O p p ortunit ies to w ork at home in the
context of w ork-lif e balance
Alan Felstead and Nick Jewson, University of Leicester
Annie Phizacklea, University of Warwick
Sally Walters, University of Leicester
Discussion of `work-life balance’ and `family-friendly’employment is much in vogue
among politicians and business leaders. Often, but not always, working at home is
included within such practices. However, the concepts of work-life balance and familyfriendly are commonly left ill-de® ned by re sea rchers and policymakers alike. In this
article we outline formal de® nitions of these terms, which place spatial issues ± and
hence working at home ± at the heart of the debate. This leads us on to examine
working at home through the theoretical lens offered by attempts to explain the rise of
work-life balance arrangements. Twelve hypotheses emerge from the literature and are
tested on the management data contained in the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations
Survey or WERS98. Many of these hypotheses pass weak statistical tests but fail on
stronger logistic reg ression tests. The article shows that the option to work at home is
m o re likely to be available in the public sector, large establishments and work
env ironments in which individuals are responsible for the quality of their own output.
These workplaces are typically less unionised but not especially feminised.
C o n t act: Alan Felstead, Reader in Employment Studies, Centre for Labour
Market Studies, University of Leicester, 7-9 Salisbury Road, Leicester LE1 7QR.
Email: Alan.Felstead@le.ac.uk
M
uch of recent government labour market policy in Britain has focused on
`getting people back to work’, an election pledge made by Labour in 1997.
Low unemployment rates not seen for almost 25 years and the success of the
New Deal in getting 250,000 young people off bene® t and into the labour market are
just two of the indicators heralded by government ministers as evidence that they have
honou red this pledge (Hales et al, 2000; Financial Ti m es, 8 February 2001). In addition,
the re is mounting evidence that paid employment is one of the most effective ways of
preventing social exclusion and inequality, another pledge made by Labour on coming
to power (Social Exclusion Unit, 1999; Rahman et al, 2000).
However, there is a gloomy side to the story; putting it bluntly, over-work can be bad.
The experience of long hours at work and intense working conditions can have
detrimental consequences for workers’ health, psychological wellbeing and family life
(B urchell et al, 1999). Not only has this link been demonstrated in various studies (eg
London Hazards Centre, 1994; Institute of Management, 1995; IDS, 2000), but survey
evidence also suggests that work today is more intense than a decade ago, with the most
notable source of increased effort coming from peer pressure (Green, 2001). In the face of
this evidence, the government has set itself an additional task of rebalancing the worlds of
work and home. Various initiatives have been launched with this aim in mind. The desire
to facilitate the combination of employment and caring responsibilities can be seen in
various consultation documents, the setting up of advisory committees and the extension
of legal rights designed to allow parents to cope better with the pressures of work and
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Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Annie Phizacklea and Sally Walters
childcare responsibilities. Foremost among these are the Work and Parents Green Paper
(DTI, 2000a), the Advisory Committee on Work-Life Balance (DfEE, 2000) and the
introduction of the right to take up to 13 weeks off work to look after a child or arrange
childcare as part of the 1999 Employment Rights Act. In other countries, too, these issues
are receiving considerable government attention (see Evans, 2001, for a review).
This article analyses and explores working at home in the context of theories and
existing evidence relating to policies and programmes designed to address work-life
balance. This strategy is adopted for two reasons. First, the phenomenon of homelocated working has increasingly been discussed within the broader context of a raft of
so-called work-life balance practices and family-friendly policies. Secondly, the social
science literature that seeks to explain the rise of such policies and practices suggests a
range of hypotheses that point towards issues and aspects of employment relations that
1
have not previously been fully discussed in the context of home-located wage labour. It
is not suggested that this literature is the only, or even the primary, theoretical lens
th rough which to examine working at home; there are other valid and important
a pp roaches (see, for example, perspectives adopted by Allen and Wolkowitz, 1987;
Hakim, 1987; Phizacklea and Wolkowitz, 1995; Baruch and Nicholson, 1997; Huws et al,
1999; Felstead and Jewson, 2000; Baruch, 2000). However, a focus on theories that
attempt to explain the popularity of `family-friendly’ and `work-life balance’ issues has
generated a useful set of questions in its own right. The themes and hypotheses
e m e rging from this literature will be evaluated by drawing on the empirical data
generated by the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98), a nationally
representative survey of workplaces in Britain.
