Agile workingGuidance for managers

The following guidance has been developed to support managers across the organisation in implementing agile working successfully within their team or area. Additional support and guidance is also available on our Wellbeing Hub.

As a manager you may be faced with concerns or issues from your staff around agile working or you may have concerns yourself. If this is the case please contact your HR team for advice and support.

Set an example

Agile working is most successful in teams where managers openly support agile working. One way this can be demonstrated is by managers working in an agile manner themselves (this reinforces the message that agile staff can achieve career progression). The aim is to create an environment where agile working is a normal and accepted part of work. This also means managing unfair, negative ideas and opinions from others about flexible or agile work (e.g. these staff are less committed, not ambitious or less deserving than others). Your support for agile working, celebrating the success of agile workers and challenging negative stereotypes are all key.

Build in Meeting Free Fridays

Meeting Free Fridays offer a great opportunity to have a day when your team can work more productively because email and meetings are kept to a minimum. Wherever possible you should avoid scheduling meetings on a Friday to allow your team the opportunity to focus on other matters. For colleagues who do not work on a Friday, encourage them to protect time in their diaries on another day to allow them to benefit from meeting free time.

Consider holding an agile working workshop for your team

For agile working to be optimised in each team, you may find it helpful to hold a team workshop to discuss as a group how agile working might apply in your area. You may have done this previously, when the majority of colleagues were working solely from home. However now, the focus for your workshop would be to discuss what agile working will look like for the team when both office as well as home working are possible.

Notwithstanding any team workshop discussion, you should ensure that all team members know they can talk to you confidentially about their own circumstances, concerns and preferences. There may be sensitive and confidential reasons driving any one staff member’s reasons for wanting to work more agilely. They should not feel obliged to make such reasons known to a wider group.

It is also important that any group discussion is not dominated by certain team members – those who feel less confident in speaking up in a group setting should not have their preferences given any less consideration than others.

You should also remember any staff who may be off on maternity leave or sick leave and cannot take part in any team workshop; arrangements within the team may need to be flexed when they return so that they have an equal opportunity for their preference to be taken into account where possible.

You should ensure that all team members know they can talk to you confidentially about their own circumstances, concerns and preferences. There may be sensitive and confidential reasons driving any one staff member’s reasons for wanting to work more agilely.

Set the minimum organisational parameters for your team

In advance of the meeting, or, if you decide to discuss agile working preferences with your team members individually, in advance of those conversations, you should think about, and discuss with your Head of Department, the organisational parameters which you need your team to work within to ensure maximum service delivery and customer support. These will be different for every team but may include some of the following:

Scott Strachan with arms folded, in greyscale.
  • from Monday 31 October 2022, all staff will be expected to work on campus for a minimum of three days per week (pro-rated for part-time staff)
  • for service delivery, you may need to have some team members to be physically present in the office between 9am and 5pm as a minimum. This may be, for example, to answer queries at a student or staff helpdesk. While having some staff in during the hours of 9am to 5pm would be the minimum ‘organisational parameter’ for your team, you may be able to flex to allow some team members who prefer to be in early to come in at 8am and leave at 4pm, while others may prefer to come in at 10am and leave at 6pm. This gives greater flexibility to team members to work in a pattern that is beneficial to them whilst working their normal contracted hours, but with the added benefit that you can increase your service delivery to stakeholders by having staff available over the longer period of 8am to 6pm
  • you may need at least two team members to be present in the office at all times during the core hours for your team (for larger teams, this may be a far greater number). Remember that, to cover lunchtimes, you may need three colleagues to be in the office to ensure this parameter is met. In some teams, this may need to be broken down to include specific types of roles or requirements for team members with particular skills. Depending on your office location, you may need to consider lone working issues and risks
  • you may need all team members to be together physically at least twice a month
  • you may need to be able to contact all team members during core hours on the days that they are working for example between 10am and 4pm, unless different days of working are agreed

The organisational parameters which you set will be unique to the circumstances in which you operate. For example, the agile working opportunities available in the Library or in the Student Lifecycle team may be very different to the options in Finance or HR.

