A campaign to bring a more realistic view of flexible work in the UK to government and the public has been launched this month [September] by the REC.

Called ‘The Voice of the Worker’, the campaign will feature workers who choose flexibility – for example, to pursue goals such as education and building their own businesses or to accommodate long-term illnesses. The emphasis in employment commentary to date from the new Labour government has been on protecting vulnerable workers in low-paying jobs from exploitative employers. While a necessary aspect of the employment debate, experts contend that the picture is bigger, more nuanced and has not to date widely revealed how choosing to work flexibly as a temporary worker is a choice. Dramatic changes in the world of work have amplified the flexible work debate.

“It’s about really stripping it all back to individual workers, talking about why they do what they do,” Neil Carberry, REC CEO, told Recruiter. “Whether it’s someone building a radiography business to train the future workforce while still temping as a radiographer or it’s someone who is on the run-up to being the next [film director] Danny Boyle but needs to fund their way through film school, or a worker who’s living with a chronic condition and has to tailor their work to do that.”

He explained that the public and the government need to understand “the real social value that flexible work delivers, as well as the economic value, which I think we all understand in the industry”. He added: “When we talk to new government, I think they get why flexibility works from a corporate perspective.

“But I think the world has changed quite fundamentally from 10-20 years ago. We’re going to see more people choosing to work this way. We need to protect their options.”

Carberry described the campaign as “celebratory” and “telling stories in a positive way. So people can expect to see a lot of video across our social media channels but also in presentations around our events; we’ve got events through the autumn where we’ll be using this. We’re also really keen to help members use it, so there will be a toolkit available for members in terms of how they can use our materials and also how they can generate materials of their own and feed that back into us.

“I think there’s a whole range of ways in which we can mobilise the industry to fight for the good that temporary work and contracting does,” he said.

Carberry pointed out that half of the newly elected members of Parliament have never been MPs before, which creates an even larger imperative to spread the word about the contributions of flexible work and workers, and the recruitment industry to the UK economy. “And I hate to tell you,” he joked, “but not many of them are labour market specialists, so we’ve got a lot to do to tell a story about the labour market.”

Economic and financial journalists are generally the targets for employment-related stories, but Carberry acknowledged that this campaign will also be aimed at journalists who deliver “longer read-style stuff” in, for instance, lifestyle sections to tell these human interest stories. “You [the public] have to hear it from the worker’s mouth,” he said. “I think it’s about showing, rather than explaining, the difference we and they make.”

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