There is, however, a major problem with this strategy. The concepts of family-friendly
and work-life balance remain theoretically cloudy and empirically ill-de® ned. Little
systematic effort has been devoted to identifying their central features. All too often they
are taken to be a loosely linked collection of assorted low-level initiatives and practices,
without theoretical or conceptual coherence. More over, the concept of family-friendly
appears recently to have been overtaken by the broader notion of work-life balance, which
potentially offers something to all employees, not just those with families.
To counter the problems of competing de® nitions, a brief conceptual discussion is
given below, attempting to de® ne terms and identify the spatial location of work as
central to these concepts. Following on from this, two bodies of existing re search are
con si de red: the general literature on work-life balance and family-friendly employment
and the particular literature on the issues and challenges working at home poses for
management. Twelve testable hypotheses emerge from the discussion. A brief outline is
then given of the methodology and characteristic features of WERS98. The results of
the analysis are tested and the hypotheses the article sets out to test are re¯ ected on.
The ® nal section offers some conclusions.
DEFINING `WORK-LIFE BALANCE’
Employment may be conceived as the purchase of workers’ time and presence ± but only
for part of the day, week or year (see Harvey, 1999; Felstead and Jewson, 1999). Spaces and
times of employment have boundaries, therefore, which are juxtaposed to non-work times
and places. Structurally complex societies require the negotiation of these boundaries ±
both in the sense of establishing where they lie and managing the process of crossing from
one life activity to another. This occurs across a lifetime (entering and exiting the
workforce), annually (holidays) and daily (starting and ® nishing work). Hence, in this
sense the concept of work-life balance is inherent to modern societies because work is
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
55
Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance
constituted as a separate realm from the rest of life. We can, therefore, de® ne work-life
balance as the relationship between the institutional and cultural times and spaces of work
and non-work in societies where income is predominantly generated and distributed
through labour markets.
Employers purchase workers’ time and their attendance at a designated place or space.
The times and spaces purchased in the labour market can be conceptualised, in the life
world of the worker, as attention and presence. Employment re q u ires attention and
p resence, although these are always indeterminate and are subject to control and
surveillance by management. Workers necessarily adopt more or less conscious practices
by which they co-ordinate, synchronise and integrate work and non-work aspects of their
lives ± the attention and presence of employment and non-employment. Work-life balance
practices may be de® ned as those that enhance the autonomy of workers in this process.
In particular, there are two dimensions of relative autonomy that are signi® cant here. First,
there are practices that increase the variety of ways in which workers are able to relate
spheres of work and non-work. Thus, for example, where workers have the choice to
work part time or full time, ¯ exi-hours or job-share, they are able to relate work and nonwork in a variety of different ways. Secondly, there are practices that facilitate change, or
variation, in the ways in which workers relate the spheres of work and non-work: for
example, returner policies, sabbaticals, long leave, parental leave and paid holidays all
offer ways in which workers may construct for themselves the boundaries of work and
non-work. In short, work-life balance practices are those which, whether intentionally or
not, increase the ¯ exibility and autonomy of the worker in negotiating attention and
presence in employment.
Whe re such practices are deliberately designed and implemented they may be
referred to as work-life balance policies. Such policies may be reg a rded as work-life
balance managem ent strategies when deliberately adopted in order to incre a s e
productivity or profitability of the organisation. The presenc e of these practices,
therefore, is not suf® cient proof of the existence of policies or management strategies.
