Jana Javornik speaks to Sarah Jackson, OBE, about Sarah’s experience in the charity sector where she worked with academics and government, campaigning for policy change and encouraging knowledge exchange around working families and flexible working. 

If you wish to get in touch about this episode, please contact Jana Javornik at research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk. A transcript of this episode is available. 

For more information about Leeds University Business School’s work with policymakers visit the website. 

About Sarah Jackson, OBE: 

Sarah is a work-life balance and flexible working expert. Her working life has involved campaigning, research and practical action to make paid work more inclusive of parents and carers. She is a Visiting Professor at Cranfield University School of Management, and an adviser, writer, and commentator on flexible and hybrid working. 

As chair of PiPA (Parents and Carers in Performing Arts) she has a particular interest in how the performing arts industry can use flexible working to become more inclusive in its employment of parents and carers onstage, backstage and offstage. 

She is a Senior Associate at Flexibility Works, where she chairs the employers’ hybrid working professional network, and is the research adviser on Flex4Life, the annual survey of workers and employers in Scotland. 

Sarah was, until 2018, the CEO of Working Families, where she commissioned the UK’s first research on the relationships between flexible working and performance. She chaired and judged the Working Families annual employer best practice awards. She also chaired the DWP’s Private Sector Employers Working Group on Flexible Working, which made early calls for jobs to be advertised flexibly, and which advised extensively on the ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation, and Arbitration Service) guidance to support the Right to Request Flexible Working. 

Further reading:  

• Flexible Working and Performance https://workingfamilies.org.uk/publications/flexible-working-and-performance/  Cranfield School of Business and Working Families, 2008 
• Working and fathers: Combining family life and work https://workingfamilies.org.uk/publications/working-and-fathers-combining-family-life-and-work/ Lancaster University School of Management and Working Families, 2011  
• The future of part-time working: the impact of flexible furlough?