Top flexible employers - are you one of them?

Insight from Mandy Garner of Workingmums.co.uk on what makes a Top Employer. With a look at last year's winners of their Top Employer Award, you'll also find details here about how to enter for 2013. Employers of all sizes and sectors welcome.

How to move Smart Work from Theory to Practice

This new management book encapsulates the practical experience, insight and research of Flexibility.co.uk.  Andy Lake spells out a strategic, integrated and evidence-based approach to delivering benefits for the business, the individual, the environment and for 'smarter' government.

Smart Working at Wokingham Council

Wokingham Borough Council has a dynamic and can-do attitude to implementing Smart Working. They have moved ahead with their own solution, developing a new working culture, working flexibly across locations and achieving a 2:1 desk-sharing ratio. A case study of a smaller council leading the way.

This new kind of working - what should we call it?

What's in a name? This extract taken from Smart Flexibility looks at the pros and cons of terms such as flexible working, smart working, agile working and all the rest.

A positive way to pre-empt resistance to change

In the second part of our mini-series on dealing with resistance to change, Andy Lake proposes 10 practical steps to take positive control of influencing culture and behaviours in a Smart Working implementation programme.

50 top part-time leaders show the way

The cultural assumptions about part-time working, and the prejudices against it, are many. And very dated in the modern world of work. To combat these perceptions Timewise recruitment set out to find 50 shining examples that prove that the UK’s leading employers have moved beyond the old prejudices

Case Study on e-Learning for Smart Working

e-Learning is a natural fit for organisations making the change to Smart Working.  Plantronics have found it the ideal way to support staff making the transition to new ways of working. Working with e-Work.com, they were able to develop a customised solution reflecting their brand and aspirations.

Top Employers' Awards for Flexible Working

The progress of flexible and family-friendly working was celebrated at the 2012 Workingmums.co.uk Top Employers Award.  The awards recognise employers who are progressive in their flexible working practices and go the extra mile to support working parents. Unliever (left) won the overall Top Employer Award.

Ten things I hate about change ...

Changes to working practices and working culture always provoke some resistance.  And as Smart and Flexible Working involve changes to workplaces, technologies and behaviours, there is always a risk of hitting a nerve. Here we take a look at ten of the most common reasons given, and how to deal with them .

The Kinetic Organisation - motion instead of hierarchy

Andrew Mawson of AWA sets out his blueprint for new organisational design.  The ideas are based on a study with industry leaders on the faults of traditional structures and organisational needs for the future.  It's about agility, adaptability and delivering organisations that are more effective, energetic and efficient.

Quo vadis Smarter Working?- A new work dynamic

Guest author Philip Vanhoutte reflects on how Smarter Working has progressed at Plantronics and what the future holds for companies travelling down the Smart Working road.  A new work dynamic is needed, as it's is more about smarter people than technology

Working Smarter at Aberdeenshire Council

Aberdeenshire Council's Worksmart and WorkSPACE programmes are attracting a lot of attention from councils around the UK - a great example of moving ahead with modern working practices and getting staff on board with the new workstyles.

A smarter approach to economic growth

The debate on economic recovery is stuck in a rut - cuts versus borrowing.  But the key issue is about change: how to adapt to the new world that is being born as the old one fades painfully away.  Here's our Flexibility Nine Point Plan to boost smarter growth.

Smart Work ergonomics

Closing a building and letting your employees roam free is just the beginning of good workplace practices, not the end. Guy Osmond of Osmond ergonomics offers 10 simple rules to ensure mobile, homeworking and hub-working staff are fit, healthy and following ergonomic best practice.

What makes a modern workplace?

Tim Oldman, of the Leesman Index, takes a personal look at new trends in the workplace, and how to align property and working environments with new working practices.

Our guest writer, organisational development specialist Naomi Stanford, puts the case that Smart Working isn't so new.  It's more a case of building on best organisational practice.  So stressing too much its 'newness' risks alientaion and resistance.