The bene® t of this approach to de® ning the notion of work-life balance is that it
provides conceptual containers into which may be put a plethora of concrete employment
practices. Furthermore, work-life balance is not conceptualised as necessarily the product
of management, nor of an underlying commitment to the welfare of the workforce. It is
also readily apparent that, thought of in these terms, work-life balance practices, policies
and even management strategies are far from new. It is possible to discern a continuum
that enables us to map long and short-term changes towards and away from greater
variety and variation in employment relations. For this article, however, the most
important point to note is that our de® nitions put issues about the spatial location of work
± what we call the presence of workers ± at the centre of the debate. Hence, working at
home can be seen as relevant to and conceptually part of work-life balance, practices,
policies and strategies. This provides a framework for the article since it suggests that
theories and data relevant to an understanding of work-life balance and family-friendly
practices may also cast an interesting and instructive light on home-located working.
EXISTING EVIDENCE AN D TESTABLE HYPOTHESES
Having established that working at home may be conceptualised as intrinsic to work-life
balance debates, this section examines the theoretical literature on the concept, with a view
to identifying key issues relevant to an understanding and analysis of working at home.
T h ree major themes in the debate can be identi® ed: the extent of family-friendly
employment, the business bene® ts that can result and the factors associated with the
56
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Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Annie Phizacklea and Sally Walters
adoption of these practices (Forth et al, 1997; Dench et al, 2000; Dex and Smith, 2000;
Hogarth et al, 2000; Cooper, 2001). The third of these is the one most relevant to our
present focus. This aspect of the debate is most developed in the US, where data across
organisations are readily available for analysis. Four theoretical positions have been
identi® ed that seek to explain the factors associated with the adoption of work-life balance
practices: institutional theory, organisational adaptation theory, high commitment theory
and situational theory (see the useful and in¯ uential summary by Wood, 1999b). Each
starts from the observation that interest in family-friendly employment and work-life
balance has intensi® ed in recent years and each offers predictions about where in the
economy they are most likely to be prevalent.
The differences between the theories revolve around the predictive characteristics that
they identify. A cc o rding to institutional theory, organisations reflect and conform to
normative pressures in society, albeit to varying degrees (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983;
Oliver, 1991). These variations are explained by the extent to which organisations need to
maintain social legitimacy. `Conformists’ are more likely to be found among both large
private sector firms that are readily visible because of their size and public sector
organisations that are ultimately accountable to the electorate. Small private sector
employers, on the other hand, are less likely to require social legitimacy to function and
hence are more impervious to these societal pressures. However, `keeping up with the
Joneses’ will push competing organisations in the same industry or line of business to
imitate each other’s employment practices for fear of falling behind. Failure to do so may
damage their reputation with suppliers, customers and existing workers, and it could
make re c ruitment more difficult (McKee et al, 2000). Following the same logic,
organisations in which trade unions are present are exposed to the scrutiny of outsiders
and might, there fore, be more likely to conform to behavioural norms than organisations
where they are absent. However, their presence might work in the opposite direction by
encouraging institutional rigidity and thereby inhibiting pressures to conform emanating
from outside the organisation. On this basis, the adoption of work-life balance practices is
predicted to vary according to size, sector, unionisation and industry.
However, much of the recent research in the ® eld has attempted to go beyond this
rather simplistic explanation (eg Morgan and Milliken, 1992; Goodstein, 1994; Ingram and
Simons, 1995). It starts with the idea that organisations must respond to societal norms
and expectations but examines how these become known, are recognised and taken on
board by management. This is known as organisational adaptation theory. This perspective,
therefore, retains the predictors proposed by institutional theorists but adds others that
relate to the processes through which the organisation recognises and interprets the
changing world around it. It also entertains the idea that organisations may defy pressure
to conform.
These additional factors are typically said to include the characteristics of the
workforce, the way in which work is organised and management attitudes to issues of
work-life balance. The theory suggests, for example, that the gender composition of the
workfo rce in¯ uences the extent to which management recognises these as important
issues. Speci® cally, organisational adaptation theory posits that the greater the proportion
of female staff employed, the more responsive an organisation is to societal pressure. This
proposition is made on the grounds that women make the strongest demands for these
working practices. However, other types of employment may mitigate this effect. For
example, high levels of part-time working among women may diminish the importance
management attaches to the delivery of other aspects of the work-life balance package.
