There are many forms of SMART working – it can describe a place of work, for example working from home, or a type of contract, such as part-time working, flexitime, job sharing and shift work. The SMART Working workstream seeks to promote all type of SMART working practices across the Savings and Investment Industry. Our mission is to encourage organisations to attract and retain the best and most diverse talent in order to cultivate inclusive multigenerational workplaces, and also to support and encourage all individuals to remain within the investment and savings industry throughout all life events.
Our 2023 objectives are:
- Launch and rollout a social media campaign to highlight different flexible working styles, which will include short profiles (both written and videos) on SMART working from both men and women in the Investment and Savings Industry (New Ways of Working)
- Collect and distribute data relating to member firms returning to the office, split by gender. Add new questions relating to this in the annual survey for member firms (Accountability and Measurement)
- Produce event(s)/ collaborative activity with other workstreams, using SMART working as an enabler for other aspects of diversity/ and with external third parties (Intersectionality)
- Highlight partners who promote job searching for SMART roles and those firms with SMART working practices (New Ways of Working)
Our call for action outlined in the SMART Working Manifesto for Change, presents a challenge to the investment and savings industry to ensure flexible working is encouraged and developed more strategically within organisations. For firms to retain and attract best and most diverse talent it’s important to bridge the gap between a reactive approach to remote working and a more inclusive long-term framework for smarter working that is future fit for a post-pandemic workplace.
Now more than ever it is even more key to ensure our industry embraces the SMART Working Manifesto for Change which outlines explicit actions firms should take in order to adapt a more sustainable and strategic approach to flexible working.