Workshop agenda suggestions

The agenda for your agile working workshop, or for individual discussions with team members should you decide not to have a workshop, could be:

  • discuss the challenges and opportunities offered by agile working in your particular team context
  • discuss the organisational parameters which you need the team to work around
  • ask each team member what agile working options they would ideally like to have in place, while reminding staff they can talk to you confidentially where needed (team members should be prompted to think about this in advance – see below)
  • jointly discuss possible solutions when organisational parameters and agile working preferences appear to conflict
  • come up with compromises that enable as many team members as possible to get as close to their ideal agile working arrangements
  • discuss practical issues such as how team meetings and communication cells can work effectively if some of the team are working remotely
  • agree a communication methodology that works for you and your team (see Open and regular communication, below)

You may need to meet with the team a few times to achieve this and you may also wish to meet individually with specific team members if their requirements are complex. It is also worth remembering that not all team members may want to work in an agile manner; many may prefer to stick to their existing patterns of work e.g. working in the office, 9am to 5pm. If this is the case it is still important that all team members are included in discussions about how the team will work going forward. 

You should try out the agile working arrangements you agree for your team for an initial period then review after a month or two to reflect on whether the arrangements are working for individuals, the team and your key stakeholders.

After this, it may be helpful to hold further, regular agile working workshops to reconsider changing organisational and personal priorities and advances in technology that can support agile working more or alternatively discuss this as part of your regular team meetings.

Value everyone’s inputs

It is important that all team member’s inputs are valued, regardless of the extent to which they work agilely or in more traditional working patterns. It should be recognised that value can be added to the team via a range of working patterns.

Ensuring a sense of ‘team’ amongst an agile working team

Ensuring that your team works well together and ‘feels’ cohesive is a key challenge and responsibility of a manager. Think about setting yourself an objective around team cohesion. Communication is key, together with opportunities for social interaction with staff. Agree with the team how often this will occur and review it regularly to ensure that it’s working for the team and they feel a real sense of ‘belonging’.

Encouraging a sense of ‘home’ amongst an agile working team

Be aware of signs that your agile workers are working too much at home and failing to strike a balance between work and home life. Take steps to discuss this with your member of staff if you think that they are working excessively whilst at home e.g. you notice they are frequently sending emails at times outside the hours they have said they would be working.

Technology & Innovation Centre exterior.

Open and regular communication

Communication is key for an agile working team, especially where people work regularly from different locations. 

Keep in touch with each staff member at an individual level as well as through team discussions. Staff working agilely should be reminded to get in touch with you regarding any sickness absence that means they cannot work in line with what you have agreed; the University’s Sickness Absence Policy will apply in just the same way as if they were they working in the office or during their traditional hours.

Think about whether and how often you need all of the team to be together face-to-face.

Think about whether and how often you need all of the team to be together face-to-face – is it weekly or monthly? Set those days and seek agreement from the team that all members will stick to them. It may be that you can only have a proportion of the team together at any one time – but others could join meetings or group activities by Zoom.

When you’re not working face-to-face, how will you ensure that staff know about the daily business? Could you have a daily team catch-up by Zoom? Could you use an instant message facility to pass on news? Most importantly, what sort of information should you pass on and how frequently and what do your team think about that?

Build in regular time to engage the team in solving any issues arising from agile working and to hear new ideas about how to make the agile environment work more effectively for the organisation.

While agile working arrangements are informal i.e. not enshrined in contract, it is important you respect your team members’ time and personal plans that may have been made on the basis of the agile working arrangement.

If you need to ask a staff member to change their arrangement e.g. ask someone to come into the office when it had previously been agreed they would work from home, it is important you give them as much notice as possible. Staff may have made personal plans which were dependent on them being at home at the end of their working day and those plans should be respected.

However, it is recognised that unplanned needs can sometimes arise at short notice, e.g. the person who was meant to be covering the physical enquiries desk may have taken ill and be unable to attend work. You may ask your staff to flex their arrangements. As set out in the Agile Working Principles above, staff are expected to be able to flex their agile working arrangements to return to their base location during their core hours.

If you need to ask a staff member to change their arrangement it is important you give them as much notice as possible.

However, it is appropriate for them to expect at least 48 hours’ notice of any such requirement in most circumstances. As the team leader, it may also be appropriate to consider changing your own agile arrangements to cover situations that arise. It is also recommended that when your service deliverables depend on a presence at certain times or locations, you should ensure that contingency exists.

