220812ResourcesCtteePaper4AAAppendix1AA35HrWeekStaffConsultationResults

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Resources Com­mit­tee Appendix | 12^th August 2022

Staff Con­sulta­tion

35 Hour Work­ing Week Results

The above con­sulta­tion was open from Monday 24^th Janu­ary to Fri­day 11^th Feb­ru­ary 2022. It was sent to 89 mem­bers of staff and 49 respon­ded – a return of 55%.

Are you broadly in favour or opposed to the idea of the organ­isa­tion con­sid­er­ing a move toward a 35 hour stand­ard work­ing week from the cur­rent pos­i­tion of a 37.5 hour work­ing week?Please note, if you are not in favour of this idea of a move toward a 35 hour work­ing week, please con­tin­ue through this sur­vey and give your views on oth­er ques­tions asked. Your views will still be import­ant for us to reflect on when we con­sider the detailed options which may pro­gress the idea about changes in the length of the work­ing week.

Of the 49 respond­ents, 44 (89.8%) were in favour of mov­ing to a 35 hour work­ing week and just 5 (10.2%) were not.

Those who were in favour of mov­ing to a 35 hour week, the fol­low­ing ini­tial themes/​reasons were noted:

• Bet­ter work / life bal­ance – help with child­care / caring responsibilities
• Improved health and wellbeing
• Increased mor­ale and motivation
• Oppor­tun­ity to improve organ­isa­tion­al efficiency
• Proven to work in oth­er countries
• Flex­ib­il­ity of work patterns
• Great­er par­ity with oth­er pub­lic sec­tor organisations

How­ever, these pos­it­ive themes were also tempered by con­cerns regard­ing how work­loads could be reduced, poten­tial for neg­at­ive PR, the pos­sib­il­ity of staff work­ing more hours to cov­er work­loads (should they not be reduced), the need for tech­no­logy upgrades to sup­port any work­ing effi­cien­cies and con­cern regard­ing poten­tial for changes to terms and con­di­tions (e.g. leave etc).

Those who were not in favour cited ini­tial reas­ons such as:

• The cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate fol­low­ing Cov­id and ques­tion­ing the mor­al­ity that SG sug­gest staff work less hours for the same money, and there­fore the poten­tial for neg­at­ive PR.
• Con­cerns regard­ing not enough time cur­rently to achieve work­loads, let alone if hours were fur­ther reduced, par­tic­u­larly for exist­ing part time staff.
• Not feel­ing that the bene­fits of a reduced work­ing week are out­weighed by the great­er restric­tions that would be put in place to facil­it­ate the reduction.
• The pro­pos­al lead­ing to more flexi­time being accrued.
• In favour of the change for full time work­ers but not for exist­ing part time work­ers, who already bene­fit from bet­ter work / life bal­ance and require all cur­rent con­trac­ted hours to deliv­er workload.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Resources Com­mit­tee Appendix | 12^th August 2022

How­ever, these were bal­anced with some com­ments say­ing that on a per­son­al level it would make a dif­fer­ence – e.g. work­ing less time for the same salary whilst giv­ing more time for per­son­al reasons.

Staff were asked over what peri­od of time they thought it may be reas­on­able to make adjust­ments in poten­tially mov­ing to a 35 hour work­ing week. The fol­low­ing options were provided in the sur­vey and response rates indicated:

By April 2024 43

By April 2025 4

Later 0

Nev­er / No Change 2

The fol­low­ing theme came through from the com­ments section:

Staff did not have the option to sug­gest imple­ment­a­tion by April 2023. How­ever, the ​“com­ments” sec­tion indic­ated an over­whelm­ing and major­ity desire for imple­ment­a­tion to be soon­er than the above options. Reas­ons giv­en for this were staff mor­ale, dir­ec­tion of travel cur­rently indic­ated by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, desire to not have a pro­longed staff con­sulta­tion period.

Would you be open to an abso­lute lim­it in flexi­time that may be car­ried for­ward between 4 weekly flexi peri­ods as part of options to sup­port a reduc­tion in the work­ing week ‑i.e. there is abso­lutely no scope to carry for­ward more than the equi­val­ent of 2 days in accu­mu­lated addi­tion­al hours worked with any extra time being writ­ten off?