In a similar vein, other features of work organisation may serve to enhance or
weaken organisational responsiveness to societal pre ssure. The type of work carried out
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57
Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance
is one of these aspects. It is assumed, for example, that professional and managerial
workers are more mobile and hence more willing to move between employers if their
terms and conditions do not incorporate societal norms, re gardless of whether or not
they articulate these expectations. For the same reasons, highly skilled workers who are
d i f® cult to replace are able to exercise similar leverage over their employers. Wo r k
design, too, is likely to affect an organisation’s willingness to countenance work-life
balance employment practices. In organisations that already allow workers a great deal
of latitude in the way they carry out their tasks and the pace at which they work, further
concessions in terms of when and where work occurs are predicted to be more likely.
A c c o rding to organisational adaptation theory, perception and interpretation of
societal norms will also be in¯ uenced by the values held by senior management. A n
attitude among senior managers, for example, that the organisation has a duty to help
individuals reconcile work-family con¯ icts increases the chance that work-life balance
issues will be recognised and solutions found. This conducive attitude may stem from
the demographic characteristics of the management team. Top managers may themselves
be dealing with work-family con¯ icts that make it dif® cult for them to ignore when
others are similarly affected and hence more willing to introduce such policies. However,
it should also be noted that, while managers’ personal experiences may increase the
probability that the dif® culties of working and caring are recognised, managers who
have comfortably solved their own problems may not see the need for an org anisational
response; indeed, they may interpret the issue as one for individuals alone.
High commitment theory has also been advanced in recent years to explain the
d i ff e rential use of work-life balance employment policies and practices acro s s
organisations. This stems from an interest in work systems and worker-management
relationships that aim to raise employee commitment to the organisation (Gallie et al,
2001; Wood, 1999a). Ty p i cal l y, these HR innovations revolve around ways to foster
g reater co-opera tio n between managem ent and workers, and o pen up more
management decisions and information to worker scrutiny (Felstead and A s hton ,
2000). Authors working in this tradition (eg Osterman, 1995) argue that employers can
enhance further organisational commitment by demonstrating that they understand
and are tolerant of the con¯ icts that can occur between work and other aspects of life.
Offering employees the option to work ¯ exibly in order to balance these competing
demands is the most obvious gesture that employers can make. High commitment
the or y, theref ore, suggests that there is a link between an organisation’s HR strategy
and its adoption of family-friendly employment practices.
Re s ea rch suggests that the introduction of working at home, whether as part of a
work-life balance management strategy or for other reasons, can generate perceived
problems for management in control and surveillance of the workforce. While all
employers use a variety of means of monitoring the prog ress of employees and ensuring
that quality standards are met, the literature suggests that employers who offer their
employees this opportunity at home are more likely to use a range of performance
management techniques (DTI, 2000b; Dwelly, 2000; Huws, 1993). The particular tactics
used depend on the type of management environment. In low-trust environments, for
example, reward structures based on payment by results ensure that workers at home
police themselves, since lower productivity directly leads to lower pay (Felstead and
Jewson, 1996, 1997 and 2000). On the other hand, high- trust working-at-home
envi ronments are characterised by frequent prog ress meetings, team get-togethers and
the setting of mutual targets agreed between those working at home and line managers.
Si m i l a rl y, in these environments the quality of work is more likely to be assessed
indirectly through client feedback and by individual workers themselves. A ppraisals,
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Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Annie Phizacklea and Sally Walters
too, are considered to be a feature of best practice employment in this area (Employment
Department, 1995). Working at home is sometimes re g arded as being best suited to
solitary activities. This can lead to problems of isolation and detachment from the
o rganisa tio n. However, there is some evidenc e that it can also be adopted in
teamworking environments but only with considerable effort. All of these ® ndings are
based either on surveys of employers (eg Huws, 1993) or on detailed case studies of a
number of high pro® le schemes (eg Huws, 1997; Industrial Society, 2000). It should be
noted, however, that both types of re s e a rch rarely incorporate control groups with
which to make comparisons. The WERS98 results reported below offer a far more
comprehensive database from which to evaluate these pre dictions.