Ensuring that the impact on stakeholders is minimised

Initially, agile working may result in a change to the manner in which stakeholders (external partners, staff, etc) are served. Prior to the introduction of agile working, find solutions with your team to deal with situations where stakeholders could be impacted by the agile working arrangements, to ensure that you continue to deliver service excellence.

Think about holding a conversation with your stakeholders, where feasible, to outline the practical implications of the new way of working, the benefits e.g. they will now be supported across a wider range of hours, and the team’s commitment to providing service excellence. Seek out their concerns about the changes and agree a way in which regular feedback could be gathered from them to drive continuous improvement in service.

If issues are identified which require changes to the agile working arrangement, make the changes quickly to minimise the impact on the stakeholder and your relationship with them.

Managing conflicting agile & flexible working requests

Clarify with your team at an early stage the interaction between agile and flexible working. Flexible working is requested by staff who need permanent/longer-term changes to their contract.

In the event of a conflict between one member of staff’s flexible working contractual arrangements and a desire to work in an agile manner, the formal flexible working pattern must take precedence but there are a range of options open to managers to effectively resolve conflicts between requests. This might include open discussions to see whether there really is a conflict, how the conflict could be resolved and whether another form of flexibility would work for one or both colleagues.

Encourage the team to engage socially

Agile working, where the team may operate on a distributed basis, sometimes risks losing our sociability and sense of team ‘belonging’. Most of us have the need for other human contact and distributed working on a long-term basis can result in feelings of isolation. Encourage your team to have virtual coffees, lunches or afternoon teas in order to maintain social contact and camaraderie. 

Remote working guidance

Agile working may often involve an element of remote working. Further advice and guidance on successful remote working can be found in Top tips when working agilely.

Promote health & wellbeing

Getting the right balance between home and work life can be challenging particularly when working at home and when the boundaries between home and life can become blurred. Colleagues may also have concerns regarding caring responsibilities or other matters outwith work so it is important to regularly check in with your team on their health and wellbeing, especially those who may be more vulnerable at this time. 

Encourage your colleagues to follow the guidance on emotional & mental wellbeing and staying physically well, and lead by example ensuring that you make time for your own health and wellbeing. It's also important that you keep in regular contact with your own line manager to ensure you get the support that you need at this difficult time.  

Any individual who is concerned about their health and wellbeing as a result of home working should be encouraged to contact our confidential staff counselling and employee assistance programme. 

If you, as a manager, have concerns about the health and wellbeing of a member of your team while they are working from home, it's advisable to speak with them directly and go to Human Resources and Occupational Health for further information. If you need further advice contact Human Resources and Occupational Health directly by email: 

Further support

If you have concerns about a member of your team or have more general questions about supporting your team with remote working further support and guidance can be obtained from your HR Team. We'll be continuing to add to this guidance in the days and weeks ahead.

Effective Team Remote Working course

In the current climate of remote working, Continuous Improvement team have developed The Effective Team Remote Working Course, which provides an overview of some tools and techniques to allow you to effectively manage a team remote. This training course is fundamentally targeted at Strathclyde Leaders with direct reports. Others who may find benefit in the course are leaders with no direct reports but activity or project ownership.

The training offers, at a high level, support strategies that allows the departmental work to progress effectively and efficiently while supporting the team members wellbeing. During the 1 hour session, the benefits of planned and systematic communication vs an ad hoc style will be proposed. The necessary combination of tools and techniques to create a communication plan that supports achieving business objectives while maintaining an engaged team will be explored. If you are interested, add your name to the waiting list.

Register: Effective Team Remote Working

Ongoing CPD

As you adjust to the challenges and the opportunities of remote working and supporting your team who continue to work from home, it’s crucial that you are aware of the many opportunities that exist for specific and ongoing CPD, and which can be accessed remotely.

OSDU are making changes to their training programme delivery, moving as much as possible to online Zoom training and this will be indicated on the course descriptors for each course. Please view the OSDU Interactive Learning and Development Brochure and the OSDU Online Resources Development Brochure.

