‘Flexible working, like all of these things, is about change management,’ says Barry Goldberg, head of the Health Informatics team at Swansea University.

‘The people and politics of it are always more challenging than the technology, which can deliver now. But it is really about having sufficient trust and managing people to sufficiently tight outcomes.’

The Health Informatics team comprises eight members and is part of the School of Health Science, which focuses on nurse training in Wales. The team provides MSc programmes to students, but also undertakes research in areas such as telemedicine and electronic health records to evaluate their effectiveness.

The department, set up in the 1990s, has always employed flexible working practices, but found initially that ‘the technology wasn’t up to it’. This changed about three years ago, however, when BT implemented a Mitel 3300 Integrated Communications Platform switch.

The IP private branch exchange (PBX) provides the team with access to various applications, such as unified messaging, automatic call distribution and video conferencing, which has made it much easier for the group to work and communicate with each other and third parties from home, on the road or at customer sites.

‘We wanted to work this way from the start and were always trying to do it, but it has just got easier and easier, and now we take it for granted. We could not work this way without the technology though and it has made a huge contribution to our productivity,’ says Goldberg.

He indicates that working flexibly suits certain types of personalities more than others, however.

‘You have to employ a certain type of person – someone who is independent and used to working on their own initiative and someone who can sort things out, work to deadlines and is not hide-bound by procedures.’

As a manager, Goldberg says it is absolutely vital that you do not stifle employees, as he believes staff are most productive when they are allowed to work in their own way. ‘You cannot predict how it is going to work, though. It is different for each set of

circumstances, person and project,’ he says.

As a result, Goldberg says it is crucial that managers are clear about what they ask staff to do, that there are unambiguous reporting mechanisms and that managers introduce an effective means of monitoring output.

‘We are a small team so it is easy to manage, but there is a limit beyond which it is not possible,’ he says. ‘A single manager cannot deal with more than 10 to 20 flexible working staff as you cannot keep an eye on what is going on, and at that stage, you have to delegate to sub-managers.’