F i n al l y, what Wood (1999b) refers to as situational theory takes a more pragmatic
approach by suggesting that organisations simply react and respond to the pressures of
immediate circumstances. Other authors (eg Osterman, 1995) refer to this as the practical
response theory. In this view the growth of work-life balance practices is a product of
neither changes in wider societal value systems ± as in institutional and org anisational
adaptation theories ± nor the introduction of innovative human relations management
strategies ± as in high commitment theory. Rather, it is emphasised, well-established
p re s s ures towards pro® tability and productivity drive managers towards work-life
balance solutions to dif® culties in recruiting and retaining high-quality labour forces. In
this context, a number of speci® c and well-known problems with respect to recruitment
and retention may be to the fore, including absenteeism, staff turnover and un® lled
vacancies. Situational theory sees work-life balance polices and practices as dire c tl y
seeking to address these and similar issues. Behind them, however, may lie broa der
changes in the composition and availability of members of the workforce ± such as shifts
in the gender balance among employees in the organisation ± that require adjustments to
well-established and ongoing labour practices.
It can be seen from the above discussion that theories that seek to explain the rise
of work-life balance policies and practices often refer to similar processes ± such as
the growth in female employment ± but interpret these developments in diffe re n t
ways. However, our discussion of the correlates of work-life balance practices
suggests 12 testable hypotheses that the WERS98 data can address. These are formally
stated as follows.
1. T he re is a positive association between workplace size and the likelihood of
employees being allowed to work at home.
2. The opportunity to work at home is likely to be concentrated in certain
industrial sectors.
3. Public sector employees are more likely than their private sector counterparts to
have the choice of working at home.
4. The greater the unionisation of the workplace, the more likely the option to work at
home is to be offered.
5. The more feminised the workforce, the more prevalent are working-at-home practices.
6. The higher the skill level and proportion of managerial/professional staff in the
workplace, the more likely is working at home to be offered as an employment option.
7. The more discretion allowed to employees in carrying out their work, the more likely
it is for them to be also offered the option of deciding where they wish to work.
8. The prevalence of teamworking is negatively associated with the option of working
at home.
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59
Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance
9. The more family-friendly management attitudes are, the greater the chance that
working at home is allowed.
10. The greater the involvement of workers in decision making and the greater the trust
that management places in workers, the more likely working at home is to be offered.
11. Employers who permit working at home are more likely to use performance
management techniques to monitor the progress of their employees.
12. Working-at-home practices are likely to be prompted by re cruitment dif® culties,
high rates of absenteeism and staff turnover.
The remainder of this article will explore the strengths and weaknesses of each of
these hypotheses. However, before turning to the substantive examination of the
evidence it is important to review brie¯ y the origin and character of the WERS98 data.
WERS98
The 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey comprises three sources of data:
interviews with 2,191 managers with day-to-day responsibilities for personnel matters in
the establishment, 947 interviews with worker representatives from a recognised trade
union or consultative committee and 28,237 completed questionnaires from a sample of
employees working at participating establishments (DTI, 1999; Cully et al, 1999). For
present purposes the focus is on the management interviews, since this enables us to
analyse the characteristics of workplaces that allow at least some non-managerial
employees to work at home if they wish. Throughout the following analyses, the data
have been weighted to allow for the over-representation of larger establishments in the
original sample and full adjustments have been made to correct for the complex way in
which they were collected (Purdon, 2001; Forth and Kirby, 2000: chapter four). All the
analyses reported here were carried out using the `svy’ suite commands in STATA. These
p rovide the most robust and reliable tests of statistical signi® cance for bivariate and
2
multivariate analyses of complex data sets such as WERS98.
Two further points are worth noting here about the character of the survey. First, in
WERS98 management views are canvassed in terms of the option for employees to work
at home. The Labour Force Survey, on the other hand, asked individuals about their
labour market experience, including questions on where they actually worked (Felstead et
al, 2000, 2001b). These diffe rent perspectives are likely to generate entirely diffe re n t
p i c tu res of the people and workplaces involved; this will be the subject of future
investigation by the present authors. Secondly, the key question for this article put to
management respondents is as follows: `Looking at this card, are any n on -m anagerial
employees here entitled to [a number of employment options] including working at or
from home in normal working hours?’ (our emphasis). The emphasis on non-managerial
employees has important implications for the scope and the interpretation of WERS98
data concerning work at home. Exactly the same point applies to many of the other
aspects of work-life balance or family-friendly practices on which WERS98 collected data.
