Pressure mounts on flexible working policies
A new report has revealed that automotive businesses in the UK are under increasing pressure to restrict flexible working.
According to a study carried out by Ennis & Co, parent companies in Europe, the United States and China are pushing their UK divisions to return staff to the office
Others are facing internal pressures to increase on-site working because of the perceived advantages for collaboration, creativity and productivity.
Hybrid, remote and flexitime working practices are widespread in the industry, but there is increasingly outspoken opposition to flexible working models. To better understand this, Ennis & Co interviewed 30 senior automotive leaders from across all areas of the sector.
New report
Its report, Flexible working: Business killer or corporate cure?, explores whether flexible and hybrid models are helping or hindering business performance and what the future may hold for organisations trying to strike a balance between employee expectations, commercial realities and parent company policies.
It also looks at data from 70 automotive companies and benchmarks their publicly stated flexible working offerings against five other comparable industries.
Lynda Ennis, founder and CEO of Ennis & Co Group, said: “The idea for the report came from the many inquiries I was receiving from automotive leaders about the latest developments in terms of flexible versus in-person working.
“There is genuine uncertainty about whether the anti-flexibility sentiment we are now seeing is a firm market trend that will impact HR policies across the sector. The purpose of the report is therefore to provide some clarity about the future as well as current insights about best practice.
“Our subject-matter experts also provide legal and practical advice to help organisations navigate what is clearly an evolving HR landscape.”
