There is huge demand for skilled workers, particularly within the IT sector. Therefore, it is extremely important for organisations to recognise that flexibility is the key to recruitment and maintaining their core staff. With many parents sharing the burden of childcare and elderly relatives, it seems logical that these flexible arrangements, and reduced working hours should be available to both parents. Full-time employment is not a one size fits all, meaning alternative working patterns are on the increase, with several options available to suit most employees.
The announcement that Amazon is trialling a new 30-hour week can only encourage other large organisations to follow suit, particularly if they want to retain their staff. According to the Independent Newspaper, Amazon will soon have a few technical teams, made up solely of part-time staff. These workers will still keep their benefits, but will receive a reduced salary of 75%.
Win or lose?
This announcement may come as a surprise to some, but more flexible working patterns should ensure they maintain their best employees. It is likely that Amazon will be hiring into these teams employees from within the organisation and from external campaigns too. This could cost more in the short term, and the long term benefits are not yet known.
This can only be good news for a website testing company such as https://www.bugfinders.com/, that has a large community of software developers available at short notice to develop and test software applications. Short term, whilst large corporations are finding their feet in the new, flexible world, they are likely to require the services of this type of organisation, which is already benefiting from the competition from large multinationals using freelancers.
How will it work?
For these teams, the new working week will consist of working core hours, Monday to Friday between 10am and 2pm with the additional hours to be made up flexibly. They will initially be working out of the Human Resources Division on technical products.
The drive to become more diverse as a company is also likely to increase, as Amazon’s current male to female employee ratio is too high, particularly in the management teams.
With the tools now available for remote working, Amazon is likely to attract some excellent candidates who do not want to work 40 hours or more a week.