Can Flexible Working work for Social Workers?
A Unison survey (Social work and the impact of the Covid pandemic: Reflections from the workforce, published June 2022) found that 79% of social workers were concerned about their work life balance with 76% saying they would prefer a blended hybrid working approach to continue post-covid restrictions. In 2021, the Community Care job seekers survey found that flexible working is the most important benefit that social workers look for in a job and yet only 19% of social work jobs advertised in Community Care were offered with part time or flexible hours. Look closer and you’ll hear stories from social workers telling you that full time is always preferred by employers and that securing a social work job with a non-traditional working pattern is hard to come by.
With the average working life span of a children’s social worker being just 7 years and a workforce that is primarily female, and therefore, more likely to have caring responsibilities, not to mention the changing expectations of people in general about being able to balance managing their well-being whilst having a good job and being able to get involved with other things that matter to them, surely it makes sense for social workers to be able to work flexibly? We know that a lot of social work gets done out of hours so instead of trying to make it fit with standard working hour contracts, isn’t there space for more flexible arrangements that reflect the reality of the job and the reality of peoples lives? Let’s not dodge the equality issue here – at a time when flexible and hybrid working is increasingly becoming “normal” for so many types of roles and organisations, the irony is not lost that social workers, as guardians of social justice, seem to have a harder time getting access to this flexibility.
Flexible working is the staggering, sharing or breaking up of the traditional 9-5 routine. It is increasingly recognised as an important factor in achieving a healthier work life balance and in the retention of good employees. Flexible working is an umbrella term for a whole host of practical arrangements which includes part time, job share, school, term-time, flexible, staggered or compressed hours as well as flexibility in where we work – home, office, range of locations. Fundamental to successful flexible working is trust. Trust that we will use our judgement to work well within our flexible working arrangements, trust that we will ask for and access support when we need it, trust that we will be able to demonstrate the impact we are having in our work and trust that when you cannot physically see me, I am working.
When I think about my own experiences of working flexibly, the trust of my manager was fundamental. I worked part-time when my children were little and I worked exclusively at home for a number of months when one of my children had a serious illness. I was lucky during these times to work for managers who didn’t really give a stuff about what hours I worked because I was able to demonstrate that I was doing a good job. It hugely changed how I worked and I actually became really efficient at managing lots of work in reduced hours by learning to work differently and being proactive in putting in place the right support around me. The fact that I was trusted was really important in giving me the confidence to find my way to making flexible working work for me and my employer. The loyalty I felt as a result meant that I stayed with that employer for the long haul. Had I not been supported, I would have had no choice but to leave and go and work elsewhere.
It's important to acknowledge and recognise the unique demands of social work. It’s a serious job and individuals carry large volumes of risk. Team managers have the tough job of managing risk, making decisions and retaining oversight across a huge volume of cases in a profession where the consequences of things going wrong can be life changing. Maybe it’s understandable then that team managers want their team physically around them. From a social worker perspective, being able to access professional support and supervision and being part of a team where you can come back and let off steam or get some emotional support from peers after a tough visit are important elements of being a social worker. So we have to work together to work out how to make flexible working work for social workers.
I’m working with the Partners in Care and Health Programme which is a partnership between the Local Government Association (LGA) and Association of Directors of Adults Social Services (ADASS) to look at how we support more flexible working in social work. I’m really keen to talk to social workers who work flexibly and to their team managers who understand how to support and enable flexible working. I’d like to understand more about how work is allocated, how risk is managed when the allocated social worker isn’t in work, how social workers who work away from a “main office” access professional supervision and management support, what happens after a tough experience with people being supported if the social worker isn’t going back to the office. I’m really interested to hear about different approaches that have been tried, for example, joint working of cases across small teams.
I’d love to hear directly from social workers working flexibly about your experiences – what helps make it work? What makes if feel hard? I’d also love to hear from team managers about how you’ve accommodated flexible working in your teams – what benefits you have experienced and what challenges you’ve needed to work through. And I’d love to hear more generally your ideas about how flexible working within social work can work.
We’ll use what we hear to develop some resources for team managers and social workers to help more organisations enable flexible working for social workers. It feels like if we can work together to crack this, we’ll be able to retain more skilled, talented and experienced social workers in the profession for longer and that has to be an all round win-win.
“Please do reach out and share your experiences, thoughts and ideas. Let’s make change happen together - and safely”
Please do reach out to me to share your experiences, thoughts and ideas. You can email me at kath@kathsmythecollective.co.uk. Thank you.
