This document discusses flexibility in the workplace for older workers. It begins by defining different types of flexible work options and noting that flexibility has been hypothesized as important for older workers to cope with health issues or gradual retirement. However, the document finds that in reality, access to flexibility is limited. While employers and policies support flexibility, implementation is challenging, and line managers may resist due to operational pressures. The types of flexibility also depend heavily on the type of work. Ultimately, the evidence suggests flexibility is not widely available or understood, and informal, unplanned flexibility arrangements are more common than formal options. Gender also influences flexibility, as women often already work part-time so phased retirement has less meaning.

1. Is flexibility the answer? Older workers
access to formal and informal flexibility
in the workplace
Sarah Vickerstaff, Andrew Weyman and
David Wainwright

2. What is flexibility?
• Flexible work options are an area of HR management which
has been hypothesised as important for the older work force
(OECD, 2006: 98-101; Moen and Sweet, 2004; Loretto et al,
2007; Pitt-Catsouphes and Matz-Costa, 2008).
• As a means for coping with health or care constraints on
continuing to work or as a mechanism for gradual or phased
retirement.
• Flexible work options may refer to changes to the way in
which someone works with an existing employer (for example
moving to part-time hours, home working, compressed hours,
flexi-time, job sharing or term-time only hours) or to ‘bridge
employment’ that is taking up another typically less
demanding job or becoming self-employed before retiring
completely (Alcover et al, 2014: 7).
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3. Policy on flexibility
• Policy in the UK has applauded the value of
flexible work for some time and in 2014
extended the right to request consideration of
flexible working arrangements to all employees
with at least 26 weeks service.
• “We know that for many people, the possibility
of flexible or part-time working, or being able to
transition to a less demanding role, could tip
the balance to them staying in employment
longer.” (Damian Hinds, Minister of State for
Employment, DWP, 2017:3)
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4. Flexibility as part of the new ‘choice’ agenda
“Supporting individuals to make the right
choice
Our key message for individuals is that working is
good for finances as well as health and wellbeing
in later life. We also make recommendations
around options for flexible working, retraining for a
new career; self-employment, volunteering and
phased retirement.” (DWP, 2017)
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5. Evidence from surveys
Recent research confirms earlier findings that
theoretically ‘flexible options’ are attractive:
“Currently employed adults said that their
employer could offer the following tools to keep
them working:
• Flexible hours (47 per cent).
• Part-time working (46 per cent).
• Taking on a less demanding role (30 per cent).”
(DWP, 2016 Attitudes to Working in Later Life: British Social
Attitudes 2015)
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6. ‘Flexibility’ needs to be unpacked
• In our cases many different forms of ‘flexibility’:
• Part-time work
• Flexi time: core hours and ability start and finish early
or late
• Job shares
• Homeworking
• Gradual or tapered retirement
• Drawing pension but continuing to work reduced
hours
• Contractual change: leaving the job coming back as
a contractor
• May not be helpful to lump all of these together
as ‘flexibility’
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7. A note of caution
• Employer versus employee aspirations.
• ‘flexibility’ is not always positive for the older workforce
(Brooke et al, 2013; Loretto and Vickerstaff, 2015), as it
may be driven by business need (for example 24/7
working arrangements in retail or zero hour contracts in
hospitality) or part of a cost reduction business model
such as that experienced in the gig economy (Uber).
• Many older workers, especially women may already work
flexibly especially in part-time work.
• ‘Flexible work’ may be a ghetto for older workers, poor
pay poor, working conditions and little prospects.
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8. Focus of Today’s Presentation
• It is widely assumed that access to various forms of
flexible work is beneficial for older workers and can
provide a key means for them to continue working or
retire gradually, but do older workers have access to
such flexible work endings and the ability to take
them up?
• Test through our case studies and explore
differences between formal and informal flexibility.
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9. Flexible Work, Phased or Gradual Retirement
• Analysis of the ELSA/HRS data and evidence from our case
studies suggests that access to flexible working opportunities
may be exaggerated.
• Little evidence of ‘flexible’ transitions to employment – men work
full-time and retire, women part-time and retire.
• In USA/England ‘bridge jobs’ (‘un-retirement’ or moves into part-
work/self-employment) arguably over-stated previously and do
not necessarily extend working lives.
• Little evidence that caring/volunteering act either as complement
to, or substitute for, paid work. Possible exception – part-time
work may increase volunteering.