Yes 26

Sup­port­ing com­ment themes included:

• The need to keep flexitime
• The 2 day lim­it cur­rently being place
• Staff should man­age work­loads accord­ingly, should high­er levels of flexi be accrued then work­loads need to be looked at
• Sup­ports work / life balance
• Happy with prin­ciple, spe­cif­ic amount needs fur­ther discussion
• The need to keep TOIL and con­sider over­time payments
• Some staff ​‘bank­ing’ flexi to take at a later date, affect­ing future work­loads and team scheduling

No 23

Sup­port­ing com­ment themes included:

• Staff work­ing in roles with sea­son­al /​statutory pinch points tend to accu­mu­late flexi at busy times of the year. The need for these hours to be accrued and taken at quieter times of the year.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Resources Com­mit­tee Appendix | 12^th August 2022

• Employ­ees accu­mu­lat­ing flexi by cov­er­ing work­loads for team mem­bers absences / vacancies
• The need to keep flex­ib­il­ity with flexi time – per­haps through indi­vidu­al dis­cus­sions with line managers.
• The reduc­tion in hours will lead to an increase in flexi being accrued due to staff try­ing to deliv­er work­load (should these not reduce). Should addi­tion­al flexi not be per­mit­ted this will mean staff work­ing unpaid.
• An abso­lute lim­it would mean loss of flex­ib­il­ity for the organisation.

Should an ele­ment of reduc­tion in work­ing hours be made through an increase in the cur­rent allow­ance of 30 minutes each week in ​“act­ive cred­it”? e.g. act­ive cred­it becomes 1.5 hours, of the 37.5 hour work­ing week?

Yes 24

Sup­port­ing com­ment themes included:

• Pos­it­ive way to encour­age pro­mo­tion and increase of exercise
• Sup­ports men­tal health
• Allows for increased levels of exer­cise and flex­ib­il­ity of when to use it

No 25

Sup­port­ing com­ment themes included:

• Act­ive cred­it should be stopped com­pletely if work­ing hours are reduced
• Staff should be able to choose what to do with the addi­tion­al hours
• Staff will not make use of addi­tion­al Act­ive cred­it and con­tin­ue work at cur­rent levels
• Con­cern regard­ing pub­lic perception
• Staff not mak­ing use of exist­ing Act­ive credit

Would you be open to any reduc­tion in annu­al leave as part of a move to a reduced work­ing week?

Yes 8

Sup­port­ing com­ment themes included:

• Any reduc­tion being pro­por­tion­ate to the hours no longer being worked

No 41

Sup­port­ing com­ment themes included:

• Leave is required to cov­er child­care in school hol­i­days and oth­er caring respons­ib­il­it­ies – affects women more than men
• Required to give staff a sus­tained break from work
• The exist­ing leave enti­tle­ment being a key bene­fit of work­ing for CNPA
• A way of redu­cing pay/​benefits which is not meant to be affected by reduc­tion in hours.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Resources Com­mit­tee Appendix | 12^th August 2022

• Any reduc­tion in hours being pro­por­tion­ate to that of cur­rent leave
• Salar­ies no longer com­pet­it­ive – annu­al leave bene­fit helps address this

Should the organ­isa­tion con­sider a move­ment toward a com­pressed work­ing week, for example a 4 day week or 9 day fort­night, as part of our con­sid­er­a­tion of any change in staff contracts?

Yes 34

Sup­port­ing com­ment themes included:

• This should not be com­puls­ory (as it would not suit all individuals)
• Staff can already request to work this type of pat­tern through exist­ing flex­ible work­ing arrangements
• This should be an option for staff to con­sider individually
• A num­ber of staff indic­at­ing they would wish to work com­pressed hours at the present time
• Sup­ports work / life balance

No 15

Sup­port­ing com­ment themes included:

• Work pat­terns should be flex­ible to suit all indi­vidu­al cir­cum­stances. A 4 day week / 9 day fort­night would not do this.
• Staff can already request to work this type of pat­tern through exist­ing flex­ible work­ing arrangements
• Neg­at­ive impact on organ­isa­tion­al repu­ta­tion – would effect­ively be closed to pub­lic and part­ners on cer­tain days

Should the organ­isa­tion con­sider a blend of stand­ard FTE con­tracts if this sup­ports a busi­ness case for change in work­ing hours: e.g. for illus­tra­tion pur­poses only a 37.5 hour + 36.5 vari­able annu­al hol­i­day max­im­um (a) (i.e. cur­rent pos­i­tion) and a 35 hour + 34 day vari­able annu­al hol­i­day max­im­um (b) ? So what we mean is some people work to (a) and oth­ers to (b)

Yes 26

Sup­port­ing com­ment themes included:

• Allows indi­vidu­als to decide which con­tract would suit their needs best
• Con­cern regard­ing com­plex­ity of administration

No 23

Sup­port­ing com­ment themes included:

