Creating more part-time roles in your business can be a smart people strategy, particularly for SMEs.
Yet most organisations aren’t yet up to speed with part-time work’s potential when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent. They still think of it as an inconvenient perk they have to offer certain people in certain circumstances.
And, what’s worse, they often view those who want to work part-time as less committed than their peers. The term itself contributes to this kind of bias, as people seem to conflate part-time with being part-motivated or even part-capable.
Because of these misconceptions about the structure and the people who prefer to work part-time, organisations rarely put time and effort into creating part-time roles or setting them up for success. In a tight talent market, this is a big mistake.
What’s in it for SMEs to consider part-time?
One of the more obvious benefits is the ability to open up your recruitment process to a bigger pool of candidates. There are many talented and experienced people in the workforce who can’t, or prefer not to, work full-time.
This includes, but is certainly not limited to, working parents. It also includes people running small businesses alongside their day jobs, workers wanting to take a phased transition to retirement, professional and semi-professional athletes, and people on visas limiting their working hours.
I was speaking to a small-business owner just the other day who runs his own accounting practice. Every one of his employees works part-time, as he has found that making roles ‘part-time possible’ has enabled him to access a hidden pool of exceptional talent. To begin with this wasn’t even an intentional hiring strategy. It’s something that happened organically as he began to realise that by providing people the opportunity to work part-time, he was attracting top talent who were struggling to find meaningful part-time roles in an industry that doesn’t always support this.
There is a second compelling reason to consider part-time that is specifically relevant to SMEs. If you’re looking to bring highly experienced talent into your business but don’t yet have the funds, creating part-time roles is a clever solution. This can be a particularly effective approach for start-up organisations, for example, who need deep expertise to set themselves up for success, but don’t yet have the budget to hire these experts into full-time roles.
How to get started
A great first step is to advertise roles as being ‘part-time possible’. Legalite is a mid-sized legal firm who are fully embracing this approach. When hiring new talent they utilise a ‘work by design’ philosophy where they craft roles for successful candidates based on their skills, talents and lifestyle. All forms of flexibility are considered and as a result a large percentage of their teamwork is part-time.
Once you have hired people into part-time roles a next important step is to set them up for success. This includes ensuring the scope of the role aligns with hours the employee is working (so they don’t end up working full-time hours on part-time pay), and establishing team-based ways of working that ensure a positive experience for those in part-time roles as well as their colleagues and customers.
The third and final thing to be mindful of is career progression. To retain your talented part-time employees you want to make sure they are given development and promotion opportunities in line with their full-time peers. It’s very common for part-time work to become a ‘career handbrake’, and if you can avoid this you will set yourself apart from other organisations and become a talent magnet for ambitious people who need or prefer to work part-time.
