By Sarah Findlater, Group HR Director at M&S

Working as a retail manager is a hands-on job – which is why historically it’s always been challenging to introduce flexible working across stores.

Whether managing budgets, leading teams of often hundreds of people or serving thousands of customers day in day out, the scale of the role is immense.

But that shouldn’t mean retail managers miss out on flexibility. We want M&S to be a great place to work for everyone and so my team and I set out earlier this year to try and find a solution.

We brought together 100 stores, and over 800 retail managers to take part in a trial, with managers at each store working a combination of full-time, part-time, a four-day compressed week and a nine-day compressed fortnight.

While we were hopeful it would prove popular we were taken aback by the response:

• 75% said that compressed hours had had a positive impact on their family life
• 73% agreed they had more time for themselves & 79% that they were able to balance work/life commitments

Now, we’re rolling the change out across all stores from next January – part of our new Worklife flexible working policy. Over 3,000 retail managers will now be able to choose whether to work compressed hours and those working part-time will be able to access their own pro-rated version.

We’re also launching a new Job Share Finder app to make it easier for colleagues to find a job share match that suits them.

Terri-Anne Rigg, Deputy C&H Store Manager at M&S Teesside Retail Park and Simon Pollitt, Store Manager at M&S Stratford-on-Avon share their experiences here of taking part in the Worklife trial:

Terri-Anne Rigg, Deputy C&H Store Manager at M&S Teesside Retail Park

“I’ve worked at M&S for nineteen years, starting off as a customer assistant and working my way up to Store Manager. In Teesside, our managers were on a mix of the same hours and compressed four-day week and nine-day fortnight. I opted to do a nine-day fortnight and it’s been fantastic. My daughter Harriet is four in December, and I’ve been able to take her to nursey more in the mornings than I ever could before. It also makes a massive difference to be able to plan ahead and saving the extra day travelling to work means extra savings on petrol as well! I was worried that when my day off came round I’d be extra tired from the compressed hours but I’ve found I’m not at all which helps with making the most of my extra day off!”

Simon Pollitt, Store Manager at M&S Stratford-on-Avon

“I joined M&S five years ago and before that worked for another retailer where there wasn’t much flexibility at all. I didn’t think it would be possible to work full-time as a Store Manager and still have flexibility but it’s great that the retail sector is catching up. Worklife really feels ground-breaking in our field - we have such fantastic talent and we need to keep it in the industry. Across the store, we’ve had to get used to new ways of working across the store but it’s gone smoothly. Personally, I don’t feel like I’m working any longer on the new working pattern and the massive benefit is that I get to spend alternative Wednesdays off with my one year old son. My wife works from home and travels a lot, so it’s great to have that added flexibility. There are also financial wins as well, with our son being in nursey less, we’re saving £250 a month, as well as on petrol – which is especially handy with the cost of living.”

Now we’ve launched Worklife, we’re determined to keep trying new ideas and finding solutions to make flexible working more accessible for all colleagues - and to keep transforming the way we work at M&S.