibility of days worked during the week, month or year
flexi-job: part-time as well as full-time employment
shared positions

WHY IS A FLEXIBLE WORKPLACE IMPORTANT FOR INCLUSION?
1 Very few organizations have a totally homogeneous workforce. In addition to staff members coming from diverse origins and gender, they also will be at different points in their life cycles. This life-cycle diversity can include marital or partner status, degree of family commitment and levels of continuing education and career development. Not surprisingly, CGIAR Centers work with this multi-dimensional diversity every day and it must be factored into an understanding of staff composition.

Who works in CGIAR Centers?
CGIAR staff members can be:

expatriates and nationals of the country where the office is located;
women professionals and para-professionals;
sole parents;
engaged in ongoing formal study, part-time or changing from full-time to part-time study and then re-entering the workforce;
mothers caring for infants;
caring for school-age children;
caring for elderly parents;
caring for sick family members;
living far from their partners or children;
involved in broader community responsibilities;
working with information and communication technology that no longer restricts work to the official workplace.

2 It is obvious that a single, inflexible workplace policy might exclude any one of the categories above. For example, a person wishing to commence part-time study for an advanced degree might be required to attend university one afternoon a week. However, if the Center maintains inflexible working hours (e.g. 8:00-17:00, Monday through Friday), a conflict will arise. The staff member will have to abandon her/his study aspirations or find a new employer.

3 Assuming the employee is valued and the employer is providing an interesting job, both parties will lose no matter which option is adopted. However this conflict can be avoided if the Center’s policy includes flexibility in working hours.

4 Now, consider an even more complicated situation – a staff member who is a single parent caring for school-age children wants to study for a higher degree. What flexibility will she/he need, in terms of juggling working hours and location, in order to manage these responsibilities along with work responsibilities?

5 These are just two examples of the need to recognize the complexity of workplace issues in terms of staff members’ life cycles. People’s lives change continuously and consequently they need different types of flexibility at different times in their lives. Their work, geographic locations, study commitments, and family and community responsibilities are different from those they had five years ago and probably will be different again in another five years. The combination of factors that emerges when combining life-cycle and workforce issues is incredibly complex. G&D has developed a “life-cycle slide rule” to illustrate to both management and individual staff members some of the innumerable combinations possible.

The Life-cycle Slide Rule
Imagine a slide rule for depicting how you balance such factors as career mobility, work location and family responsibilities. You can find your own situations on each of these slides, adjust them laterally against the cursor and then think about the following:

how would you adjust each slide for your work, study and family situation?
was that a simple exercise or did you have to juggle two or more points on some slides?
what are the implications for the workplace flexibility you need?
will your slides change position in two years? in five years?
how does your life-cycle slide rule compare with others on your team?

6 Although many more slides could be added, the range of issues on the life-cycle slide rule has been simplified for the sake of illustration. Yet, just considering these six slides gives more than 2,000 possible combinations of options. It is inconceivable that a fixed set of employment conditions will accommodate all of them.

7 Standardized (inflexible) workplace practices do not readily accommodate this diversity of pressures, roles, commitments and preferences. Rules can be bent, adapted or even ignored in some situations, especially if the staff member has a supportive supervisor. But what if the staff member doesn’t have a supportive supervisor? And even if she/he has a supportive supervisor, she/he may feel guilty about not making the same contribution as her/his team colleagues.

8 So, why is a flexible workplace important? Quite simply because it facilitates inclusion.

Alert
Flexibility facilitates inclusion.
Inflexibility leads to exclusion.

Caution:
Question your Center’s inclusion or exclusion workplace policy
Does your Center’s workplace policy genuinely include all staff members as they move through different phases of their lives?
or
Does your Center progressively exclude some staff members or make their lives more difficult than necessary?

WHY IS A FLEXIBLE WORKPLACE PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT FOR CGIAR CENTERS?
9 A flexible workplace generally provides a competitive advantage. Offering flexible working conditions can enhance a Center’s ability to recruit and retain good people, as opposed to organizations that do not offer flexible working conditions.

