Flexible Working: The Agenda for the Workplace Dr Clare Kelliher Steve Macaulay Over recent years there has been a lot of interest in the idea of flexibility of employment. Cranfield has been doing some research in this area and we are fortunate that Dr Clare Kelliher, who is heading up this research, is going to answer a few questions. Now Clare, let’s start off with what did you look at and what was coming out of the research? Clare Kelliher In the research we were interested to look at the impact of flexible working on employee performance and we defined employee performance in quite a broad way. So we were looking at a number of measures of employee performance to see whether or not, when people changed their working arrangements, whether or not it impacted positively or negatively on their performance at work. Steve Macaulay Right, because that is one of the concerns that many employers have; if they grant greater flexibility, productivity will go down the plughole. Clare Kelliher Well in fact our research showed some very positive effects on employee performance. We looked at both what we called the direct effect on performance, on the quantity of work they delivered, the quality of work, but also on indirect factors like employee stress levels and their level of commitment to the organisation, which had been shown by other research work to impact on employee performance. And perhaps contrary to some common opinion, we actually found the change in working arrangements frequently had a positive impact on the quantity and quality of work people delivered. Steve Macaulay So it sounds great news really; the employee benefits and the employer? Clare Kelliher I think there certainly is the potential for a win win situation, for employees to have greater choice over their working arrangements and for the employer to benefit in terms of improved performance. Having said that, I think I would say from our research that we found that these benefits, while potentially there, are not necessarily realised just by developing a policy on flexible working. Steve Macaulay So what do you need to do then to ensure that flexibility of employment actually works in practice? Knowledge Interchange Online© Cranfield University November 2009 1 Dr Clare Kelliher
Clare Kelliher Well a number of factors; I think first of all there are issues around providing support for flexible workers themselves – if people change their working arrangements, to provide support to help them to adjust to working in different ways. But not only for flexible workers, also for managers of flexible workers who perhaps need to manage people in different ways, but also co‐workers, people who work with flexible workers learning how to work with people who may be present at different times or less frequently in the workplace than perhaps those under formal normal working arrangements. Steve Macaulay One of the concerns that people have is that there will be people sitting at home doing nothing. Has that worked out in practice? Is that what actually happens? Clare Kelliher I think in most cases we have found that actually people who work remotely from home often tend to work longer hours and often are more productive in an environment where there are less distractions frequently than in the work place. But I think one of the issues that that raises is that there is a need to think about other HR policies and to reflect on whether or not existing HR policies are appropriate for employees who aren’t in the workplace, working normal times under a normal working arrangement. Steve Macaulay So what do you mean by that? Clare Kelliher Well, for example, many policies related to employee performance take in criteria of things like visibility and people’s networking in an organisation. People who spend less time in the workplace almost by definition have less opportunity to be visible and it may be that one needs to reflect on policies, so that they are performance driven rather than perhaps these other criteria which are sometimes taken into account. Steve Macaulay So if you were to set out some dos and don’ts, what would they be? Clare Kelliher Well, I think perhaps recognising what benefits can be gained from flexible working and thinking about how that can be facilitated. We have certainly found providing support for employees, but also thinking in a creative way about how work may be organised differently. Certainly in some of the organisations we worked with, we found that there were established ideas of what could and could not be done according to different working arrangements. But when people started to think creatively, then often work could be done in © Cranfield University November 2009 2 Dr Clare Kelliher
different ways, even though traditionally it hadn’t been done in that kind of a way. So I think there is a lot to be said for thinking outside the box in this context. Steve Macaulay Can you give me any examples where employers, once they started to think about this, did think creatively and it was successful? Clare Kelliher Yes; I think very often if people work together in a team there is often a view that the team has to be sitting in a room together, but as long as technology facilitates good communication within the team, I think there are other ways for teams to communicate and indeed in those companies that perhaps had virtual teams because their other team members might have been in other countries, working in different time zones, they were often able to adapt some of those practices to working in a domestic situation where flexible workers were involved. Steve Macaulay Now I know that you are about to embark on the second round of research in this area; what are you hoping to explore here? Clare Kelliher Well during the recession a number of companies have taken a slightly different take on flexible working, particularly asking employees perhaps to consider reducing their hours in order to reduce costs during the recessionary period. What we want to look at now is really how organisations may be able to bring together their needs for flexibility with employees’ needs for flexibility. So whereas in the past it has tended to be about employee choice, we are now focusing on looking at matching employer and employee needs. Steve Macaulay So the old stereotypes of a rigid, fixed nine to five environment in a workplace seem to be disappearing? Clare Kelliher I think that is very true. I think that the so‐called typical working environment is often not typical now, where you have people working according to different patterns, different locations and at different times. Steve Macaulay Thank you very much. Clare Kelliher Thank you. © Cranfield University November 2009 3