Flexible Working in Organisations

A Research Overview

Clare Kelliher, Lilian M. de Menezes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780815356325
• eBook ISBN: 9781351128322
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

There is growing interest in flexible working, not only as a means to manage labour more efficiently and for greater agility, but also as a response to increasing concerns over well-being, work-life balance, and participation in the labour force of those with significant non-work commitments (e.g. parents, carers, older workers). As a result, a comprehensive stream of literature on the benefits and challenges of flexible working has developed and led to a body of evidence on the implementation and outcomes of different forms of flexible working arrangements. Of interest to students, academics and policy-makers, this book provides an expert overview of the empirical evidence and offers critical commentary on the state of knowledge in the field of flexible working and new forms of work.

1
Introduction and background

This book is about flexible working in contemporary organisations. In the following pages we will examine the background to the recent growth in flexible working; the prevalence of organisational policies offering flexible working arrangements and the extent of uptake by employees; the evidence in relation to outcomes for employers and employees and present an overview of some of the contemporary debates about flexible working, including the different organisational approaches to flexible working (employer- and employee-driven) and the extent to which employer and employee needs can be matched. We will examine the different types of flexible working arrangements according to what is being changed and how the arrangement is established.

Flexible working, in its broadest sense, has become increasingly prevalent in many parts of the world in recent decades. In several economies, flexibility in relation to employment has become a central business discourse and one which is strongly linked to businesses needing to be more competitive and agile in a fast changing world, as well as employers acting more responsibly by recognising the challenges employees face in combining work with their non-work lives and expressing concern for employee well-being. Flexible working may enable organisations to match their need for labour more closely with supply, allow them to be more responsive to changes in their environment, and to attract and retain groups with significant non-work commitments (e.g. parents, carers, older workers) who may not wish to, or be able to, participate in traditional ways and thereby achieve greater diversity in their workforce. Many employers have introduced policies, initially termed ‘non-standard’ working arrangements,¹ which challenge the traditional model of working (typically full-time, at the workplace, during designated working hours) in relation to the location of work, the timing of work and the amount of work done. Governments, at national and regional levels, and policy-makers have also become increasingly interested in flexible working and the opportunities it offers to employees and employers, the wider economy and ultimately to society.

Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, flexible working has attracted considerable attention from the academic research community. Research interest in flexible working stems from the late 1970s, when scholars in applied psychology became interested in examining the effect of flexitime on worker performance (Golembiewski, Hilles and Kagno, 1974; Schein, Maurer and Novak, 1977). In 1979, in a Harvard Business Review article, Nollen (1979) assessed the empirical evidence from studies of flexitime in US corporations. Although Nollen’s assessment highlighted that differences in managers’ experiences of flexitime were non-significant, he concluded that, although based on small samples, mostly positive results had been reported and had highlighted positive attitudinal outcomes from workers and their managers that could potentially be of benefit to employing organisations. Since these initial studies, the literature has been extended to include research from different fields, including human resource management and economics and has grown at an increasing pace since the 1990s. There now exists a considerable, multi-disciplinary body of research which has examined the provision and uptake of flexible working,² the outcomes for both organisations and for individuals, and the factors that may influence these outcomes. In this book we aim to present an overview of this extensive body of empirical evidence and to reflect on the evolution and current state of knowledge about flexible working arrangements.

This introductory chapter will present a brief background to the development of research on flexible working. First, it will examine the main approaches to flexible working (flexibility of and flexibility for employees), exploring the motivations behind these different approaches and the contexts in which they have emerged. In addition, the section will distinguish between the types of flexible working arrangements according to what is being changed (timing, location, amount of work) and the way in which it is established (formal or informal). The section will also introduce the contemporary debate in policy and practice circles about trying to match employer and employee needs under the banner of agile working and contrast this debate with wider perceptions of flexibility in workplaces.

Chapter 2 will start with an overview of the changing competitive landscape and the social policy and legislative environments in which the various approaches to flexible working have been introduced in different parts of the world. It will examine the evidence on the prevalence of flexible working policies and the degree of uptake. It will also address the research concerned with identifying drivers of both availability and uptake and identify conditions that may facilitate or impede changes to working arrangements.

Chapter 3 will present a summary of the extant research investigating the outcomes of flexible working arrangements. It will start by providing details of the literature searches carried out. It will then examine the various definitions and measures of flexible working that have been adopted in the literature in more detail. The body of the review presents the evidence on outcomes for employers (e.g. performance, employee retention, organisational commitment etc.) and for employees (e.g. job satisfaction, well-being etc.) and the factors which influence these relationships. It will consider outcomes that may contribute to the ‘dual agenda’, providing concurrent benefit for employers and employees and potentially to society more generally. In addition, this section will analyse the outcomes from different flexible working arrangements (remote working, flexibility over working time, reduced hours), where the extant literature allows for inferences to be made.

