6 Working Time and Flexibility PDF

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Lecture notes for the topic: working time and flexibility...

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Working Time and Flexibility Reading Atkinson, J. (1984) Flexibility, Uncertainty and Manpower Management, IMS Report No.89, Institute of Manpower Studies, Brighton. Green, F. (2001), ‘It’s been a hard day’s night: the concentration and intensification of work in late twentieth century Britain, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 39(1):53-80. Grimshaw, D. and Rubery, J. (2010) ‘Pay and working time: shifting contours of the employment relationship, in T. Colling and M. Terry (eds) Industrial Relations: Theory & Practice. Grugulis, I. (2017), ‘Flexible Work and Flexible Workers’. A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about HRM. Sage. Kossek et al., (2009) ‘Work-life initiatives and organizational change: Overcoming mixed messages to move from the margin to the mainstream’, Human Relations, 63(1): 3-19. Lewis et al., (2007) ‘The constraints of a ‘work-life balance’ approach: an international perspective’ The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18(3): 360-373. Pollert, A. (1988) The ‘Flexible Firm’: fixation or fact?, Work Employment and Society, 2(3): 281-316. Rubery, J. (2015) ‘Change at work: feminisation, flexibilisation, fragmentation and financialisation’, Employee Relations 37(6): 633-644. Taylor P and Bain P (2002) ‘Work organization, control and the experience of work in call centres’, Work, employment and Society 16(1):133-150. Watson (2012) Sociology, Work and Organisation. Chp. 6. ‘The changing organisation and control of work’.

Working Time and HRM Working time links with HRM in the following areas: ● Working time and the wage-work bargain ● Working time as a collective bargaining topic ○ Decline in joint regulation ● Managing working time as a source of productive efficiency ● Regulating working time ● Working time as a source of contestation

Working Time in the UK The recent trend in the UK is an apparent decline of ‘long’ working hours. In 1996 23.5% of employees worked more than 45 hours per week - this is now only 18% in 2013. Within this figure there are still differences between men and women. Some account this to the recession and underemployment.

In order to account for this decline in ‘long hours’ there has been some changes to the corporate climate: - Structural changes in the economy - Growth of part-time employment - Greater emphasis and desire for a work-life balance (WLB) - More women in the labour market - Working time laws However, there is evidence of working time polarisation in the UK: 1) Paid and Unpaid Work - This is still a major source of excessive working hours for some, especially for managers and manual workers 2) Institutionalisation of Overtime - Many people argue that working overtime has become a social norm, and as such we have created a source of inefficiency 3) Presenteeism Culture - This is the practice of being present at one's place of work for more hours than is required, especially as a manifestation of insecurity about one's job - Many argue this is a prevalent culture in the UK

Culture of Presenteeism As previously mentioned, this is staying at the workplace for longer than necessary. Typically this is attributed to job security, and recent academics like Johns (2010) believe it can be expanded to include attending work while ill. The CIPD Absence Management survey 2015 showed that 31% of respondent employers noted an increase in presenteeism over the last 12 months. Why?

The prevalence of this concept is put down to many reasons… ➔ Choice - commitment to the organisation ➔ Rejection of work-life balance ➔ Management coercion towards presenteeism ➔ Work intensification ➔ Peer pressure ➔ ‘Macho’ workplace cultures

Flexibility of Labour Further trends in UK employment show a greater focus on flexibility of labour (Rubery, 2015). The term flexibility is used in several different ways in relation to work, notably: ● Overall concept / discourse of a flexible labour market ● Temporal flexibility ○ Varying working hours and patterns ○ E.g. part-time, job sharing, overtime, flexi time, ‘zero hours’ ● Numerical flexibility ○ Varying size / structure of workforce ○ Temporary, fixed term, agency staff ● Locational flexibility ○ Training employees to perform a wider range of tasks ○ Multi-skilling ● Financial flexibility ○ Variable pay

