Dynamic Working

What is Dynamic working?

Dynamic Working is an approach where you deliver your priorities in a flexible way whilst maintaining service delivery. It is about delivering your contract of employment and the duties and responsibilities of your job role, but with the flexibility on where and how this is best achieved.

Policy Update – effective 1st September 2025

Our Dynamic Working policy was due for review in November 2024. We have taken a comprehensive look at the sector, other Birmingham employers including UoB, UCB, BCU and Newman University Birmingham and the latest research to understand how dynamic working at Aston can best meet the needs of 2025 and beyond. Feedback from students and staff highlights the importance of spending time together and time on campus, with UG and PGR students requesting more face-to-face interactions with academic staff, and our ongoing cross-functional projects and continuous improvement initiatives requiring broader teams to get together more frequently. The recent Great Places to Work highlighted challenges with clear and consistent communication and the desire to be more involved in the ongoing changes on campus.

The underlying principles and intent of the policy has not changed, and we still offer significant flexibility at HE sector leading level.

With effect from 1st September 2025, the Dynamic Working policy has been refreshed to include an expectation that hybrid working employees spend at least 60% of their time on site. This can be averaged over a suitable period for your department, providing flexibility to our employees while supporting our managers in being fair and transparent and trying to provide healthy work patterns.

Further information is below in Policy Guidance and FAQs.

Policy, Guidance and FAQs  

• Policy: 
  • Dynamic Working Policy up until 31/08/2025
  • Dynamic Working Policy from 01/09/2025
• FAQs:
  • FAQs up until 31/08/2025
  • FAQs from 01/09/2025
• Hybrid Working Action Plan for Managers

A Day in the Life and Case Studies

Case Studies

• Working towards Dynamic Working within APEC
• Working towards Dynamic Working within ECD 

Day in the Life

• Jiteen Ahmed - Hybrid Worker
• William Millar - On Campus Worker
• Sam Strong - Hybrid Worker
• Henriette Zeidler - Off Campus Worker
• James Timmis - Hybrid Worker

Manager Support

• E-Learning: Managing Remote Workers module
• Managers Checklist, Making it Work
• Hybrid Working in Action 
• Why great managers focus on outcomes, not output 
• How to manage by outcomes not hours 
• What Psychological Safety Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace
• What Great Mentorship Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace (hbr.org)
• How to Manage a Hybrid Team
• Five employee biases in a hybrid enviroment
• Article - Micromanaging your remote workers? Own it, then fix it
• Assessing roles for hybrid working - CIPD resources and support  

You may also wish to visit Organisational Development or Wellbeing at Aston. 

Employee Resources

• Parenting at Aston University 
• How to maximise your in office days 
• You may also wish to visit Organisational Development, Solve or Wellbeing at Aston. 

Agile Workspaces

To enable dynamic working, the University is creating a flexible estate with multiple working styles to support a new way of working. 

Visit the Agile Workspaces page to find out more.