Frequently asked questions for managers

Agile working is an informal arrangement between a member of staff and their manager on where and when they carry out their hours of work.  Agile working is temporary and changeable depending on operational needs and does not affect terms and conditions of employment.

Where a member of staff wishes to have a long-term arrangement with specific requirements on when and where they work, then it would be more appropriate to direct them to the flexible working policy.  They can then make a formal flexible working request, which if approved would result in a permanent change to their terms and conditions of employment.

Agile working could include one or more of the following:

  • hybrid working (combines working remotely, typically from home and working on campus)
  • flexibility to vary start and finish times
  • flexibility to vary working/ non-working days (for example working days vary from week to week and could include weekends)
  • compressed hours (where some weeks you may work your total hours over fewer days, for example, over 4 days in a week, or over 9 days in a fortnight)

The university has a settled position that members of staff should be working on campus for a minimum of three days per week (pro-rated for part time staff).  Some roles require staff to be on campus for more than 3 days and some staff members may just prefer to work on campus.  As a campus-based institution, a minimum of 3 days per week allows for essential opportunities for face-to-face interaction and collaboration across the university community.  Agile working within teams should be built around these parameters.

Where a staff member requests to work less days on campus, for short term arrangements this can be managed through agile working.  Longer term requests to increase home working to more than two days per week (for full time staff) should be made through a flexible working request.

Yes, an agile working request can be refused. Whilst agile working is an important tool to encourage greater flexibility and support staff wellbeing, there are times when this is not possible, for example:

  • where the operational needs of the team/department/university would be affected.
  • where there would be a negative impact on the rest of the rest of the team i.e., morale, performance, and wellbeing.
  • in cases where the role requires an on-campus presence i.e., student-facing, specific operating hours, specialist equipment needed etc.

Should you need to take further advice on this, please speak to the HR contact for your area to discuss in more detail. Once a request has been refused, this decision is final.

Agile working arrangements are not contractual and will always be subject to the operational needs of the university. Where an agile working arrangement is not working, a discussion should take place with the member of staff to advise them that the arrangement will be withdrawn and that they will resume their normal working arrangements. There may be cases, where it is possible to suggest an alternative arrangement for the member of staff to consider. Should the member of staff need a guarantee of a particular working pattern or working location then a formal flexible working request may be more appropriate.

Members of staff should be trusted to be as productive and efficient working remotely as they would be whilst working from the office. Staff should be contactable whilst working at home with a clear and agreed working pattern. Members of staff should continue to work to agreed objectives with measurable outputs which should be achieved regardless of working location. Where there is concern regarding performance, further advice should be taken from the relevant HR contact as to appropriate next steps. There is the possibility to withdraw an agile working agreement to allow for appropriate training and development to support the achievement of performance objectives.

Example requests

Example of agile working requestType of arrangement
A member of the team has a temporary childcare issue. A family member would normally pick up their child from school two days per week but have an injury which means they are unable to do this for a few weeks.  The team member has asked if they could finish early on those two days to do the school run and will make up the time over the rest of the week. This is a temporary arrangement which can be covered by agile working.  Agile working allows for variable start and finish times with contractual hours worked over the course of the week. However, should this create pressure for the member of staff to work back the hours, they may wish to consider using annual leave as an alternative.  If the situation continued and the member of staff needed this arrangement on a more permanent basis, then they should request a formal flexible working arrangement. 
A member of the team has a disability which means that sometimes they find it difficult to be at work for 9am, they have asked for some flexibility to vary start and finish times to accommodate this. They are keen for their manager to understand that some mornings are difficult without the need to ask for permission every time they may need to start later.  This could be accommodated within agile working.  However, given this is related to a disability then it may be more appropriate to formalise this arrangement using a formal flexible working arrangement. It may be useful to also seek guidance from Occupational Health on other reasonable adjustments which could be considered to assist the member of staff. 
A full-time member of the team has asked if they could work two days per week in the office and three days a week at home as they prefer home working.  The university has outlined that staff should be on campus for a minimum of 3 days per week (pro rata for part time staff).  In this case, this request could not be facilitated on a permanent basis through agile working and should instead be considered through a request for formal flexible working.   Varying the number of days on campus and working remotely can be done through agile working when the request is of a temporary or one-off nature.