Types of Practice Part-time Working - Work is generally considered part-time when employees are contracted to work for anything less than full-time hours (avg. 35+ hours per week) Term-time Working - A worker remains on a permanent contract but can take paid / unpaid leave during school holidays Job-sharing - A form of part-time work where two (or occasionally more) people share the responsibility for a job between them Flexitime - Allows employees to choose, within certain set limits, when to begin and end work Compressed Hours - Reallocation of work time into fewer and longer blocks during the week Annual Hours - The period within which full-time employees must work is defined over a year Working from home on a regular basis - Workers regularly spend time working from home

Mobile Working / Teleworking - Permits employees to work all or part of their working week at a location remote from the employer’s workplace Career Breaks / Sabbaticals - Extended periods of leave - normally unpaid - of up to five years or more

Reasons for Growth Significant academic research has gone into identifying why there is a growth of working time flexibility, notably by Grimshaw & Rubery (2010) and Rubery (2015): ●

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Economic / Labour Market Changes ○ Rise in service sector where part-time work is more common ○ Growth in female employment Employer Demand for Labour Flexibility ○ Provides employers with more ‘efficient’ use of labour ○ Less costly Workers’ Demand for Flexibility ○ Women, especially, looking for a WLB

Critical Analysis Employers Benefits

Employees Drawbacks

Benefits

Drawbacks

Boosts employee morale

Some employees might not work efficiently without supervision

Flexibility to better meet family and personal needs

Difficult for officebased staff to work as effectively with telecommuting staff

Reduces tardiness and absenteeism

Compressed work weeks may mean client availability suffers

Reduces commuting time and expenses

Working from home may mislead loved ones about your availability

Reduces employee turnover

Feelings of unfairness when only certain employees have work that can be done remotely

Greater control over time schedule and working environment

No clear dividing line between home and work

Enhances company image as a familyfriendly place to work Conflict

Can work during the hours that fit your energy cycles best

Wilson and Greenhill (2004) suggest that employees working from home may experience increased conflict between their work and home lives because they are in effect 'available' to both domains at the same time. Furthermore, there will be conflict between employers and employees over flexible working times as they themselves weigh up the benefits and drawbacks discussed, aiming to minimise their own poor interests. Mutual Gains Mutual Gains aims to solve the previously discussed conflict, and is the theoretical area in which flexible working is most effective (CIPD, 2005):

Orga Indivi nisati dual onal Need Need s Cust s omer M Need ut s

Employee choice is crucial for mutual gains (Wood, 2016). The benefit to the employee is based on whether the type of flexible working is wanted or not wanted. If they are wanted then they both benefit from: Benefits to Employers... ● ● ● ● ●

Lower costs More productivity Commitment Lower staff turnover Lower absenteeism

u al G ai n Benefits to Employees... s ● ● ● ● ●

Better work life balance Enables caring Less stress Improves health Reduces absence

Thus the consensus is that flexible working time can potentially mutually benefit both employers and employees. However, there is an adverse impact for some workers depending on the type of worker / job e.g. higher paid professionals may have more control and autonomy over their working time than low paid low skill workers. As a result, employers generally benefit more in the competing demands of employers and employees.

The Flexible Firm (Atkinson, 1984)

The Flexible-Firm Model is a managerial and organisational technique used to optimise the allocation of human resources in accordance with market instability and workforce flexibility. It defines two clear groups of workers, the core and peripheral groups, which are organised within the company based on three types of flexibility: functional, financial and numerical. The core group consists of full-time primary workers and internal workers who are integral to the functionality of the organisation, functionally-flexible and difficult to replace, due to high-level skills, knowledge and experience. The peripheral group consists of secondary workers, who are often less skilled and less experienced. The numbers of people in the peripheral group is highly variable, as their skills are easily available in the labour market. This means that they can be sourced at short-notice, in accordance with the number and type of particular tasks and are often only needed at particularly task-heavy periods of the week. The peripheral group can be divided into two sub-groups: the first peripheral group, consisting of the aforementioned low-skilled, often part-time and flexible workers, and the second peripheral group, which is made up of large volumes of agency staff, outsourcing and subcontractors. Reasoning

Underemployment Underemployment is a measure of employment and labor utilisation in the economy that looks at how well the labor force is being utilised in terms of skills, experience and availability to work. Labor that falls under the underemployment classification includes those workers who are highly skilled but working in low paying or low skill jobs and part-time workers who would prefer to be full-time.

