Public calls for an end to remote or hybrid working may have been getting louder in recent weeks but flexible working patterns appear to be firmly embedded in the automotive industry.
The Intelligence team at Ennis & Co Group have been taking the temperature of working practices within the sector by looking at the HR policies and employee offerings (as stated on their websites) of the top 10 companies by turnover in each of the following seven verticals: OEM, National Sales Company, Retail, Fleet, Supply Chain, Mobility and Financial Services.
Of the 70 companies studied, 71% supported flexible working in various forms, including hybrid and remote, while the remaining 29% made no mention of flexible options.
The findings show that flexible working is now part of the landscape within the industry, and it is hard to imagine a return to pre-Covid working practices with many employees considering flexible working to be a right rather than a benefit.
These findings will disappoint the two peers, Lord Rose and Lord Sugar, who have recently used their high-profile business reputations to call for an end to home working.
In an interview with BBC Panorama, Lord Rose said remote working was not ‘proper work’ and was causing reduced productivity, while in another BBC interview Lord Sugar urged workers “to get their bums back into the office”.
Their remarks follow President Trump’s executive order demanding that all US federal employees to return to in-person work.
A number of large corporates have also been tightening their hybrid policies recently, with Barclays becoming the latest company to follow suit with today’s news that it is requiring its 85,000 employees to work in the office for an extra day each week.
Of the seven automotive verticals, the OEMs and their national sales companies were unanimous in their support of flexible working or so-called ‘agile working models’ – ranging from giving employees a choice of when to work around core daily hours, to hybrid and fully remote working.
Across the other verticals, five mobility companies provided no information about flexible options – either because they do not offer flexibility or they did not feel the need to advertise it on their website.
Similarly, four companies did not supply information about flexible working in the retail, fleet and supply chain verticals, while three were reticent in the financial services vertical.
Significantly, not a single company across any of the verticals declared openly that it had a policy of office-only working and fixed hours – presumably because of the potentially negative impact on talent acquisition.
With employees now prioritising work-life balance over salary according to a recent international survey of 26,000 workers by Dutch recruitment company Randstad, the option to work flexibly is now a cornerstone of the employer value proposition.
What do you think? Does the competitive talent marketplace mean that flexibility is here to stay, or, as Barclays have announced today, will there be a call for more time to be spent in the office?