Flexible Working Practices are becoming increasingly popular with businesses who want to modernise and ‘change traditional working cultures’.

Employment relationships minister, Jo Swinson, is also supporting these ideas as she believes flexible working is the key to a happy and more effective workforce. Speaking at a recent ACAS and Department of Business Innovation and Skills briefing, she added: “I believe [flexible working and shared parental leave] will be economically beneficial to employers.  With these measures workers are more likely to be happy in work; you’ll see reduced sickness absence, improvement in mental health issues, and will result in more motivated and healthy workers.  We need to change working cultures to reflect a modern workforce.  We are still stuck in the 1950’s – all these old stereotypes are a thing of the past.”