We first compare and contrast current conceptualizations of workplace flexibility in order to arrive at a definition in harmony with its contemporary use: 'the ability of workers to make choices ...influencing when, where, and for how long they engage in work-related tasks'. Next, we situate workplace flexibility in its theoretical contexts to provide researchers with a clearer understanding of what workplace flexibility is, what its mechanisms of operation are, and why it may be related to other concepts. Finally, we present a conceptual framework of antecedents and consequences of workplace flexibility, including illustrative examples of several basic associations from the peer-reviewed literature.
This Practice and Policy paper presents reflections on the opportunities and challenges of using a novel big data set, Microsoft 365 digital activity records, in a mixed method study of flexible ...working. Our experience identified methodological and ethical considerations for practitioners and researchers in public sector workforce analytics. The benefits include data captured in situ and over time for all employees. The limitations reflect the inadequacy of big data for representing the complexity of organisational behaviour and the need to accompany data collection with systems ensuring employee privacy and consent for the use of data not originally recorded for research or evaluation purposes. It contributes to knowledge through providing insights into what public sector big data sets contain and how such data can be accessed, interpreted, and used in workforce decision-making.
Workers who request flexibility are routinely stigmatized. The authors experimentally tested and confirmed the hypothesis that individuals believe others view flexworkers less positively than they ...do. This suggests flexibility bias stems, in part, from pluralistic ignorance. The authors also found that flexplace requesters were stigmatized significantly more than flextime requesters. Given this finding, they recommend research distinguish between different types of flexwork. In a second study, they assessed whether exposure to information suggesting organizational leaders engage in flexible work reduced bias. They found that when the majority of high-status employees work flexibly, bias against flextime (but not flexplace) workers was attenuated.
Little is known about the link between flexible work arrangements and health behaviors, such as physical activity. This study aimed to explore how self-efficacy and daily barriers to physical ...activity influence daily levels of physical activity on workdays when university staff members used a flexible work arrangement (flextime or telework).
Full-time university staff employees (N = 61, mean age = 41; 89% female) participated in this daily diary study. Participants completed an initial survey followed by daily surveys over the course of one workweek, resulting in 281 diary days.
The most frequently reported barriers to physical activity were as follows: lack of time, feeling tired, and not enough motivation. Multilevel models revealed that as the number of barriers increased, minutes of physical activity significantly decreased. Self-efficacy was not significantly related to daily physical activity. Participants reported fewer minutes of physical activity on flextime workdays compared to days when a flexible work arrangement was not used (ie, traditional workday). Daily use of a flexible work arrangement did not moderate the association between barriers and physical activity.
This study illustrated the influence of daily barriers and flextime workdays on physical activity levels, which can inform workplace health programs for university staff.
Working through platforms is a recent but fast-growing phenomenon, with obvious implications for workers' rights. Discussions have so far focused on the status of platform-based workers, but, ...recently, a growing consensus is emerging by courts around the world that workers for platforms such as Uber are in fact employees. As a result, legal disputes are likely to shift, to a large extent, from status questions to working-time questions. This might seem like a very specific issue, but, in fact, it has crucial implications for the entire model of platform work, and addressing this question requires us to rethink some of the fundamental pillars of labour law, notably whether more room should be opened for flexibility and individual choice within this system. We argue that one aspect of the platform model - 'work on demand,' which allows workers to log into the app whenever they wish to do so - poses a difficulty. Workers should be compensated for the time they are 'on call' and available to work. But platforms can be expected to respond by assigning workers to pre-set shifts to avoid paying for an unknown amount of working hours, thereby dismantling the 'on-demand' model. Such a change would be welcomed by many employees, who will gain more security, but others can be expected to object to losing the flexibility which they value. We consider possible solutions that could allow workers to choose the 'on-demand' model. While rejecting the possibility of allowing employees to waive on-call compensation rights, we consider several intermediate solutions that ensure partial payments for this time or exempt employees with another full-time job. The proposed solutions are based on the understanding that more choice is preferable in labour law as long as we can protect the interests of the affected employees and eliminate the externalities that some choices might generate for other workers.