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For the detailed analysis see articles at:
https://www.kent.ac.uk/extendingworkinglives/findings.html

10. Case Study Participants
CASE STUDY HR
managers/
occupational
health
Line
managers
Employees Trade
unions
Local Government
(LG)
5 9 37
Transport (TR) 6 6 19 2
Hospitality (HO) 3 5 22
Engineering and
Manufacturing
(MA)
13 5 29 1
Mineral Extraction
(MI)
4 4 11 (1)*
* One of the employees was also a trade union rep.

11. Participant Characteristics
CASE STUDY % Female % Blue Collar % Full time
Occupational
Pension
Membership
%
Labour
Turnover
Local
Government
(LG)
54 14 92 78
Major
downsizing
via VS/VER
Transport (TR) 37 68 100 100 Low
Hospitality (HO) 64 50 73 86
Low for the
sector
Engineering
and
Manufacturing
(MA)
23 12 100 100 Low
Mineral
Extraction (MI)
12 47 100 Unknown Low
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12. Policy versus implementation
• The HR function in Transport wants to extend opportunities for more
flexible work as a way to potentially diversify the pool of applicants for jobs
and generally meet prevailing expectations for contemporary employment
conditions. Greater access to flexible work options however is seen as
difficult in this industry. The line managers who are responsible for
managing the train operations and the complex rostering arrangements
that prevail have little appetite for greater formal flexibility:
It’s not that well received [part-time working] by the company to be honest
because it’s a pain in the bum to organise, it is….It’s a very difficult thing to
sort out in this industry, you know, it’s different if you worked in a sweet shop
or something I suppose because you would just do earlies, lates or whatever
you would do and that’s how it would work (Male Operations Inspector,
Transport).
• Very similar views in Mineral Extraction.
He asked if he could do a four day week and they said, “No, if you want to
work here you’ve got to do a five day week.(Male miner, Mineral Extraction)
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13. Easier in some work contexts than others
• In Local Gov, there was a well-liked flexi-time
system and some employees in Manufacturing also
had access to flexi-hours and working from home,
though the latter was on a case by case basis:
“But the company doesn’t encourage working from home so for
us, well for me anyway, they made an exception so I’m doing two
days at home” (Male employee, Manufacturing)
• In Local Gov
“They do offer flexible retirement, but I used to work in HR and not
many cases of flexible retirement are granted because it depends
on the needs of the service you’re working for” (Female
employee, Local Gov).
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14. Signalling the Availability of Flexible Options
• Whilst there were some good examples of flexibility around caring
responsibilities, there was no specific focus on older workers.
• None of the organisations were monitoring take up of flexibility
requests by age.
“So we don’t get a lot of requests from the older workforce to work
more--, some part time, but I wouldn’t say particularly to work so
flexibly. I would say that has been more among younger staff that
are either to do with childcare or they’ve wanted to go and study,
so they’ve wanted to do two days a week and not spread their
hours over five days.” (HR Manager Hospitality).
• Highly dependent upon nature of work and current work pattern,
female part time office workers or cleaners most likely to be able to
modify hours downwards.
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15. Losing Flexibility Due to Equalities Legislation
“we used to have what they call green carded drivers, so they could
still drive trains but they couldn’t go on the main line. So basically
they were shunter drivers and they were … doing the shunting in the
yard. So there was a bit more walking around but you didn’t have to
concentrate on the main line stuff… But now with equal opportunities,
one shift really, so everyone does all--, green cards, they’ve got rid of
them now”. (Male Operations Inspector, Transport).
I remember doing quite a few at the time, and just, you know, after
we had to pull the policy [phased retirement], we were just left a little
bit with a kind of black hole of well, we’ll just have to do it by feel
really, because it was just… I think when the.. kind of the whole age
retirement, you can’t say.. age discrimination retirement issues
changed, there is a bit of scaremongering that you can’t say
‘retirement’, because people don’t retire they just resign. (Female HR
Manager, Manufacturing).
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16. The Employee Perspective
• In the case study organisations there was
considerable employee interest in the idea of
phased retirement but few had investigated
whether it was possible or were realistic about
the options:
“I mean one thing that has cropped up a few times and it has
been a difficulty on the railway, this is where that [orgname]
don’t get to score high marks is that people like the idea of job
sharing, and working 50 per cent, or getting to the age when
they might want to stop working and instead of just stopping
dead slow down, work 50 per cent of the time.” (Male Train
Driver, Transport)
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17. Phased or Gradual Retirement
• One organisation had a phased retirement scheme but
it was not publicised and there was not widespread
knowledge about it.
• Another organisation had got rid of its wind down
scheme for people moving to retirement on the grounds
that it might flout discrimination legislation.
• Our evidence suggests that the option of phased
retirement is not widely known about or practised, and
often depends upon informal exchanges with a
sympathetic line manager.
