The first thing the project team did back in October 2000, was to assess sector needs and map current practice. Case studies on best practice in both HE and the private sector were collected. A report on this was made available at an early project seminar in April 2002.

This research also formed the basis of an article published in HE Review:
"Higher Education - the Flexible Employment Sector?" by J Scott, C Ridgley and P Spurgeon (HE Review, May 2003, Vol. 35, No3)

The team also looked at relevant legislation and codes of practice related to flexible working. A report on this was disseminated at an early project conference in November 2002.

To view feedback from early project events look at Past events.

The major part of the project brief was to design and trial a package of specific flexible options.

In the end, eight options were trialled in four higher education institutions between October 2001 and April 2003. These institutions were:

• University of Birmingham
• Canterbury Christ Church University College
• De Montfort University
• Staffordshire University.

The options offered under the pilot schemes were:

• Part-time hours
• Compressed hours
• Seasonal hours
• Flexible Working hours
• Staggered hours
• Working from home
• Personalised Annual leave
• Unpaid leave

The number of options chosen was restricted to these 8 due to the time limit on the pilot schemes but there are many ways of giving flexibility to staff and a comprehensive list can be found in the Practical Help section of the website.

All the details of the pilot schemes and the results obtained were contained in the Flexible Employment Options Final Report disseminated to all HEFCE supported higher education institutions at the end of 2003. The results from the pilot schemes were the main subject of the national conference in November 2003.

For more information about our past conferences and future seminars look at Events.

You can view some of the outcomes from the pilot schemes by looking at the following documents, which can be printed off.
(For accessibility, our documents are available in three formats.)

• Key Issues - PDF (Filesize 75 KB)
• Key Issues - Word (Filesize 1480 KB)
• Key Issues - HTML (Filesize 40 KB)

• Conclusions - PDF (Filesize 31 KB)
• Conclusions - Word (Filesize 1400 KB)
• Conclusions - HTML (Filesize 12 KB)

• Recommendations - PDF (Filesize 23 KB)
• Recommendations - Word (Filesize 1400 KB)
• Recommendations - HTML (Filesize 7 KB)

If you would like to see the Final Project report and cannot trace the copy sent to your institution, please contact us.

• The culture of an organisation/department can have a significant impact on the approach taken and the success of the scheme.
• In order for flexible working to succeed there needs to be a culture of mutual respect and trust between staff and managers and also between individual staff members.
• The prevalent attitude of some managers is that anything different from the “normal” way of working is treated with caution and sometimes hostility.
• The take-up of options has been mostly by support and administrative staff; many academic staff feel they have much of the flexibility they need but have other issues with work; many management and academic related staff are unable to take advantage of the options on offer due to pressures of work.

In the light of these observations it was felt that further research was needed, and the project has been extended.

For general information about the next stage of the project generally, look at FEO Phase 2.

Our website contains information and help for higher education institutions that are currently:

• involved in setting up a flexible working scheme
• just thinking about introducing more flexible working patterns
• or setting up their own pilot scheme

Visit: Practical Help.