What can reduce cognitive failures at work and home domains is relatively unknown. Moreover, even though it has been assumed that employees who use flexible work arrangements will have more resources ...at home, this has never been empirically tested. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, which posits that resources can generate new resources to create a gain spiral and impede demands, this study examines the relationships between workplace flextime use, perceived control at work and home, and cognitive failures at work and home. With data from 229 employees that responded to surveys at two time points, our findings demonstrate that workplace flextime use can lessen employees’ cognitive failures at work and home by increasing their perceived control in both domains.
This study explores the influence of workplace flexibility on work-life conflict for a global sample of workers from four groups of countries. Data are from the 2007 International Business Machines ...Global Work and Life Issues Survey administered in 75 countries (
N
= 24,436). We specifically examine flexibility in where (work-at-home) and when (perceived schedule flexibility) workers engage in work-related tasks. Multivariate results indicate that work-at-home and perceived schedule flexibility are generally related to less work-life conflict. Break point analyses of sub-groups reveal that employees with workplace flexibility are able to work longer hours (often equivalent to one or two 8-hr days more per week) before reporting work-life conflict. The benefit of work-at-home is increased when combined with schedule flexibility. These findings were generally consistent across all four groups of countries, supporting the case that workplace flexibility is beneficial both to individuals (in the form of reduced work-life conflict) and to businesses (in the form of capacity for longer work hours). However, work-at-home appears less beneficial in countries with collectivist cultures.
The authors examined the relation between the availability of 2 popular types of flexible work arrangements (i.e., flextime and compressed workweek) and work-to-family enrichment and, in turn, the ...relation between work-to-family enrichment and (a) job satisfaction and (b) turnover intentions. In a sample of 220 employed working adults, hierarchical regression analyses showed that work-to-family enrichment mediated the relation between flexible work arrangements and both job satisfaction and turnover intentions, even after controlling for gender, age, marital status, education, number of children, and hours worked. Thus, the availability of flexible work arrangements such as flextime and compressed workweek seems to help employees experience greater enrichment from work to home, which, in turn, is associated with higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intentions. The authors discuss the implications for research and practice.
PurposeUsing the Canadian General Social Survey of 2016, a large nationally representative dataset, the present paper compares different types of flexible work arrangements in their associations with ...employee wellbeing and organizational outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThe dataset contains 7,446 observations. Informed by the past scholarship, eight outcomes of job satisfaction, work-life balance satisfaction, organizational belonging, job motivation, perceived advancement prospects, perceived job security, workplace social capital, and turnover intentions are investigated.FindingsFirst, employees with both flextime and flexplace, and only flextime, have a significantly higher job and work-life balance satisfaction. Second, the possibility of working from home without any discretion over timing does not elicit positive wellbeing outcomes. Third, the results show that the combination of flexplace and flextime is synergistic. Fourth, rather unexpectedly, the positive associations of the FWAs with work-life balance satisfaction are stronger among men and women without dependent children. Finally, there are significant positive associations for the combination of flexplace and flextime, and flextime alone, with other outcomes, such as organizational belonging and job motivation, especially among men.Practical implicationsGiven the nonrandom assignment of the workers into the FWAs, the results only reflect ceteris paribus correlations.Originality/valueThis is the first Canadian study of flexible work arrangements, using a large nationally representative dataset.
Drawing on data from the 2008 U.S. National Study of the Changing Workforce, this study (1) examines the associations between access to three types of flexible working arrangements—flextime, ...flexplace, and culture of flexibility—and psychological distress, (2) tests the mediating roles of work–family conflict and work–family enrichment, and (3) investigates whether these relationships differ by workers’ childcare or elder-care obligations as they intersect with gender. Results show that a flexible workplace culture, but not access to flextime or flexplace, is associated with lower psychological distress. Work–family conflict and work–family enrichment partially mediate the relationship between culture of flexibility and psychological distress. In addition, the negative effect of culture of flexibility on psychological distress is stronger among workers sandwiched between preschool childcare and elder-care compared with those with neither caregiving obligations, a pattern especially pronounced among women. We discuss these results and their implications for organizational practices and worker well-being.
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