This week, we present a series of guest blog posts from Tim Thomas, Head of Employment Policy at EEF, the manufacturers' organisation. In this series, Tim highlights some of the key findings from the EEF's Flexibility in the Modern Manufacturing Workplace report. The report includes results data from the EEF's Modern Manufacturing Workforce survey, which is based on data collected from EEF member organisations during spring 2011. In the EEF's words, the report covers the following topics:
Tim Thomas, EEF: Flexibility not complexity
Our 2011 survey on the modern manufacturing workplace reveals the extent to which the UK's leading manufacturers have adopted innovative flexible working methods to survive the recession and remain competitive.
By investing in skills and training, manufacturers have ensured that their workforces retains their agility in a highly competitive global marketplace.
But how long can UK manufacturers remain competitive, when other economies have the advantages of a lower cost base and a reduced regulatory burden?
Why flexibility is important to manufacturers; how they achieve it; how manufacturers view the UK as a business environment to achieve this flexibility; and what needs to be done to ensure that the UK continues to provide the flexibility that manufacturers need.Here, Tim Thomas argues that UK manufacturers would benefit not only from light-touch regulation in certain areas, but also that such regulation needs to be written in plain English.
Tim Thomas, EEF: Flexibility not complexity
Our 2011 survey on the modern manufacturing workplace reveals the extent to which the UK's leading manufacturers have adopted innovative flexible working methods to survive the recession and remain competitive.
By investing in skills and training, manufacturers have ensured that their workforces retains their agility in a highly competitive global marketplace.
But how long can UK manufacturers remain competitive, when other economies have the advantages of a lower cost base and a reduced regulatory burden?
The EEF believes that the required response to this involves light-touch
regulation only where needed, and that such employment regulation as is
needed should be expressed in plain English, so that it can be easily
understood by employer and worker alike.
Nothing undermines a cooperative relationship more than uncertainty created by employment law myths and perpetuated by complex expressions of what should be basic principles of fairness and reasonableness.
Whilst not domestic in origin, a well-worn example of needless complexity is the Working Time Regulations, elements of which include: 48 hours each seven days; a reference period of 17 weeks; an individual opt-out; a night-worker's limit; a daily rest break; a weekly rest break and compensatory rest.
Europe is currently considering what further changes might be made to the Working Time Regulations. Perhaps a start would be simplifying the current directive?
The UK already has a wide spectrum of laws to protect its workforce. The Government should be reducing the quantity and burden of those laws without diluting the protection for employees, simplifying wherever possible.
With the Government's commitment to cutting red tape and to rebalancing the economy, the UK's manufacturers need a smaller, clearer regulatory base from which to compete.
See also:
Nothing undermines a cooperative relationship more than uncertainty created by employment law myths and perpetuated by complex expressions of what should be basic principles of fairness and reasonableness.
Whilst not domestic in origin, a well-worn example of needless complexity is the Working Time Regulations, elements of which include: 48 hours each seven days; a reference period of 17 weeks; an individual opt-out; a night-worker's limit; a daily rest break; a weekly rest break and compensatory rest.
Europe is currently considering what further changes might be made to the Working Time Regulations. Perhaps a start would be simplifying the current directive?
The UK already has a wide spectrum of laws to protect its workforce. The Government should be reducing the quantity and burden of those laws without diluting the protection for employees, simplifying wherever possible.
With the Government's commitment to cutting red tape and to rebalancing the economy, the UK's manufacturers need a smaller, clearer regulatory base from which to compete.
See also:
- Tim Thomas, EEF: Flexible working - why fix what's not broken? The EEF's Tim Thomas questions the need for the Government's consultation on extending the right to request flexible working.
- Tim Thomas, EEF: Employers should lead the social change agenda Tim argues that employers should be free to lead the social change agenda through exploring flexible working alternatives, rather than have a flexible working agenda forced upon them.
- Tim Thomas, EEF: Flexibility not complexity
UK manufacturers would benefit not only from light-touch regulation in
certain areas, but also that such regulation needs to be written in
plain English, says Tim Thomas.
- Tim Thomas, EEF: Flexible working supports the UK's ability to compete A look at how and why manufacturing sector employers have implemented and embedded flexible working practices in order to boost their ability to compete in a global marketplace.
- Tim Thomas, EEF: Flexible working - the importance of communication and reward
In the concluding post in this short series, Tim Thomas looks at why
communication and reward are of key importance to building and
maintaining competitive advantage.
- Flexibility in the Modern Manufacturing Workplace Download the complete report from the EEF website.
We answer a number of common questions on flexible working, in the XpertHR FAQ section:
- Which employees are eligible for the statutory right to request flexible working?
- In what circumstances can an employer reject a request for flexible working?
- Where an employee who is about to go on maternity leave requests that she return on reduced hours, is the employer under any obligation to consider her request at that point?
- Can employer withdraw from a flexible working agreement if the arrangements are no longer in its interests?
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