Digital Solution for Flexible Working Requests
Summary
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust introduced a fully digital flexible working request system through its Digital Workplace Portal (DWP) to improve accessibility, transparency, and workforce insight across the organisation. Replacing a paper-based process, the system streamlined how requests are submitted, reviewed, and approved through a consistent two-stage approach aligned to policy and co-designed with staff and managers.
Since launching organisation-wide in January 2025, the system has improved staff and manager experience, reduced administrative burden, and provided real-time workforce insight to support planning, retention, and organisational decision-making. The approach has also strengthened visibility of flexible working trends and outcomes, helping embed a more transparent and data-informed flexible working culture across the Trust.
The Challenge
Flexible working requests were previously managed through a paper-based, locally controlled process that was inconsistent, time-consuming, and lacked organisational oversight. Managers handled requests independently, resulting in limited visibility of volumes, outcomes, and decision-making patterns across the organisation. This made it difficult to ensure fairness, identify trends, or use data to inform workforce planning and improvement.
The absence of centralised data also meant the organisation could not effectively link flexible working usage to staff experience, engagement, or retention, despite clear evidence that work–life balance was a key driver of attrition, with 15% of leavers citing it as a reason for leaving. While overall staff survey results were strong in many areas, flexible working remained a recognised gap.
In addition, reliance on paper processes was inefficient and misaligned with wider digital transformation and sustainability goals. The challenge was to replace this fragmented approach with a consistent, transparent, and fully digital system aligned to policy and national NHS ambitions, improving accessibility, fairness, and workforce insight.
The Solution
An agile, multidisciplinary approach was used to design and deliver a fully digital flexible working solution, bringing together HR, People Services, Digital Services and operational stakeholders. This ensured the system was co-designed around the needs of both staff and managers from concept through to rollout.
The solution was developed iteratively, incorporating feedback from workshops and user testing to improve usability, accessibility and alignment with the flexible working policy. A post-launch “hyper care” period and ongoing feedback surveys enabled rapid refinement and continuous improvement.
A key feature of the system is an integrated dashboard linked to ESR, providing real-time insight into flexible working requests by team, demographics, request type and outcomes. This enables leaders to identify trends, improve consistency in decision-making, and support targeted workforce interventions.
Board-level reporting ensures organisational visibility of performance and impact. Overall, the solution delivers a sustainable, data-driven process that improves staff experience, strengthens workforce planning, and supports retention and flexibility across the organisation.
Result & Next Steps
Since launch in January 2025, the digital flexible working system has been fully adopted across the organisation and its subsidiary companies, standardising how requests are managed and creating a consistent, transparent process for all staff and managers.
In the first year, 1,007 requests were processed, with 91.46% approved. For the first time, the organisation has real-time, system-wide visibility of flexible working activity, including data on volume, approval rates, demographics, and request types. This enables monitoring of trends, identification of inequities, and development of targeted workforce actions.
The system has improved user experience, with staff and managers reporting a faster, clearer and more consistent process, reducing administrative burden and strengthening confidence in decision-making. The National Staff Survey 2025 also showed a statistically significant improvement in perceptions of flexible working.
The insight generated is now informing workforce planning, recruitment and retention strategies, including early identification of links between flexible working and turnover. Job adverts now actively promote flexible working opportunities, supporting attraction and retention from the outset.
The approach has also been shared through regional networks, including PPE (People Promise Exemplar) forums, where it has generated strong interest as a scalable model for improving flexible working culture and workforce sustainability across the NHS.
