COVID-19 was meant to usher in a flexible work revolution. But for part-timers, it’s making things worse.

• COVID-19 forced people to work from home, raising hopes workplaces could become less inflexible.
• But a report highlighted this week how the pandemic has hit those who were working part-time.
• In this op-ed, researcher Emma Stewart warns they face exclusion from workdplaces if nothing is done.
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

For those of us in the flexible working sphere, the pandemic has driven a focus on different ways of working.

It feels like a positive step forward. Perceived barriers have come crashing down.

The UK HR body Chartered Institute of Personnel Development has found evidence suggesting that productivity and wellbeing have improved in many cases.

There is an overall sense that many workplaces are undergoing serious transformation.

But a huge proportion of the changes are in where people work. The flexible working revolution has, in fact, largely been a remote working one, which mainly benefits workers who left their offices but still keep full office hours.

There has been little focus on when or how much people work.

For people in frontline roles, who can’t work from home, the “new normal” of remote working isn’t an option.

There’s a danger of a split evolving. And part-time employees, in particular, are being massively, and disproportionately, affected by the fallout of COVID-19.

This week, TimeWise, the consultancy I co-founded, published new research that revealed real inequalities.

In the first UK lockdown from March to July 2020, half the country’s part-time workforce were recorded as being “temporarily away from work” – furloughed under the government scheme to protect jobs of those who couldn’t work – or having their hours reduced.

This compared to just a third of full-time workers, who are also returning to work faster than part-timers. Rates of part-time employment have fallen to their lowest levels since 2010.

The result is that many part-timers feel as if they are clinging onto disappearing jobs. And for those who need to work part-time in order to work at all, getting another one won’t be easy.

A total of 80% of part-time workers do not want to work more hours but, with only 8% of jobs currently advertised as part-time, they will be looking for a needle in a haystack.

One reason this is happening is that many part-timers work in the sectors that have been hardest hit, such as retail, hospitality, and leisure.

Some have already been let go. For others, the furlough scheme (where the government pays 80% of salaries) is masking the fact that their jobs may no longer be viable, which will become clear when the scheme ends in September.

Another issue is employers still tend to see part-time staff as more dispensable than their full-time colleagues. Anecdotally, we are hearing part-timers are the first to be let go.

The result of all this is that people who need to work part-time are facing a stark choice – attempt to find a full-time job or leave the workforce altogether.

The former is often challenging because of the reasons they needed to work part-time in the first place.

Many people who work part-time do so because they are caring for someone or have health problems themselves. So while they may be able to sustain a full-time job in the short term, it’s unlikely to be sustainable, and may simply delay the point at which they have no choice but to leave the workforce entirely.

It would be ironic if the fallout from the pandemic, which has been heralded as a new era of flexible working, leads to people who need to work part-time being excluded from the workplace. But without action, that’s the future of work we’re facing.

Of course, some of these issues are systemic, and need to be tackled at a policymaker level. But there is also a great deal that employers can do to increase and improve part-time opportunities within their organisations.

They need to create more part-time roles. We know that huge numbers of people want to work flexibly, but that doesn’t just mean remote – thinking creatively about whether a job could be made to work across fewer days (or shifts) will immediately open it up to people who can’t work full-time.

Critically, employers need to make part-time jobs available at the point of hire. We know that candidates find it hard to ask for part-time as they fear being seen as uncommitted.

We’re also hearing that companies are struggling to find the right people to fill their vacancies. Both of these could be solved by increasing the number jobs advertised as part-time up front.

Offering part-time roles isn’t just a nice thing to do. It helps employers attract a wider, more diverse pool of talent; it helps them hold on to, and progress, the employees they already have.

And when it comes to wellbeing, it’s not a huge leap to suggest that giving people the ability to fit their work around the rest of their lives will make them happier, healthier and so more productive.

Emma Stewart is co-founder of flexible working consultancy TimeWise.