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Latest flexible and home working news from Insights

Read the latest articles on flexible and home working published in ICAEW's Insights hub.
Displaying 1-50 of 50 results
Two people looking at the laptop having a conversation
Employment Rights Act: practical implementation tips for small firms
  • Article
  • 31 Mar 2026
  • ICAEW Insights
Changes to UK employment rights will reshape almost every aspect of the employment relationship, from contracts to dismissal, expanding rights for workers and creating significant new obligations for employers. What can businesses do to prepare?
Five ways to compete for finance talent in SMEs and small practices
  • Article
  • 30 Jan 2026
  • ICAEW Insights
With software industry salaries tempting career entrants away from the accountancy profession, finance recruitment in small businesses and practices must emphasise human factors.
5 multi racial hands placed down on table
Caring for the carers – how to be a carer-friendly employer
  • Article
  • 09 Jun 2025
  • ICAEW Insights
Unpaid carers are one of the fastest growing demographics within the UK working age population. In this Carers’ Week, we offer tips on supporting employees who juggle work with caring responsibilities.
Two people looking at the laptop having a conversation
How to make hybrid working work
  • Article
  • 16 May 2025
  • ICAEW Insights
Hybrid working boosts employee productivity and motivation – and yet employers want staff back in the office. Here are some tips on forging a strategy that works for everyone.
A female sitting at her desk with laptop open while writing on a piece of paper
Employment Rights Bill ‘could overburden businesses’
  • Article
  • 25 Apr 2025
  • ICAEW Insights
With SMEs in particular feeling the impact of increased employment costs, elements of the Employment Rights Bill could make hiring untenable, according to ICAEW members.
Group of people around a table having a meeting
The importance of people and culture when scaling up
  • Article
  • 17 Apr 2025
  • ICAEW Insights
Understanding how to create and nurture the right company culture is a key element in ensuring the success of a growing business.
Female in smart attire working on her laptop
The headhunter’s view: the downside to remote working
  • Article
  • 22 Oct 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
Want to get ahead? Get into the office, says Mark Freebairn.
5 multi racial hands placed down on table
How to be a family-friendly employer
  • Article
  • 11 Oct 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
Making it easy for your staff to juggle family commitment alongside their jobs will reap rewards. In this National Work Life Week, we offer tips on meaningful family-friendly strategies that should be on your radar.
Female in smart attire working on her laptop
Is the opportunity for remote working becoming more…remote?
  • Article
  • 28 Jun 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
New data shows there are fewer opportunities for fully remote roles. But what does this mean for a return to the office in the accountancy profession?
A great communicator makes for a successful CFO
  • Article
  • 18 Apr 2024
  • Kelly Smith, CFO, Kantar Insights UK & Republic of Ireland
Kelly Smith is CFO, Kantar Insights UK & Republic of Ireland, one of the UK and Ireland’s leading market research companies. Smith talks about why good communication is key to good leadership, worrying about climate change, and challenges her peers to find ways to maintain engagement in a world of hybrid working.
Flexible working law changes come into effect
  • Article
  • 05 Apr 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
New flexible working laws come into force tomorrow (6 April) giving employees greater rights to flexible working. Are you ready for the reforms?
Flexible working top priority for job seekers
  • Article
  • 25 Jan 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
Employers need to offer more than pay rises to attract finance and accounting professionals, latest research shows.
Navigating common hybrid working challenges
  • Article
  • 22 Aug 2023
  • ICAEW Insights
Hybrid working has become part and parcel of the accountancy world, but it has also thrown up some significant workplace challenges. Dr Amanda Jones offers solutions to common conundrums.
Reimagining work in the post-pandemic era
  • Article
  • 14 Jul 2023
  • ICAEW Insights
With hybrid working on the rise, it is more important than ever for organisations to deliver an effective workplace, whether physical or virtual, say Eugenia Anastassiou and Chris Kane.
Managing mental wellbeing in remote teams
  • Article
  • 15 Jun 2023
  • ICAEW Insights
With one in eight people now working exclusively from home, the director of one fully remote business shares his tips for prioritising wellbeing for remote teams.
Four-day week: what happens after a successful trial?
  • Article
  • 27 Apr 2023
  • ICAEW Insights
More than 60 companies and almost 3,000 workers recently completed a six-month trial of a four-day working week, on full pay. We spoke to one of the firms that took part.