10 Many progressive organizations have implemented flexible workplace policies and, consequently, a Center that lacks them risks its performance. CGIAR Centers require extensive duty travel or long working hours which interfere with other life obligations. Centers should make every reasonable effort to compensate staff for these work requirements.

“If we’ve been away for work for many weekends or had to miss many school events because of office meetings, we should be able to take time off to see a school performance or volunteer at the school during a weekday without taking vacation for it.”
(CGIAR Program Leader)

Potential consequences of inflexibility
11 CGIAR Centers generally spend quite a bit of time and money recruiting specialized managers and leaders to staff positions. But, if the specialists have life-cycle changes that need to be dealt with and their Centers cannot accommodate those changes, the specialists may have no option other than to leave.

12 If this happens, it may lead to a significant loss of organizational effectiveness while a successor is recruited. There also may be significant turnover costs, particularly if international recruitments are involved.

13 The same scenario applies to several categories of support staff whose scientific, technical or administrative qualifications and training are in high demand in the countries where their jobs are located. Consequently, the availability of flexible working conditions can be critical to retaining valuable people.

Impact on productivity
14 Flexible working conditions tend to stimulate higher productivity because they allow staff members to work:

where they can be most effective (through flexi-place policies);
when they can be most effective (through flexi-time policies); and
how they can be most effective (through flexi-work policies).

These flexi policies are designed specifically to minimize distractions of personal and family issues. The only exception to the rule about stimulating higher productivity occurs, as would be expected, when a staff member elects to transfer from full-time to part-time employment.

Special significance of the flexible workplace to the CGIAR Centers’ core business
15 For science organizations such as the CGIAR Centers, a flexible workplace has a special, additional impact. A flexible work environment is more likely to stimulate innovation.

16 If a Center has invested considerable time, effort and money and hired staff members largely for their innovation and creativity, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to constrain them to inflexible work environments.

Alert
People rarely get bright ideas when they’re stressed
Innovation stems from developing novel solutions by making unexpected connections among different – often unrelated – pieces of information. It is often associated with spontaneous creativity.

However, when staff members are preoccupied with battling traffic to get to the office, collecting children from school on time, living away from their families, finding time to care for sick relatives or face the distractions of a noisy office when they are trying to concentrate on serious writing for research projects, the distractions of banal necessities can add a level of stress. This stress inhibits reflective – often sub-conscious – brain processes that stimulate spontaneous creativity and thus innovation.

Consequently it makes sense for organizations – particularly science organizations – to find ways to minimize stress in order to facilitate creative and innovative thought processes among staff.

17 The CGIAR needs innovation from its scientists and researchers but also from its professional and technical support staff. Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the entire organization requires innovation across all corporate services.

18 Thus, flexible workplace policies that enhance individual productivity and at the same time improve a Center’s ability to retain that person in the longer term are classic “win-win” policies.

Alert
Time to update workplace practices developed half a century ago
Many of today’s conventional working practices were developed more than 50 years ago. In those years, the typical employment situation was characterized by standardized and regimented:
• working hours,
• holidays,
• workplaces,
• etc., etc.

In addition, the typical staff member (in a developed country):
• was male,
• had a wife who stayed home to raise their children,
• had completed his education,
• worked most (if not all) his life for the same employer,
• had to work in an office or factory environment in order to have access to tools of his trade,
• lived close to the office or factory with minimal commuting required, and
• was judged on hours worked and loyalty to the company rather than by impact on achieving longer-term objectives.

WHAT DO CGIAR CENTERS NEED TO ACHIEVE FLEXIBLITY?
19 CGIAR Centers need a genuinely inclusive workplace. This means they need specific employment policies and practices appropriate to support the work and lifestyles of development-oriented science organizations in developing countries in the twenty-first century.

Diversity Alert
Flexible working conditions are not just for women
It is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that flexible working conditions are primarily for women to balance work responsibilities with caregiver responsibilities for infants and small children.

