In reality, expanding flexible work arrangements entails more than sharing online tool kits, surveying workers’ preferences, purchasing self-scheduling software, or hiring consultants to become more “phygital” (physical plus digital). As a result, most companies approach the task superficially. Third, some leaders assume that when employees are permitted to work flexibly, they automatically experience more harmony in their work-life balance.īut these rationales oversimplify the challenge in making flexibility core to an organization’s strategy and operations. Second, employees - especially Millennials - are threatening to quit unless they’re granted flexibility. This is for three key reasons: First, businesses believe that the 24/7 remote-work form of flexibility can be leveraged to support productivity. Yet coming out of the pandemic, a growing number of companies have announced that they plan to “ embrace flexibility,” particularly in a hybrid working model. Even companies that were early leaders in piloting extensive flexible working - such as IBM and Bank of America - began pulling back on those arrangements several years ago, because they felt their businesses weren’t benefiting. It’s no wonder that managers struggle with how to let employees work when and where they do so best. This variation reflects the fact that the word “flexibility” is vague its implementation can differ from organization to organization, department to department, and even within teams. She studies the role of work-life flexibility practices as a strategic human resource lever for individual and organizational productivity. Kaumudi Misra is an assistant professor of management at California State University, East Bay. The last shows that flexible scheduling is a critical (yet unsolved) competitive issue for many organizations. The third expresses frustration about the barriers to flexibility. The second is contingent on dire circumstances. The first focuses on special arrangements for nonwork activities. I don’t want that to be the reason we can’t produce. We can’t get enough staff on the weekends to run the production we need to run - even with eight different schedule options. I often resorted to mandatory Zoom meetings on Friday nights at 6 PM, because that was the only calendar opening for key staff members. If a family member is ill or someone has been in a car accident, it’s no issue to leave work.īecause of the way that the units are staffed and scheduled, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of flexibility. I accommodate employee needs for time to go to the gym during lunch or take a class by allowing a special arrangement with respect to the work schedule. Over the course of our work we have asked leaders to tell us how they do so (or not). We are researchers who study how organizations of all types - from professional services and IT firms to hospitals, retail stores, and manufacturing facilities - manage flexibility. But what does flexibility at work look like in practice? And how can you know whether your team or organization is using it successfully? As organizations tentatively plan how to get work done amid the uncertainty of the coronavirus, both leaders and employees are touting the benefits of flexibility.
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