Supporting staff through Ramadan
  • Article
  • 21 Mar 2023
  • ICAEW Insights
Communication, support and empathy can ensure your Muslim colleagues can celebrate their faith without it impacting their work while also creating an inclusive workplace that is respectful of all employees, regardless of their religious beliefs.
Skills and traits the accountancy profession needs most
  • Article
  • 22 Feb 2023
  • ICAEW Insights
Having shaken off that dusty, backroom image to become front-of-house business advisers, today’s accountants also require softer skills, underpinning how integral they have become to the wider success of any company.
The finance team toolkit part 4: the right people
  • Article
  • 17 Feb 2023
  • ICAEW Insights
If the current war for talent shows us anything, it’s that systems and processes are nothing without talented people. Here finance transformation executive, Neil Cutting focuses on the ‘people pillar’ of organisational transformation.
Making flexible working work for your organisation
  • Article
  • 17 Feb 2023
  • ICAEW Insights
The head of business group the CBI believes that most bosses secretly want everyone to come back into the office. But against a backlash from staff, how will the flexible working debate pan out?
Working from home tax relief claims may still be possible for 2022/23
  • Article
  • 18 Jan 2023
  • ICAEW
ICAEW’s Tax Faculty highlights that employees should check whether they are eligible to make a claim.
A golden era for an older and wiser workforce
  • Article
  • 05 Dec 2022
  • ICAEW Insights
Many people in their 50s, 60s and 70s are adding another chapter to their working lives, and organisations would do well to make the most of this valuable source of labour and experience.
Quiet quitting and how to prevent it
  • Article
  • 20 Oct 2022
  • ICAEW Insights
It may be the buzzword of the moment, but it can have a huge impact on businesses. Jeremy Campbell of Black Isle Group offers advice to keep the whole team pulling together.
Recruiting and retaining talent in a volatile market
  • Article
  • 14 Oct 2022
  • ICAEW Insights
If businesses want to bypass the inflation-busting salary hikes to attract top accountant talent, they need to offer more flexible working arrangements, warns the director of specialist recruiter.
Four-day week won’t work for small accountancy firms
  • Article
  • 12 Aug 2022
  • ICAEW Insights
To make the four-day week work, firms would have to increase their fees by 25% to match the required output, “which wouldn’t go down too well with clients”, says director of small accountancy practice.
Accountancy firm Cooper Parry joins four-day week trial
  • Article
  • 12 Aug 2022
  • ICAEW Insights
April Bembridge, Partner and Chief People Officer at Cooper Parry, explains how the firm is changing its working practices in order to attract the best talent.
Employers must be more creative to recruit and retain talent
  • Article
  • 01 Jul 2022
  • ICAEW Insights
Hybrid working is a clear favourite among employees, but organisations must devise strategies for inclusion and keep staff engaged and motivated on an on-going basis, PwC research finds.
Four-day week: the trial begins
  • Article
  • 08 Jun 2022
  • ICAEW Insights
As of Monday, a four-day working week – on full pay – became reality for more than 3,300 people around the UK. Is this the beginning of a new shift in working patterns?
Four-day week: is it time to make the change?
  • Article
  • 14 Mar 2022
  • ICAEW Insights
“The initial reaction was, ‘Woohoo!’ – followed by ‘how are we going to do that?’” A four-day week sounds like a dream come true when it comes to work-life balance. But can it work?
Making the most of flexibility
  • Article
  • 15 Feb 2022
  • ICAEW Insights
Successfully managing a hybrid working model can support your diversity and inclusion initiatives, help you attract more job candidates and enhance productivity and engagement, says Liz Sebag-Montefiore.
Protect yourself from payment diversion fraud
  • Article
  • 15 Oct 2021
  • ICAEW Insights
Incidents of payment diversion fraud are on the rise due to increased home working leaving remote staff more susceptible to being tricked. Here’s how to spot the signs.
Exclusive Why HR and finance need to join forces
  • Article
  • 11 Aug 2021
  • Steve Black
  • Business and Management
Remote work compliance is more important than ever. HR and finance need to work together to navigate its complexities, Topia’s Steve Black explains
Tax news in brief
  • Article
  • 21 Jul 2021
Highlights from the broader tax news week ending 21 July, which includes: HMRC clarification on working from home deduction, confirmation that CJRS and SEISS grant claimants cannot participate in MTD ITSA pilot and new VAT1 form for manual registrations, as well as HMRC's priorities for 2021/22 and its plans for dealing with tax debt.
Managing a hybrid workforce: is out of office out of mind?
