Small firms that are prepared to offer flexible and home-based working part of the time could benefit from working mothers who are keen to get back into the job market.
According to a recent survey by workingmums.co.uk, many mothers feel employers are indifferent to their family commitments and 90% said they found it difficult to find flexible work.
With many smaller companies struggling to recruit decent staff in key areas, this research suggests firms that are willing to be flexible over working arrangements could be attractive to well-qualified and reliable employees.
“I would have been surprised if the survey had found that working mothers were finding things easy,” admitted Mike Emmott, employee relations advisor at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. “It’s a tough job and it always will be.
“But I’m surprised that the responses were not more positive. There has never been a time when employers were more aware of the benefits of offering more flexibility to workers,” he added.
Over half (55%) of the respondents to the research said they would rather work from home with just 6% saying this did not interest them. But 39% said they would like to work from home only some of the time, suggesting that companies requiring staff to be in the office at times yet prepared to offer flexibility at other points could gain.
“There’s a huge pool of talent and years of experience that could be tapped should the right jobs be made available,” said Gillian Nissim, founder of the workingmums.co.uk website.
“The survey showed that mothers are hungry for work and often have an impressive range of skills and experience to offer employees but feel that there is a distinct lack of opportunities to utilise them.
“Things are improving but there’s still a perception that there’s a reluctance to offer flexibility,” she added. “We need employers to think more creatively and to get beyond the mindset that a job requires someone to be in the office five days a week.”