Demographic

Underemployed workers are most likely to be: ● Part-time ○ 24% of part time workers want more hours ● Young ○ 2/10 of all workers ages 16-24 want more hours in work ● Low-skilled ○ 23% of low skilled workers are underemployed ○ Particularly… ■ Lollipop Ladies / Men ● 39% ■ Cleaners ● 31% ■ Bar Staff ● 33% ● Low-paid ○ There is a £7.49 average hourly pay for the underemployed ● In the East Midlands ○ 10.7% of workers in the EM are underemployed - the highest % in GB

Zero-Hour Contracts Zero-hour contracts are casual contracts with no guaranteed minimum hours, and no job security. According to CIPD research one million workers in the UK are on 0 hour contracts - 4 times more than previously thought. However, it is difficult to measure the extent of them as many employers may not admit to using them, and workers may not realise they are on them. Zero hour contracts are most common in the… ➔ Hotel, Catering and Leisure Industry ◆ 48% ➔ Education Industry

◆ 35% ➔ Healthcare Industry ◆ 27% Big employers who use zero hour contracts include:

However, some employers do advocate for zero hour contracts as they allow greater flexibility in workforce planning. Growth

Work-Life Balance (WLB) Work–life balance is the term used to describe the balance that an individual needs between time allocated for work and other aspects of life.

HRM and WLB - A Contradiction -

Kossek et al (2010) Mescher et al (2010) Lewis et al (2007)

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Kelliher and Anderson (2010)

Work Intensification (Felstead et al, 2013) It is commonly theorised that to achieve a wage-work bargain, extra effort needs to be put in. There is growing evidence that greater effort is now expected of workers by management: work intensification has accelerated in Britain since 2006. Speed of work has quickened and pressures of working to tight deadlines has risen to record highs. This can have a consequential negative physical and psychological impact on workers, including: ● Illness ● Stress ● Depression ● Exhaustion ● Poor morale Causes Felstead et al (2013) did further research into why there has been an increase in work intensification over the years. Supply-Side Factors... There is some evidence of supply-side influence of work intensification: - Greater job satisfaction - More highly skilled jobs - Greater discretion and responsibility But work intensification seems to be mainly driven by… Demand-side Factors: - Greater competitive pressures - Impels managers to pursue greater flexibility and efficiency from staff, reduce costs, and generally demand more effort from workers - More sophisticated ICT - Speed up production and service delivery and monitor output / productivity - Rigorous performance management arrangements - To increase control over workers and intensify effort levels And overall the ‘24 hour society’ we are working towards.

Extreme Flexibility Despite all of the positives of flexibility we have discussed, there is still the possibility that - as Cheryl Cole said - too much of anything can make you sick. In the long term, extreme flexibility could cost employers:

Insecurity

Costs of Recruiting

Loss of Tacit Knowledge

Diminished Commitmen t

Labour Turnover

Legal Regulations As a result of the evident issues present at both ends of the flexible working time scale, there are some legal regulations: The EU Working Time Directive 1993 The UK Working Time Regulations 1998 ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔

Maximum average 48 hour week 11 hours rest in any 24 hours 20 minute break any 6 hours Restrictions on night work Minimum 4 weeks’ paid holiday (20 days)

Further to this, in 2014 the UK Government brought in legislation that allowed employees to request flexible working for any reason. All employees with 28 weeks service or more have the right to request, and all employers are duty bound to consider any requests in a ‘reasonable manner’. Prior to this legislation the right to request flexible working hours was only given to those employees who are carers of children or adult dependants.

Evaluation of the Legal Regulations The UK Working Time Regulations 1998 allow employees to opt out of the max 48 hour working week, which sparks a lot of controversial debate. Further to this, there is a limited impact of the WTR and many see it as a ‘health and safety failure’. Some critics have put this down to political hostility from the Conservative Party towards EU employment law. Resultantly, there is speculation of a departure from this once the UK leave the EU and are no longer bound by this Directive....