The research has found that many SMEs are achieving positive outcomes for their employees and their business by offering a broad range of family friendly provisions.
SME operators reported signifi cant business benefits from offering carer and family friendly provisions, including: less staff turnover; more flexibility for staff; increased productivity; a better working environment; and happier employees. These claims were supported by a correlation between businesses providing access to family friendly provisions and improved business performance, particularly in the areas of sales and profitability. In addition, SMEs providing above average levels of provisions were more likely than average to have increased the size of their workforce in the preceding quarter, and were much more likely to have increased their workforce than SMEs that did not offer any provisions to their employees.
Taken together, these findings support the existence of a clear business case for SMEs to provide carer and family friendly provisions to their employees. Whilst loss of productive time and associated costs were seen as drawbacks by some SMEs, in most instances operators noted that there were positive business benefi ts in being able to provide these provisions to their employees.
The survey responses suggest that the smaller size of SMEs in many cases facilitates a more flexible approach to offering provisions. In contrast to larger organisations, the operators and employees of SMEs often work closely together and in many cases have the flexibility to offer conditions beyond the minimum statutory provisions for employees. This can be seen not only in the range of provisions offered by SMEs but also in the informal way in which these are provided. Informal and unwritten agreements between employers and employees were by far the overwhelming way in which flexible working provisions were provided by SMEs.
It is interesting to note that many SME operators have caring responsibilities themselves. This was found to have an important impact on how they manage their businesses and balance completing priorities. Many SME operators had to shape their business hours around their family responsibilities or try to flexibly balance work and family at the same time.