  • Article
  • 11 May 2021
  • ICAEW Insights
With working patterns likely to be permanently affected by the pandemic, many employers are facing a change in the way people value work and their expectations of how they will be managed.
Cyber threats in 2021
  • Article
  • 14 Apr 2021
  • Krystle Reid
A greater reliance on remote working has brought into focus the new and existing threats to technology and infrastructure, as Krystle Reid reports.
Exclusive Employee feedback within remote working
  • Article
  • 13 Apr 2021
  • Matt Casey
  • Business and Management
Managing staff and giving constructive feedback when working from home is essential – but what is the best approach? And which comms tools should you use? Matt Casey updates his golden rules for the new normal
Remote working part 5: workplace of the future
  • Article
  • 15 Mar 2021
  • ICAEW Insights
The concluding part of ICAEW’s remote working series picks the brains of two finance professionals who have worked remotely long before COVID-19. What can they teach chartered accountants?
Remote working part 4: recruitment and training
  • Article
  • 12 Mar 2021
  • ICAEW Insights
In the fourth part of ICAEW’s series on remote working, we hear two chartered accountants’ perspectives on how the shift online has affected recruitment and training.
Remote working part 3: the lack of ‘real life’
  • Article
  • 10 Mar 2021
  • ICAEW Insights
In the third part of ICAEW’s remote worker series mental health speaker Nick Elston explains what can be done to ensure people don’t feel disconnected in a home working environment.
Remote working part 2: slung in the deep end
  • Article
  • 09 Mar 2021
  • ICAEW Insights
Instalment two of ICAEW’s remote working series explores how one business completed an 18-month project in two weeks by shifting whole workforces from office to home working.
Remote working part 1: virtually onboarding new talent
  • Article
  • 08 Mar 2021
  • ICAEW Insights
In the first of a new remote working series, we speak with a CFO on their experience integrating a whole business through remote acquisition, as well as a recent virtually onboarded employee.
Exclusive Measuring employee productivity at home
  • Article
  • 16 Feb 2021
  • Business and Management Faculty
  • Business and Management
As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, practices for working remotely have become entrenched. The onus is now on employers to adopt more sophisticated and sustainable ways to monitor the levels of output from their staff. Paul Golden reports
Exclusive The four skills remote managers need
  • Article
  • 16 Nov 2020
  • Oliver Deacon
  • Business and Management
Oliver Deacon argues that, to succeed in the new era of remote work, managers need to dedicate more time to communication, context, clarity and culture.
Salary survey 2020
  • Article
  • 14 Oct 2020
  • Business and Management Faculty
  • Business and Management
As 2020 began, Brexit was the great unknown, the surrounding uncertainty permeating all areas of business – and there’s no doubt that included discussions about remuneration. We take a look at the highs and lows of salaries in the UK accountancy world
HMRC confirms usual hours calculation for flexible furlough
  • Article
  • 30 Jun 2020
  • Caroline Miskin
30 June 2020: The day before flexible furloughing is introduced to the CJRS, HMRC has confirmed to ICAEW how usual hours should be calculated. The answer is not the logical one, but it aligns with the published guidance.
Is a communication strategy necessary for remote working?
  • Article
  • 10 Jun 2020
  • Oliver Deacon
17 June: For a virtual team to run effectively everyone has to know when to communicate and what tools they should be using. Oliver Deacon argues that not only is a communication strategy vital, but that it is crucial that managers lead by example.
The four skills remote managers should focus on
  • Article
  • 10 Jun 2020
  • Oliver Deacon
10 June: Coronavirus has highlighted the challenge of managing individuals and teams that cannot meet face-to-face. Leadership coach Oliver Deacon argues that to succeed managers need to dedicate more time on communication, context, clarity and culture.
Exclusive A practical guide to dealing with a social media crisis
  • Article
  • 06 Apr 2020
  • Christina Newberry and Sarah Dawley
Some of the problems that businesses have to deal with now involve social media, where reputations can be won and lost instantly. Christina Newberry and Sarah Dawley report.
Exclusive Merits of a four day week
  • Article
  • 12 Dec 2018
  • Alison Coleman
  • Business and Management
A few organisations are considering shortening the week to four days. What are the advantages for employers?
Exclusive Success of senior level flexible working
  • Article
  • 01 Jan 2008
  • Pam Walton
  • Business and Management
The suspicion that senior and managerial roles, or certain types of jobs, cannot be effectively worked on reduced hours or on a flexible basis can be a real barrier to men and women reaching their potential if they choose other than full-time, fixed hours.
Displaying 1-50 of 50 results