The results presented in the next section are based on two forms of statistical
manipulation of the data: bivariate and multivariate analysis. Descriptive statistics
generated by bivariate analysis are the ® rst step in any thorough investigation but they
provide only weak tests of the 12 hypotheses that we set out to examine. The associations
they suggest ± even though statistically significant ± could arise from unobserved
correlations and associations between the variables under focus and others in the data set.
For example, the fact that workplaces that offer working at home as an employment
60
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Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Annie Phizacklea and Sally Walters
option are larger than those which do not might be explained by the public/private mix of
the two groups, rather than being associated with establishment size per se. In other
words, the impact of each explanatory variable needs to be assessed holding all other
factors constant ± hence the need for multivariate analysis and in particular the use of
logistic regression. The results of these two methods are discussed below.
FINDIN GS AND RESULTS
A total of 277 workplaces in the WERS98 sample (12.6 per cent) reported that nonmanagerial staff were entitled, if they so wished, to `work at or from home in normal
working hours’ . Unfortunately, there was not a direct follow-up question on the extent
to which this opportunity was taken up. However, elsewhere in the questionnaire
managers were asked to estimate the proportion of employees ± including managers ±
who `work from home during normal working hours’. A thi rd of workplaces (32.8 per
cent) reported that at least some of their staff did so, although only one in 10 (9.1 per
cent) reported having more than 5 per cent of their workforce doing so on a re gular
basis. Nevertheless, the results suggest that one in eight establishments allow at least
some non-managerial staff the opportunity to work at home if they wish. The analyses
that follow aim to reveal the distinctive characteristics of these workplaces by testing
the 12 hypotheses identi® ed above, utilising both bivariate and multivariate analyses.
Institutional theory predicts that work-life balance employment practices in general
a re strongly associated with the size of the establishment, the industry in which it is
located, whether it is in the public or private sector and the extent to which it is
unionised. Bivariate analysis of the data suggests that most of these factors may have
some explanatory power in determining which workplaces offer their non-managerial
employees the chance to work at home and which do not. This type of employment
arrangement, for example, is over- re presented among larger establishments. Thus,
organisations permitting non-managerial employees to work at home have an average
of 98 employees compared to an average of 57 in establishments where such a working
arrangement is not allowed (see Appendix 1, section I). Multivariate analysis suggests
that the in¯ uence of establishment size is maintained even when a range of possible
explanatory variables are added to the model. Thus, multivariate analysis indicates that
organisations with more than 99 employees are signi® cantly more likely to offer nonmanagerial staff the option to work at home than smaller establishments (see A ppendix
3
2, section I).
The bivariate data also show that there are areas of the economy where the option is
m ore prevalent than others; over a ® fth of such establishments (22.4 per cent) are in
business services and a tenth (9.3 per cent) are in public administration. However, these
particular findings are not supported when subjected to multivariate analysis.
Nevertheless, the utility sector ± electricity, gas and water ± does stand out as being
significantly more likely to provide such an employment option according to both
methods of analysis. In fact, multivariate analysis gives the sector even more prominence
than the two-way comparisons ± it is more than ® ve times more likely to offer this option
than other sectors (although these establishments make up only a tiny fraction of the
total). Possibly as a consequence, the sector’s work-life balance credentials have recently
caught the attention of case study researchers (McKee et al, 2000).
Also in line with institutional theory is the pattern revealed by analysing the data
according to the public/private split. The theory anticipates that working at home is more
likely to be offered to non-managerial employees working in the public sector. WERS98
data con® rm this prediction, indicating that two in ® ve (40.9 per cent) workplaces offering
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Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance
such schemes are in the public sector (see Appendix 1, section I). Mulitivariate analysis
further supports this conclusion, indicating that private sector ownership signi® cantly
reduces the chances of a workplace allowing non-managerial employees to work at home,
in line with the theory’s predictions (see Appendix 2, section I).
