The pandemic has thrown up a multitude of possibilities and potential opportunities regarding flexible working and hybrid working. As a result, the traditional nine to five may well become a thing of the past. In terms of the ‘new normal’ in the further education (FE) sector, we asked Jon Downing, HR Systems and Development Manager for Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, to share his thoughts on how he sees working in the FE sector in a post-Covid-19 environment.
Between March and May 2020, the percentage of the UK workforce working from home grew by 5% to 50%, according to Royal Society for Public Health. This was a huge change in culture and raised the prospect of a hybrid working model being central to future work planning in the UK.
Asked whether or not he thinks it's now incumbent on colleges to offer hybrid working as standard and if the pandemic has acted as something of a reset moment in your industry, Jon explained that at present, the priority is getting all staff returning to their pre-pandemic roles. That said, “certainly, the whole arrangement of staff working from home and that being quite a viable option in some areas, does beg the question if that should be a longer-term arrangement?” Jon added.
The logistics of such a move is something that colleges may find a struggle in the short term, considering that at Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, for example, “for a staff group of 800, or just shy of 800, for us is a logistical nightmare”. That’s not to say that these aren’t conversations that will be going on in FE institutions across the UK, but the priority of colleges is necessarily getting staff and students back in a safe environment conducive to learning.
Research carried out by Future Forum and released in January 2021 found that 63% of employees approached favoured the flexibility of hybrid working, while 20% wish to work remotely full-time. A much smaller percentage of employees expressed a desire to return to full-time office work (17%).
For the moment at least, it would appear that the onus in colleges is to try to return to the pre-pandemic normal. “That isn't necessarily opposing the nature of that request”, according to Jon. “It's more trying to get back to some sort of system of normal, to get prepared for next year.” He adds: “That’s the immediate concern — get these teacher-assessed grades over the line, we’ve got some preparations to do over the summer, we've got fresh timetabling, new numbers, a bit of recruitment, staff and student wise. It is something that is fed back through some of the AoC forums, the points that I’m sure will be looked at by senior management but at the moment, we’re just trying to get everyone back to normal.”
Colleges, like many workplaces, were caught unawares by the pandemic in 2020, but by providing staff with the tools they need to make home working as comfortable as possible, hybrid working could be the future.
Jon stated that while “some people will be very well geared up and have offices set up, other people will literally be on a bar stool and a kitchen. So it's kind of accommodating for those areas and I think, across the board, managers have been very good in terms of being quite flexible with staff”.
Moves are being made, Jon explains, to make staff comfortable at his college when home working was a necessity. “There’s been a little bit of proactive work in terms of supporting staff and a little bit of fielding individual requests, which is what quite a lot of it boiled down to, even people that required different equipment at home or we allowed them to loan different equipment.”
Jon’s institution secured a large shipment of laptops to facilitate remote working during lockdown. He went on to state: “I think a lot of work was done behind the scenes just to try and give staff availability, opportunity; I guess that's what it boils down to. Everybody's going to be in different boat and everyone needs the opportunity to undertake the day-to-day job, where they can.”
AoCJobs, part of the Association of Colleges, connects teachers and support staff with schools and colleges for online job opportunities.