• An overly com­plic­ated sys­tem, par­tic­u­larly for HR, payroll and pensions.
• Doesn’t deliv­er a uni­ver­sal bene­fit to all staff
• It would be divis­ive between staff – every­one should be on the same stand­ard hours / leave with pro rata worked out accordingly
• The need for clear organ­isa­tion­al policy

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Resources Com­mit­tee Appendix | 12^th August 2022

• Would cre­ate inequal­it­ies across the organisation
• Poten­tial for new starters to be dis­pro­por­tion­ally impacted

The Cairngorms NPA does not expect any addi­tion­al fund­ing to cov­er changes and resourcing arising from changes in work­ing hours. A reduc­tion to 35 hours is estim­ated to equate to over 6 full time equi­val­ent staff on the basis of cur­rent staff­ing levels. How might the organ­isa­tion act to cre­ate effi­cien­cies and organ­ise work­ing to help off­set this reduc­tion in staff time avail­able without increas­ing costs or avoid neg­at­ive impacts on pro­ductiv­ity? Are there any spe­cif­ic meas­ures you can envis­age to help man­age this (and help build a busi­ness case for change)?

1. The need for baseline pro­ductiv­ity to be estab­lished, any effi­cien­cies must be cap­able of being measured.
2. Use of video con­fer­en­cing and reduc­tion in travel to con­tin­ue as standard
3. Man­age­ment of vacan­cies and work­load assess­ment before recruit­ment takes place
4. Use of exist­ing staff mem­bers’ skill sets to work on par­tic­u­lar tasks and poten­tial for per­son­al development
5. Clear team/​job plans with focus on require­ments to deliv­er NPPP objectives
6. Get bet­ter at say­ing ​‘no’
7. Look at where indi­vidu­als and teams can make small effi­ciency savings
8. Improve­ment of IT, fil­ing sys­tems includ­ing use of cloud based sys­tems (apps etc.)
9. Review sign off pro­cesses for increased del­eg­a­tion on decision making
10. Redu­cing fre­quency and length of meetings
11. Offer a vol­un­tary exit scheme before imple­ment­a­tion of 35 hour week
12. Ensur­ing the IT team are fully resourced
13. Encour­age staff to work hybridly (office and home)
14. Min­im­ise amount of essen­tial admin­is­tra­tion e.g online learning
15. Con­sider offer­ing dif­fer­ent work pat­terns – may reduce sick absence, increase work efficiency/​productivity and job sat­is­fac­tion. There­fore redu­cing staff turnover and recruit­ment costs.
16. Sup­port­ing staff to cov­er geo­graph­ic areas of the CNP close to their home location.
17. Staff cur­rently work­ing to capa­city, dif­fi­cult to see how pro­ductiv­ity can be main­tained without addi­tion­al staffing/​resources.
18. The need to com­pare cur­rent pro­ductiv­ity to pre-Cov­id (against intro­duc­tion of video con­fer­en­cing / work­ing from home / reduced travel)
19. Uncer­tainty if home­work­ing does increase productivity

Are there any spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tions in devel­op­ing a busi­ness case whereby changes to work­ing arrange­ments includ­ing reduced hours may be con­sidered to them­selves enhance pro­ductiv­ity? (For example, it has been sug­ges­ted that home work­ing arrange­ments have led to a reduc­tion in levels of absence and there­fore led to enhanced pro­ductiv­ity which may at least par­tially off­set a reduc­tion in work­ing hours.)

1. Staff being more refreshed – pos­sible I hour lunch break
2. Reduc­tion in staff absence
3. Staff becom­ing bet­ter at time management

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Resources Com­mit­tee Appendix | 12^th August 2022

1. A pro­ductiv­ity baseline sur­vey is required
2. Would help equal­ity in the work­place – child­care, short­er work­ing weeks etc.
3. Reduced organ­isa­tion­al eco­lo­gic­al / car­bon footprint
4. Home­work­ing has led to a reduc­tion in col­lab­or­at­ive work­ing and not neces­sar­ily an increase in productivity
5. Return to office work­ing may res­ult in loss of pro­ductiv­ity as staff nat­ur­ally revert to ​‘catch­ing up’ and water cool­er conversation
6. Should meetings/​training require attend­ance in per­son this will reduce pro­ductiv­ity due to travel
7. Pro­ductiv­ity increases when staff feel val­ued and appreciated
8. Bet­ter work / life bal­ance – abil­ity to sched­ule work­ing hours around indi­vidu­al times of pro­ductiv­ity e.g. first thing in morn­ing / after­noon / evening
9. Pos­it­ive impact on men­tal health and wellbeing
10. Look at stud­ies from oth­er coun­tries already work­ing short­er hours.
11. Con­cern regard­ing inef­fi­cien­cies of staff work­ing part time com­bined with high staff turnover and short term contracts

What, if any, spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tions should be brought into think­ing around pro­vi­sions for fixed term staff?