The final chapter will assess and offer some comment on the extant body of knowledge in the field, identifying its limitations and weaknesses. It will evaluate the methodological approaches adopted thus far, their suitability to capture changes in working arrangements and their outcomes. The chapter will conclude by offering suggestions on directions for future research to pursue.

Defining flexibility

Despite its common usage, the term flexibility has been used in a number of different ways. These include flexibility in relation to the labour market, indicating an absence of regulation, organisational flexibility, or adaptability in response to change in the environment and flexibility relating to employment. In this book, flexibility in relation to employment will be our main focus. However, even in this sense, the term flexibility has been used to represent a broad spectrum of working arrangements. At a general level, flexible working practices can be divided according to whether they are employer-driven (primarily concerned with efficiency, productivity, speed of response and competitiveness) or employee-driven in the sense that they are intended to accommodate employees non-work lives and help them achieve a satisfactory work–life balance (Zeytinoglu, Cooke and Mann, 2009). These two forms are sometimes referred to as flexibility of and for employees (Alis, Karsten and Leopold, 2006). The primary concern of this book is to examine the research relating to flexibility for employees; however, in order to place these developments in context, some attention will be given in this section to flexibility of employees. In doing so, we demonstrate how in practice some of these working arrangements look broadly similar, thus offering the potential for matching the interests of the employer with those of the employee.

Drivers of flexibility

Changes to working practices, including the growth of flexible working arrangements, have been fuelled by a number of more general economic and societal changes that have been observed in recent decades. These include increased competitive pressures faced by businesses, developments in information and communication technology (ICT), greater global integration and supply chains and changes in the workforce resulting from demographic and attitudinal trends (Kelliher and Richardson, 2012). Greater competitive pressure results in organisations searching for ways to manage labour more efficiently and for means to attract and retain talent. Organisations may also need to develop ways which allow them to become more adaptable and responsive to changes and uncertainty in their business environments, as, for example, by being able to increase and decrease labour use in line with demand via the use of short-term contracts. The recent development of the ‘gig economy’ is a more extreme example of this, since workers are contracted for a specific ‘gig’, often through an online platform, rather than for on-going employment. For example, a delivery driver may be offered work to pick up food from a restaurant and deliver it to a customer via an app on their mobile phone. Similarly, the growth in the number of self-employed workers in some countries is in line with this trend and has, in some cases, been bolstered by so-called ‘bogus self-employment’ (Keizer, 2013), where an employer requires their employees to become independent contractors, to then provide services to their former employer.

A recent report by Eurofound and the International Labour Office (2017) argues that new information and communication technologies have revolutionised everyday work and life, by enabling connectivity at any time and from wherever an internet connection is available, thereby uncoupling work from traditional notions of a workplace. Developments in digitisation and the availability of cloud computing, in particular, have meant that many types of work are no longer tied to a specific location. Workers can quite literally do their work from anywhere, and this has facilitated a higher degree of choice for employees over where and when they work. However, this uncoupling of work from a specific location has also provided employers, looking to reduce accommodation costs, with the opportunity to decrease the amount of workspace they provide. For many organisations, this has entailed removing individually allocated workspace and a move to a ‘hot desking’ environment, with an added expectation that employees work remotely for a proportion of their working time. The ubiquity of mobile technology and the ability to be constantly connected has also changed expectations about employee availability and speed of response. Thus, technology does not only enable employees to connect to work from remote locations and at nonstandard times, but has also fostered an environment where a high degree of connectivity and timely responses are expected by their employer (Barley, Meyerson and Grodal, 2011; Collins and Kolb, 2012; Matusik and Mickel, 2011; Perlow, 2012).

Greater global integration generates the need for communication and coordination with colleagues and clients in different time zones and with different work week patterns (e.g. in some Gulf states the weekend falls on Thursday and Friday or Friday and Saturday). This may mean that working hours, or days, have to be adjusted in order to achieve real-time communication. This is likely to be particularly significant for multinational organisations and partners in global supply chains, and consequently where teams are distributed in different regions or time zones (Collins and Kolb, 2012). Greater global integration may also increase competitive pressures, for example, where product manufacture or the delivery of back office services are transferred to low-wage economies, thereby requiring organisations to look for more innovative and efficient use of labour.

