How well do we understand the experience of flexible workers?
Flexible working should be a positive career choice for the individual and a benefit to the organisation.
Over time, there has been a steady and persistent rise in flexible working in Australia. In 1967, part-time employment was 10% of total employment. This had grown to about 32% by 2017. Interestingly, more recently, we have seen a decline in the number of people working the traditional 40-hour full-time week and a finding that 86 percent of total net jobs created in 2016 were part-time.
There are a couple of drivers for part-time work: first, changes in the pattern of modern life are seeing more people integrate work into other aspects of their life, family, education, and well-being; and second, employers are seeing the need for greater flexibility in the workplace to manage uncertainty.
For example, to focus for a moment on the Australian Public Service (APS), we see that in 1999, 7% of APS employees worked part-time, and in 2016, one-fifth of the APS was working part-time. Importantly, in response to the government’s restrictions on recruiting introduced in 2013, there was a sharp increase in the use of ‘non-going’ employees (or those employed for a specified term or specified task) over the next three years. In 2016, 56% of these positions were casual, 38% were full-time, and the remainder were part-time. Predominately, those employed in these roles were women.
In the APS, non-ongoing employment is a form of contingent labour. The use of contingent labour or the ‘gig economy’ is another way for employers to manage uncertainty and for employees to access work in a different (less than full-time) form.
The reasons for seeking flexible work arrangements are well known. Caring responsibilities are a core reason for accessing flexible work. Mostly, this is focused on caring for children, accounting for the high proportions of women aged between 25 and 54. However, an increasing number of people also have caring responsibilities for elderly parents, which, over time, may broaden the profile of those seeking flexible work. Other likely drivers are the need to balance work and education, particularly for those in their early career. For those seeking to enter the workforce, flexible work can be the bridge to full-time employment. For others, there is a desire for a better work-life balance, and flexible work is a preference. For some, full-time work is not available, so they create a portfolio of flexible work.
The rise in the contingent workforce of freelancers and independent contractors may signal the emergence of a new driver for flexibility, the desire for variety, and autonomy in the experience of work. A deliberate choice to work outside traditional organisational structures in a way that has been made more possible through technology.
However, working differently, often less than full-time, comes with challenges for the individual. There is a persistent concern that flexible work comprises lower-quality work in an organisation. A concern is that the work is packaged from the ‘left overs’ of full-time employment. Consequently, it is not a ‘real job’. It positions those working flexibly as ‘less than’ full-time employees. This can be reinforced by being less likely to participate in learning and development and not being part of a recognised career structure. This lack of investment can be seen as reducing the value of the flexible worker’s contribution to the organisation over time.
Qualitatively, the experience of flexible work can be quite different. A lack of social connection in the workplace may lead to isolation. The dogged insistence on line-of-sight management can reinforce feelings of isolation and reduced contribution.
The lost connection with work can be experienced in many ways—the sense of diminished value, the need to over-achieve to ‘justify’ flexible arrangements (for example, through being overly ‘flexible’ or working longer), feelings of belonging to the ‘second eleven’ in terms of contribution to the team performance, or the sense that they have sacrificed career progression in organisations where commitment is defined by permanent employment. Flexibility puts promotion opportunities at risk and is accompanied by a sense of a plateaued career reinforced by reduced salary.
For the individual, flexible work comes with its own stresses and strains that can be alleviated or aggravated by how the flexible work is packaged and managed. Notwithstanding these strains and differences, those participating in flexible work are often as engaged as their full-time counterparts, but they are engaged for different reasons, some of which are not obvious.
A study conducted by the APS in 2012/13 shows employees who indicated they teleworked (as one form of flexible working) had higher levels of employee engagement than those who did not. These results of the study showed the complexity of the way in which the experience of flexible working can impact not only those accessing flexible work but also those who are not. The study concluded that where organisations offer a genuine opportunity for employees to participate in flexible work, employee engagement has a positive impact, even if employees do not engage in flexible work. Conversely, discouraging flexible work either implicitly or explicitly can have a negative impact on overall employee engagement.
So, there is nuance is the experience of flexible work. The way the work is positioned, packaged, and managed can have an impact on the experience of work, not only for those working flexibly but also full-time employees. People value the choice in their work engagement, even if they don’t exercise that option.
Those accessing flexible work see the workplace and work through different eyes. There is a need for both employees and employers to understand this nuance and recognise that flexible working is a different form of work, not a paler imitation of full-time work.
While the request for a flexible arrangement has often been driven by the need to improve work-life balance, those accessing these arrangements can find that working differently comes with its own stresses and strains that are no less real or important than the pressures of full-time work.
This is a challenge for the individual to acknowledge and master but also for managers to understand and accommodate. If the organisational goal of flexible work is to increase adaptability and productivity, focusing on drivers of engagement for those choosing to work flexibly becomes important. But the responsibility for making the arrangement work is shared.
Those participating in flexible work could be re-positioning work in relation to other aspects of their life, potentially to a lower priority, or alternatively, as a deliberate approach to building skills and experience through a portfolio of jobs. The portfolio approach is a useful example to show that depending on where you stand influences how you understand flexible work. When seen from the perspective of a single employer, the role may be captured as ‘part-time’, but when seen through the eyes of the employee, the same role is but one portion of ‘full-time’ employment. In each case, flexible work is a deliberate choice that carries within it an engagement with work that is different from full-time work.
Flexible work is a growing part of the experience of work, and the range of employment forms is broadening. Accessing the best and most capable workforce will require organisations to think closely about how work is packaged and managed to recruit and retain the best workforce.
Managing flexible work as part of an integrated workforce must improve. It must be a natural and deliberate part of structuring work rather than an afterthought or a nice-to-have. Flexible working should be a positive career choice for the individual and benefit the organisation.
About the Authors
Sally Dorsett is passionate about improving access to flexible work. She has been responsible for leading and implementing workplace change to improve flexible working practices throughout her career.
David Schmidtchen is fascinated by people, work and organisation. He is interested in the growing diversity of employment types and how organisations will respond.