Earlier, we suggested that institutional theory was potentially ambivalent with respect
to the effects of unionisation. Depending on how the theory is interpreted, a higher
density of union membership might be expected either to enhance or to inhibit ¯ exible
employment policies and practices. In the event, multivariate analysis indicates that
highly unionised workplaces are less likely to allow non-managerial employees the
opportunity to work at home. However, the results do show that ownership is crucial
here. Subsequent analysis, which allows for the trade union effect to differ between the
private and public sector, suggests that highly unionised private sector workplaces are
si g n i ® cantly more likely to permit working at home. The opposite is true of highly
unionised public sector workplaces.
Biv ariate comparisons of the data offer considera ble back-up to many of the
suggestions made by organisational adaptation theorists, although they receive much
weaker support when subjected to multivariate analysis. Organisational adaptation
theory places emphasis on the characteristics of the workforce, the way in which work is
organised and management attitudes to issues of work-life balance, all of which are
anticipated to have a major bearing on how sensitive management is to societal norms
and expectations.
Cross-tabulations of the WERS98 data do suggest that workplaces with the at-home
option for non-managerial employees have a distinctive pro® le ± note the number of
asterisks in column 3 of Appendix 1, section II. However, the extent to which the
workplace is feminised is not one of these ± women comprise 58.0 per cent of the
work force in establishments that permit working at home, compared to 53.9 per cent of
establishments where it is not permitted (a statistically insignificant diffe re n c e ).
Multivariate analysis con® rms that the gender composition of the workforce has little
e ffect on whether or not non-managerial employees are permitted to do their jobs at
home (see Appendix 2, section II).
Bivariate analysis suggests that workplaces permitting non-managerial employees
to work at home are more likely to have the following characteristics:
l smaller proportion of part-time contracts (both female and male employees);
l higher proportion of employees in managerial or professional grades; and
l higher proportion of employees with high skill levels.
Job design, too, is predicted by organisational adaptation theory to be associated
with working at home. The cross-tabular evidence presented here supports this
hypothesis. The jobs of the largest occupational groups in workplaces that off e r
working at home to non-managerial staff are:
l more varied;
l give workers greater scope to determine how to carry out tasks; and
l offer workers a greater say in setting the pace at which they work.
All of these diff e rences are suf® ciently large to be statistically signi® cant within
bivariate analysis (see Appendix 1, Section II). However, multivariate analysis seriously
weakens nearly all these associations to levels below reasonable points of statistical
signi® cance (see Appendix 2, section II).
It has som etimes been argu ed tha t worki ng at hom e sits unea sily with
teamworking. To test this, we constructed a teamworking index on the basis of
62
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Annie Phizacklea and Sally Walters
managers’ responses to four questions. The resulting index allows us to gauge the
extent to which employees are placed into teams with their own responsibilities and
f reedom to determin e how work is carried out without re fe rence to immediate
managers (Benders et al, 1999: 4). The ® ndings suggest that, contrary to the hypothesis
outlined earlier, teamworking is signi® cantly more likely to be practised in workplaces
that offer non-managerial employees the chance to work at home (see Appendix 1,
section II). However, once again, it must be emphasised that this association appears
much weaker in multivariate analysis, falling below levels of statistical signi® cance (see
Appendix 2, section II).
T h e re is a close overl ap between establish ments allowing emp lo ye es the
opportunity to work at home and other ¯ exible working practices such as paren tal
leave, term-time working and job sharing. Thus, for example, employers permitting
non-managerial employees the chance to work at home are :
l t hree times more likely to provide workplace nurseries or childcare subsidies,
although the prevalence of these policies is quite low; and
l twice as likely to permit term-time working and job-sharing.
H o w e v e r, managers’ attitudes to work-life balance are not signi® cantly diffe re n t
whether working at home is permitted or not. The level of disagreement with the
statement that `it is up to individual employees to balance their work and family
responsibilities’ varies little between these two types of employer (see Appendix 1,
section II). This is a ® nding that is supported by multivariate analysis (see Appendix 2,
section II).