Alongside these developments in the business world, there have been more general demographic and societal changes that have precipitated the need for greater flexibility. Chen and Fulmer (2018) argue that changes in workforce demographics have prompted a greater number of employers to offer workplace flexibility to employees. These changes include the greater participation of women in the workforce and the increasing number of dual-earner families, resulting in the need to juggle the demands of home-life with work; older workers transitioning out of the workforce; and employees pursuing other activities, such as education or personal interests alongside work. To be competitive in the labour market, employers have responded by developing policies to help employees balance work and non-work commitments. Increased life expectancy, coupled with declining birth rates, has meant that, in many countries, there is a need to encourage people to continue working for longer. The provision of alternative working arrangements both can encourage people to remain in the workforce for longer (or even re-enter), but may also facilitate participation in work by older members of the population, who are unable to work in traditional ways (Eurofound, 2015; Loretto and Vickerstaff, 2015). For example, home working may allow those who are less mobile and unable to travel to a workplace to continue in employment.

Governments have also actively encouraged greater flexibility both for individuals and in the labour market. Employers have sought to introduce more flexible, and recently termed agile, work practices and have also offered greater choice to employees over their working arrangements. For example, the UK first enacted the so-called ‘right to request’ flexible working legislation in 2003, allowing parents of young children to request flexible working and extended this to carers in 2007 and parents of older children in 2009 and subsequently to all employees in 2014. Previous policies had specifically addressed work-family issues, for example, a National Care Strategy (1998) to assist working parents and a work–life balance campaign (2000) attempted to persuade employers of the economic benefits of family-friendly policies (Dex and Forth, 2009). Flexible working policies were advocated by government and campaigners as beneficial for parents, children and businesses, and the economic argument presented that such practices enabled organisations ‘to retain staff in whom they have invested and on whom they depend’ (DTI, 1998, p. 31). More recently, the UK Equalities and Human Rights Commission has advocated that all jobs should be made available on a flexible working basis, in order to increase opportunities for everyone and to give individuals greater choice about the roles they play at work and at home (Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2017). The Australian and New Zealand governments have also enacted similar legislation and the right to work part-time is available to parents, for example, in the Netherlands and in Germany. In the USA, a Presidential Memorandum issued in 2014 provided the right to request flexible working to federal government employees and provided support for flexible working more generally. Elsewhere, in countries including France, flexible working has been supported through company-level agreements, including the well-publicised ‘right to switch-off’ agreement, where employees in a bank gained the right to switch off work devices, such as phones and tablets, during specified periods of time, and company e-mails were also prohibited at these times (Vargas, 2016).

Flexibility of employees

Flexibility of employees, or employer-driven flexibility, is designed to allow organisations to increase efficiency by utilising labour in non-standard ways, which enable them to match supply and demand and be more responsive to changes in their environment (Bryson, 1999). Whilst this form of flexibility is not the primary concern of this book, we briefly introduce it here, not only to distinguish between different sides in the flexibility debate, but also to allow us to explore the potential behind recent initiatives attempting to match employer and employee requirements for flexibility.

Flexibility of employees can be described according to Atkinson’s seminal model of the flexible firm (Atkinson, 1985). This model identified a number of different ways in which employers might use labour in pursuit of organisational flexibility. These include numerical, functional, temporal and spatial flexibility. Numerical flexibility refers to managing labour in a way where the numbers of employees and/or the total number of hours worked by employees are adjusted in line with demand. Thus, for example, this might include the use of temporary, part-time and zero-hours contracts allowing employers to tailor their employment levels to business patterns. More contemporary developments such as increased use of self-employed workers (real and bogus) and the development of the gig economy can be seen as extensions of this trend. Functional flexibility is where employers are able to deploy their staff across a range of tasks. This improves efficiency in the management of labour by reducing ‘idle time’, since when demand for one type of work is low, employees are redeployed to other work where demand is higher. The extent to which employers can gain from this depends on their ability to forecast demand across their activities and the range of skills their employees possess. Kelliher, Gore and Riley (2002) identified both breadth and depth of functional flexibility. Breadth refers to the range of tasks an employee can be deployed to, whereas depth refers to the extent to which they are able to fully take on an additional role, or merely provide assistance. Temporal flexibility relates to the timing of work. Typically, this has been concerned with the use of shifts, but also relates to arrangements such as annual-hours contracts and compressed working time in forms where it is the employer who varies when time is worked. Spatial flexibility refers to flexibility over the location of work. Traditionally, this has been concerned with the employers’ ability to deploy employees across different work sites.

Flexibility for employees

This form of flexibility is the major concern of this book. Whilst no universally accepted definition of flexible working exists, here we focus on forms of flexibility which enable employees to make changes to the timing, place and amount of work undertaken, in line with their preferences (De Menezes and Kelliher, 2011; Council of Economic Advisers, 2014). This form of flexibility is offered to employees to help them achieve a more satisfactory work–life balance. Although primarily concerned with work–life balance and employee well-being, there is evidence to show that there are also benefits for the employer, for example, in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and table
• 1 Introduction and background
• 2 Availability and uptake of flexible working
• 3 Reviewing the literature on outcomes of flexible working arrangements
• 4 Observations and conclusions
• References
• Index