In reality, today’s CGIAR has more men than women enjoying benefits such as flex-time and telecommuting. The reasons include professional development, need for concentration on writing projects or family needs.

20 A genuinely inclusive workplace draws no distinction among staff categories (internationally, regionally or nationally recruited) in terms of providing access to flexible working conditions.

Diversity Alert
Ensure that flexible working conditions are equitable
Many Centers currently exercise flexibility in working times and allow staff to work from home or other locations. However this flexibility – particularly where no formal policy exists – often is restricted to researchers or internationally-recruited staff. In an inclusive workplace, these opportunities, just like the six dimensions of the life-cycle slide rule, should apply to all staff.

The flexibility of flexible practices
21 In designing flexible work practices, one size definitely does not fit all. Flexible practices can be exercised in a variety of ways. For example, the sample practice dealing with flexi-place (alternative work locations) explains how this practice can be implemented on several scales:

small-scale flexi-place – occasional short periods (a few days or even a few weeks) of working from home or an alternative location, for example, to complete special writing projects;
medium-scale flexi-place – regularly scheduled work times outside the office (one or two days each week);
large-scale flexi-place – lengthy periods (a few months or, possibly, a year), for example working from a different country to accommodate exceptional personal situations.

22 One extreme offers occasional, short-term access to the flexible practice and the other offers lengthy periods of ongoing access. One situation might require creating “space” for a staff member to take a sick child to the doctor during working hours while another might require a workable opportunity for a staff member to live with a sick child requiring lengthy medical treatment in a different country.

Alert
The work-life pressures of many staff members can be significantly eased with occasional access to a particular flexible work practice.

WHAT DO THESE GUIDELINES PROVIDE?
Model policy
23 The flexible workplace Model Policy contains a suggested policy statement that can be included in the Center’s Personnel Policy Manual (PPM). It comprises a statement of broad policy together with a list of six flexible workplace practices. These practices are presented as options – the list is neither the minimum acceptable nor the maximum possible. Centers designing their own policies can either establish an ongoing Center-wide policy or set up a trial activity, either across the entire Center or in specific geographic locations. Also, Centers should identify any flexible workplace practices that can be applied effectively to enhance the flexibility of their unique workplace situations.

Sample Practices
24 The flexible workplace sample practices include:

Tips and Tools
25 The flexible workplace tips and tools include:

model administrative arrangements for flexi-place
model administrative arrangements for flexible work hours
tips for working at home
good resources on flexibility

Acknowledgements
In developing these guidelines, we drew extensively on a report commissioned by the CGIAR Gender & Diversity Program from Norman Broadbent Ltd:
“Work Life Balance across Cultures: Developing Model Policies and Recommended Practices” (Maureen Powell, unpublished draft, 2005).

We also referred to G&D Working Paper No. 18: “Toward Gender Equity: Model Policies” (Joan Joshi, Elizabeth Goldberg, Sara J. Scherr, Deborah Merrill-Sands, 1998).

A number of CGIAR Centers shared their policy material dealing with flexible workplaces which helped us refine the material presented in this section of the Inclusive Workplace e-Resource Center. We particularly thank Fabiola Amariles (CIAT) and Ruth Meinzen-Dick (IFPRI) for their critical review and suggestions for improving the final draft.

We found excellent material about flexible workplace issues, particularly about implementing flexible work practices, at the Web site operated by Flexibility Ltd.:www.flexibility.co.uk/flexwork. We also found very useful information in a paper published by WFD Consulting: “When the Workplace is Many Places: The Extent and Nature of Off-Site Work Today”, by Amy Richman, Karen Noble and Arlene Johnson.

This project could never have been realized without G&D’s creative teamwork. Bob Moore worked with me for content, while Nancy Hart, Joanne Morgante and Roberto Magini worked with me for editing, design and programming. I sincerely thank each for their artistry and sincere dedication to inclusion.

Vicki Wilde
Leader
CGIAR Gender & Diversity Program