Inland Revenue and Public and Commercial
Services union
OurTime - A work-life
balance project
The company
The Inland Revenue is responsible for the administration of direct
taxes plus tax credits, child benefit, national insurance contributions
and stamp duties together with the collection of student loans and
National Minimum Wage enforcement. It has around 37 million customers
and handles a yearly tax income of around £220 billion.
The Public and Commercial Services
union is the largest civil services union, with 280,000 members. PCS
represents 93% of Inland Revenue employees.
Workforce
The Inland Revenue has offices throughout the UK.
No. of employees: 70,000
% female: 64%
The problem
The Inland Revenue needed to extend its opening hours to the public
in order to provide a more accessible service whilst at the same time
helping staff to have a good balance between work and personal life.
Response
The OurTime project was a partnership between PCS and the Inland Revenue,
with support from the TUC. Working together union and management explored
ways to give people more options about their working hours at the
same time as allowing the business to open beyond the core hours of
9-5 and to open on weekends.
- Surveys and focus groups were run to establish what
staff wanted before matching staff and business needs.
- Three pilot studies were then established. An enquiry
centre and telephone team pilot tested scope for extending opening
to volunteers. The third pilot in the Risk, Intelligence and Analysis
team tested the mutual benefit of increased flexibility for staff
where there were no external customer interfaces. They tested a
variety of flexible working arrangements including variable core
time, personal core time, no core time, compressed working week/fortnight
and banking time.
- Three training packages were commissioned from specialists
in the field and tested in the trial offices. The three packages
helped managers managing a flexible workforce, team members work
together more effectively, and the Inland Revenue organise work
for flexibility and security.
Take-up and outcomes:
Take up was very good especially once staff saw the practical benefits
of flexible working enjoyed by their colleagues. The project was successful
on both a local and national scale:
Locally
The effect of the project on the offices and staff involved was to
develop trust between employee and employer through working together
and to strengthen links with the community. Staff were given the flexibility
to better balance their work/life balance. Customers received an extended
service and increased choice and flexibility.
Nationally
The wider impact of the project was to create a model process which
could act as a template for the rest of the Inland Revenue, and indeed
a wider audience:
A resource information package
entitled OurTime was produced based on the process used by the project,
including:
- three specially
commissioned training packages which can be used by any public sector
organisation;
- a new Inland Revenue handbook on flexible options
for staff;
- a booklet on how to set up a learning access point
as part of a work-life balance initiative;
- a CD ROM packed with practical information including
a staff survey on working time preferences, how to run focus groups
with staff and ground rules for running pilot.
Whilst by no means a definitive
model, it will provide insights to organisations developing ways of
addressing work-life balance and may be of use to those using the
new Investors in People work-life balance model.
Business benefits
Helping staff to juggle
their commitments
Possible to reduce absences
Improve staff morale
Better able to cover peak times (ie. staffing profile matches customer
demand).
Recognising diversity
Wider pool for recruitment
Better reflection of customer base
Staff with broader experience
Extending or improving
customer access
Customers have choice of access
Better informed customers lead to less re-work
Smoothing of business peaks
Becoming an employer
of choice
Recruitment of quality staff
Retention of staff
Reduction in recruitment and training costs due to less wastage
Improvement of profile in community
Making better use of
IT or accommodation
Lower unit costs
More money for existing services
Challenges
Watch out for!
Partnership working
1. Tensions (regional and local) (unions and management)
2. Right people on the project board
3. People resorting to set piece management/union confrontation
4. Setting realistic timeframes
Top tips
1. Take time at the start to talk to partners
2. Ensure each person can contribute
3. Examine issues that might give each side a problem
4. Start with quick wins
Planning and control
1. Role conflict on project board
2. Different views on project management
3. being too inflexible with your plan
4. Misjudging resources - When? How long? Who? What?
Top tips
1. Ensure project members appreciate holistic nature of work-life
balance
2. Appoint a project manager
3. Be open to creative thinking and new ideas. Test these.
4. Review milestones and timescales at each meeting.
Funding
1. Getting this right at the start or you will lose valuable time!
2. Get promises of funds in writing
3. Financial Propriety rules
4. Problems in tracking progress
Top tips
1. Appoint someone to be accountable and set clear guidelines
2. Be clear about any conditions
3. Explore flexibility of each partner’s funding and use the
more flexible for innovative expenditure.
4. Set in place clear audit trails and monitor budget
In practice
Julie is an
employee in the Inland Revenue Corporate Services in South East
England. She is married with twin girls aged six. She collected
flexi credits toward time off for childcare by working Saturday
mornings.
The case:
Julie wanted to find a way to spend more time with her children over
the summer holidays. By working one Saturday per month as a receptionist
in the Inland Revenue’s enquiry centre, she is able to bank
“flexi credits” towards time off in August. Time banking
means she was able to collect flexi credits greater than the current
18 hour maximum.
Julie says:
“I haven’t got any childcare problems this summer, and
I won’t have to pay a childminder.”
Benefit to Inland Revenue:
The Inland Revenue can extend its opening hours and provide a face-to-face
customer service on Saturday. Julie is a happier employee and as such
her productivity and quality of work have improved.
Des is an employee
in the Inland Revenue’s Risk and Intelligence Analysis
Service in Brighton. He commutes to work from Burgess Hill
everyday by bus. He compressed his working fortnight to reduce
travel time.
The case:
Des looked at the flexible working options on offer and decided to
try a compressed working fortnight. This involved working 74 hours
in nine days leaving the 10th day free. Or to put it another way,
an additional 24 days off on top of his annual leave.
Des says:
“I save about an hour and a half in travelling time. I have
more time to be at home, go shopping, watch films, potter in the garden
or go away for long weekends.”
Benefit to Inland Revenue:
Des has proved that he can still deliver results for the Inland Revenue
whilst increasing work-life balance: everyone is a winner.
The future
The Inland Revenue is considering extending the OurTime project to
branches across the country. The OurTime pack has been adopted by
a number of companies as template for introducing flexible working
in their organisation.
The OurTime website, at www.pcs.org.uk/ourtime
is full of resources and a step by step guide to how a partnership
model was developed.
June 2003
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