IT candidates offered "flexible employment"

I get this email from Jobserve now and again and it often has interesting articles about the employment conditions in the UK. The article IT candidates offered "flexible employment"
is there if you want to read it in full.

It has a couple of interesting quotes

"The IT skills shortage has resulted in employers offering flexible employment packages to attract workers, according to new research.

Hays Information Technology specialist recruitment agency has claimed that candidates now have the opportunity to "pick and choose" their career path, as employers adjust to give workers a work-life balance."

and

"Hays' quarterly forecast for October to December has also shown that candidates tend to seek employers that offer training programmes and the chance to update their skills.

The group stated in a report last year that candidates with "good communications skills" are being sought for the IT industry as it attempts to enhance customer experience."

I often wondered why employers seem quite reluctant to offer flexible working hours, I know there is benefit for everyone to be in the office at the same time but you don't all need to be in the office at the same time. This has changed a bit over the years, there didn't seem to be any "working from home" about 5 years plus ago. This has been helped by technology improving with broadband and software enabling this. Still in my experience (which is limited I admit) it is usually only special cases and people who are considered more important than the general rank and file who get such flexible working times.

I keep seeing more articles about IT shortages and employers concentrating on keeping employees. I wonder if a flexible hours is something that will come more common place. The reluctance of employers to offer flexible working hours seems to me to be linked to a sort of lack of trust and maybe they feel they won't be able to monitor them if they all come in different times. Obviously flexible working hours would definitely mean it would be harder to police people's hours worked and I can think of a few people who would abuse this.

Overall I think employers should do it because if you don't trust your workers then surely you should think about replacing them and if you do trust them to do their work and hours then you should offer flexible working hours.

The article also makes an interesting point about employee's choosing companies who offer training so they can update their skills. I saw this article on the BBC

UK staff 'need time off to train'

Which is basically saying you should train your employers so they have the right skills to do their job. Although this isn't directly relevant it is a good reason why people are looking to get jobs where they will get training. Training offers skills which you wouldn't learn by just doing your job and it's important to keep developing employees workers and giving them the skills needed to do their job.




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