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18. Attractive But Not Feasible?
• For lower income earners it was often not financially
viable to consider gradual retirement anyway:
“I couldn’t reduce my hours. I couldn’t live on 20 hours week, let’s
say.” (Female employee Hospitality)
• Or even for the better off, a financial hit was not
attractive:
If I was in a financial position I’d like to take this to a three day week
then drop down to a two day but I don’t know if I could financially
afford to do that to maintain the lifestyle that I want, I don’t know. I
can’t see ten months in the future let alone ten years. (Male
employee, Mineral Extraction)
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19. The Management of Flexibility
• Flexible working options are limited for those outside
administrative and office jobs, and even where HR wish to
increase such opportunities, they may face resistance from
line managers who are not supported to make the
arrangements work in practice. Operational and commercial
pressures may conflict with flexibility considerations:
And it is very hard, and it’s becoming more and more evident, trying to
manage firstly staff expectations and also the numbers, because where
we might have been able to do it before-so we might have decided
there’s an area that’s slightly easier to clean. So this area you might
determine is slightly easier than having to go into student rooms and do
up and downstairs, or kitchens and bathrooms. So whereas previously
we might have been able to accommodate some staff still working but
doing slightly less strenuous cleaning jobs, we haven’t got those options
any more, and that’s what we’re finding harder and harder. (HR
manager, Hospitality)
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20. Gender Dimension to Flexibility
• Gendered work patterns during working life feed
through into individuals’ aspirations and
opportunities for extending working lives.
• Women are often working part time already and
therefore the idea of phased retirement, though
potentially available through a further reduction in
hours, is less meaningful or financially feasible.
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21. A Neglected Aspect: Informal Flexibility
• Agreements between line managers and
employees, but they may be fragile:
“I know my previous line manager would have just
said, “Oh, just go on,” [laughs] sort of thing, you
know, but with this line manager everything is
completely by the book. Which, you know, at the
end of day, that’s what you’re supposed to do and
the rest of it. But it does throw up some anomalies
really and like I say, next week, I’m using one of
my day’s holiday [for a medical appointment]
(Male Employee Local Gov)
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22. A Neglected Aspect: Flexibility Organised by
the Work Group
• On the trains there were many examples of work
teams dealing with the issues around shift patterns
by individuals swapping shifts:
I mean I'm the wrong one to talk to [about shifts] actually because
I don’t do the full range of shifts. I have an arrangement with a
chap that I do his earlies, he works my late turns. So I don’t do
the full range of earlies and lates, I just do early turns…. And the
other chap it suits him for his childminding, etcetera, it's easier for
him to do the late turn so that he's at home in the morning. Yeah.
Q: So in terms of who organises your shift patterns is that done by
the train manager or?
A: Yeah it's down to management, but we always do it ourselves
here. (Male Conductor, Transport).
There were examples in other organisations of
flexibility arranged within the work group.
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23. Conclusions (1)
• Despite major policy developments there is as yet little evidence
that employers have really begun to work through the implications
of an ageing workforce.
• Transitions to retirement do not seem to have changed markedly:
men work full time and retire, women work part-time and retire.
• It is too simplistic to assume that just because everyone can
request consideration of flexible working
a) they are necessarily aware of this and
b) that it is feasible either for the employer or the employee.
• The data demonstrated that negotiating flexibility is a complex
phenomenon involving not just interactions between employees
and line managers but also between employees. Solidarity
among employees and respect from line managers were features
of successfully negotiated individual arrangements.
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24. Conclusions (2)
• It is also clear in that in our examples there are tensions and
accommodations between HR policy and what is happening
on the ground. This supports other research which suggests
that line managers are key in the successful implementation of
policy or interventions for older workers and have differing
levels of support from above for creative management.
• There is still quite a lot of old fashioned thinking about who
wants and gets “flexibility”: women in office jobs.
• A defensive response to age discrimination legislation is
getting in the way of managing older workers effectively:
conversations about retirement, career management,
retirement courses and flexible work options.
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25. Thank You!
Thanks to all the people involved with the project:
Ben Baumberg-Geiger, Amanda Burns, Charlotte
Clark, Joanne Crawford, Amanda Fahy, Mariska van
der Horst, David Lain, Wendy Loretto, Chris Phillipson,
Mark Robinson, Sue Shepherd, David Wainwright,
Andrew Weyman
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26. References
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Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) (2016) Attitudes to Working in Later Life: British Social
Attitudes 2015, DWP ad hoc research report no. 44, London: DWP.
DWP (2017) Fuller Working Lives A Partnership Approach, London: DWP.
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