National firm Eversheds was last week highlighted by the government as a ‘champion’ of flexible working, having overcome initial partner hostility to agree more than 400 such arrangements with staff.

It joined the likes of Rolls-Royce, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Unilever Foods in featuring in a practical guide to reducing long hours and reforming working practices. It was launched jointly by the Department of Trade & Industry, Trades Union Congress and Confederation of British Industry.


The guide said the ‘champion’ companies – whose role is to showcase the work they have done with the goal of helping others– had introduced measures to modernise working practices, while maintaining, or improving, productivity.


In 2002, Eversheds launched a ‘lifestyle policy’ with the aim of attracting and retaining the best staff. It was done against the backdrop of the fierce competition for graduates among law firms.


Anyone at the firm is eligible to apply for flexible working but must demonstrate that the change would have either a positive or neutral effect on the business and clients.


The types of flexible working arrangements, which are reviewed every six months, include annualised/monthly hours, career breaks, fixed-term working, a bandwidth model (in which, according to business need, employees agree to extend or decrease working time temporarily, and balance this out at some other time), job-sharing, part-time work, reduced hours, remote working, sabbatical leave, self-rostered teams, shift-working, and zero hours (a contract under which the employer does not guarantee to provide work and pays only for work actually done).


By September 2004, 348 women and 40 men, including more than 100 fee-earners, had taken up a flexible-working option. For the past two years, the firm has made the Sunday Times annual list of the best 100 places to work. The turnover of legally qualified call centre staff has also fallen.


The guide said the target-driven nature of fee-earners’ work, ‘both in financial and hours terms’, and ‘fierce’ internal competition, led to a macho, ‘start-early-finish-late’ environment. ‘Not surprisingly, given this culture, the response of partners to the lifestyle policy was at first hostile, and the young professionals did not take it seriously,’ it said. ‘As more people, including some clients, have seen the business and personal benefits, attitudes have changed. Even senior staff are choosing to work from home occasionally or leave the office at 4.30 on a Friday.’


Recent DTI research found that the proportion of employers offering their workforce the opportunity to work flexibly has almost doubled in the past six years.