Wellbeing and Flexibility
Michelle Smart
NedRailways
The Whole Wellbeing of our Workforce
 Health is a given – we spend a lot of time supporting and managing
health issues.
 The stresses and challenges of everyday life – one of the most
challenging being elder care, childcare and other caring
responsibilities
 Combined with financial wellbeing
 We need to understand the whole person and line managers have a
key role in understanding how external life factors are affecting their
colleague
People have different work and life needs
 People who can afford not to work but want to work part time to
satisfy a social need
 People who are able to take their pensions and work part time
 People who need to change owing to a health issue
 People who are carers – who has the time to work and care?
elder care, child care, mip or vip carer?
 People who want to work to live, not live to work – value down time
The challenges for rail and our colleagues
 Still largely a white, male, full time environment with a lack of
understanding of the changing nature of work (typically 25 – 35%
of the workforce are female (who are largely still the carers)
 We are coming to the party late – react to colleague need rather
than plan through better forecasting part time roles and advertising
roles as potentially flexible
 We can learn from other sectors – finance and retail which rely on
a hugely flexible workforce
 Its often challenging to make it happen on the ground when it
comes down to fixed rosters. The Trade Unions understand
diverse needs at a national level. We are now seeing more job
share train drivers too
The challenges for rail and colleagues
 Not to immediately resort to the law or policy when a request
comes in – start with a why wouldn’t it work? Help people to make
their own business case for flexible working
The challenges for rail and colleagues
MYTH Flexible strategies are too expensive to implement
TRUTH Workplace flexibility increases colleague retention, job
satisfaction and engagement. Many employers save money by
minimising the time they spend recruiting, hiring and training new
colleagues
MYTH One size does not fit all employees
TRUTH The belief that we, as employers, cannot change a job
description to be aligned with the strengths of a job candidate is
misguided.
The business case for flexibility
Employer & Colleague Benefits of Workplace Flexibility include:
 Responsive to needs of workforce and workplace
 Enhances recruitment and retention
 Integrates Work-Life-Balance
 Increases job satisfaction, loyalty and engagement which flows
through to brand and customer service
 Lowers stress and health care costs
 Improves productivity and performance
 Creates a general sense of wellbeing
Flexible Working– Being an Employer of Choice
 Part-time working
 Term-time working (no)
 Compressed working weeks (or
fortnights)
 Flexitime: no core hours in non
rostered environment
 Job-sharing: two (or occasionally more)
people share the responsibility for a job
between them
 Annualised hours (no)
 Working from home on a regular basis
 Zero hours contracts
 Agile working/teleworking: this permits
employees to work all or part of their
working week at a location remote from
the employer's workplace
 Temporary reassignment of duties
 Career breaks
Cambridge Ticket Office Job Shares
Norwich Conductors Job Share
Agile Working for those we can facilitate– IT connectivity
One Stratford Place
Any Station
Or any office
Any Depot
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