1. No altern­at­ive con­sid­er­a­tions to be made, should be treated equally as oth­er staff
2. Need to start con­ver­sa­tion regard­ing renew­ing / extend­ing con­tracts earli­er to avoid staff leav­ing con­tract early.
3. Option for retain­er / bonus if they stay for the full length of contract
4. Estab­lished pro­jects to poten­tially be scaled back in order to be achiev­able with­in the already spe­cified time­frame (pos­sib­il­ity of neg­at­ive pub­lic per­cep­tion – not deliv­er­ing what specified)
5. Length of con­tracts exten­ded to achieve exist­ing pro­jects aims with­in estab­lished time­frames — cost implic­a­tions for organisation.
6. Fixed term staff to choose if they move to a 35 hour contract.
7. Pos­sib­il­ity for annu­al­ised hour con­tracts for sea­son­al / less than 12 month con­trac­ted staff — with max­im­um hours to be worked over 7 day period

What, if any, spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tions should be brought into think­ing to ensure any per­ceived equal­it­ies and inclu­sion con­sid­er­a­tions and improve­ments are considered?

1. Equal­ity must be assured, with equal­ity impact assess­ments car­ried out and Equal­ity groups con­sul­ted (EAP / intern­al for­um). Intern­al mon­it­or­ing of equal­it­ies car­ried out to receive feedback
2. Con­tin­ued flex­ib­il­ity for carers
3. Same terms and con­di­tions for all staff (part time / pro rata)
4. Sup­ports equal­ity and may help with recruit­ing women – longer hours cur­rently favour men due to childcare/​caring respons­ib­il­it­ies mostly being covered by women
5. Sup­ports inclu­sion for staff who may be less able to work longer hours due to men­tal health and well­being issues
6. Any move towards new tech­no­logy should be sup­por­ted by train­ing for all staff
7. Clear guid­ance and policies required to sup­port staff with any changes

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1. A con­sist­ent approach across all staff – it may be divis­ive to have some staff on 37.5 con­tracts and oth­ers on 35 hour contracts
2. Ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tions to be had using plain English
3. The need to keep flex­ib­il­ity regard­ing indi­vidu­als’ choice to work pat­terns that suit their own needs (includ­ing not to intro­duce com­pressed hours for all staff)
4. The need to keep hybrid work­ing to sup­port flexibility

Do you have any oth­er com­ment or feed­back at this time on the pos­sib­il­ity of a move toward a 35 hour work­ing week as set out at the start of this sur­vey? Are there any ques­tions you feel should be addressed by man­age­ment at this time on this subject?

1. What are oth­er pub­lic sec­tor organ­isa­tions con­sid­er­ing on this issue / already doing and how have they / are they going to present it to their vari­ous audiences?
2. Unequal out­comes being a con­sid­er­able risk
3. Man­agers will need sup­port in imple­ment­ing this as they will be required to provide sup­port to their teams and with man­aging workloads.
4. The bene­fits out­weigh the dis­be­ne­fits, should be seen as oppor­tun­ity for pos­it­ive and con­struct­ive change
5. The organ­isa­tion­al eth­os of flex­ib­il­ity should remain
6. The need for clar­ity that this change will affect all staff – cur­rent uncer­tainty as to how this reduc­tion will affect part time workers.
7. How will the Cor­por­ate Ser­vices team be sup­por­ted with the addi­tion­al work­load of imple­ment­ing this change?
8. Pos­sib­il­ity of tri­al­ling the 4 day week?
9. Reduc­tion in hours won’t neces­sar­ily lead to loss of pro­ductiv­ity. Happy staff are pro­duct­ive staff.
10. Neg­at­ive impact on staff mor­ale should the change not be taken forward.
11. Need for cent­ral­ised view of work­loads and vacancy man­age­ment across the organisation.
12. Uncer­tainty if reduc­tion in hours will mean reduc­tion in pay
13. Times­cales giv­en for intro­duc­tion of this are too slow
14. Time sav­ings due to less travel to meet­ings etc. would not neces­sar­ily apply to Cor­por­ate Ser­vices staff – there­fore oth­er ways would have to be found to off­set work­ing time lost
15. The need to keep staff reg­u­larly informed through­out the process

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