High commitment theory predicts that establishments permitting working at home are
m ore likely to incorporate work systems and worker-management relationships that
depart from the traditional system of `them’ and `us’. They are anticipated to promote
greater ¯ exibility in the organisation of work, greater co-operation between management
and workers and open up more management decisions and information to worker
s c ru ti ny. The aim is to promote employee involvement, thereby encouraging selfmanagement. Analysis of the WERS98 data supports some, but not all, of these predictions.
Cross-tabulations suggest that workplaces permitting non-managerial staff to work
at home are signi® cantly more likely to:
l have quality circles or continuous improvement groups;
l canvass employees’ views;
l disclose management information;
l require staff to monitor the quality of their own output; and
l be favourable to trade unions (see Appendix 1, section III).
Multivariate analysis con® rms an association with favourable management attitudes
tow a rds trade unions, including the recognition of at least one trade union at the
workplace. It also shows that the option to work at home among non-managerial staff is
more prevalent when workers monitor the quality of their own output. However, it fails
to con® rm the associations this work arrangement has with quality circles, employee
opinion surveys or management’s willingness to disclose information on matters
affecting the workplace.
In establishments that offer the option to work at home to non-managerial staff,
bivariate analysis suggests that managers are signi® cantly more likely to:
l disag ree with the statement that `most decisions at this workplace are made without
consulting employees’;
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
63
Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance
l disag ree with the statement that `those at the top are best placed to make decisions
about this workplace’;
l agree with the statement that `we do not introduce any changes here without ® r st
discussing the implications with employees’; and
l disagree with the statement that `given the chance, employees at this workplace try
to take unfair advantage of management’ (see Appendix 1, section III).
Despite these striking bivariate ® ndings, however, it must be added that multivariate
analysis does not ® nd strong support for these associations, providing little back-up for
any associatio n with emplo yee inv olvement in decision making or high tru s t
relationships between employees and management (see Appendix 2, section III).
It appears that workplaces that allow at-home working are more reliant on
performance management than those that do not. In these workplaces:
l formal appraisal is more prevalent;
l individual targets are more likely to be used;
l t he re are many more quality control measures;
l the re is greater emphasis on customer feedback (through complaints or surveys); and
l t h ere is greater emphasis on self-control (see Appendix 1, section III).
Howeve r, once again, it must be pointed out that multivariate analysis does not lend
support to the view that formal appraisal systems and other performance management
systems are associated with the option to work at home (see Appendix 2, section III).
Situational theory finds far less support for its hypotheses from bivariate and
multivariate analyses. Cross-tabulations indicate that job turnover levels vary
s i g n i ® cantly between workplaces with and without working at home schemes, but
these diffe rences are in the opposite direction to that predicted by the theory; turnover
stands at 12.1 per cent a year in workplaces that permit non-managerial employees to
work at home, compared to 18.3 per cent in those that do not permit this work
arrangement. Negative coef® cients in multivariate analysis also suggest that higher job
turnover and rec ruitment difficulties are associated with a lower ± not higher ±
probability of non-managerial employees being offered the option to work at home (see
Appendix 1, section IV).
CONCLUSIONS
References to family-friendly employment and work-life balance are frequently made
by politicians and business leaders seeking to demonstrate their sensitivity to the
com peting dem ands und er whi ch today’ s worker s now labour. Having t he
opportunity to work at least some of the time at home is often trumpeted as one way in
which these competing demands can be reconciled. However, family-friendly and
work-life balance are often left ill-defined by res e a rchers and policy-makers alike.
More over, working at home is not always included in the list of speci® c practices that
these notions are said to encompass.
In contrast, this article has sketched formal definitions of work-life balance and
asso ciated concepts. These focus on the way in which workers transverse the
boundaries of work and non-work. In particular, we have drawn attention to the
variety and variability of ways in which the times and spaces of work and non-work
a re woven one with another. Work-life balance, in our view, is conceptualised as
heightened choice and autonomy with respect to these aspects of employment. The
64
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Annie Phizacklea and Sally Walters
advantage of this approach is that it places spatial issues at the heart of the debate and
makes the opportunity to work at home central to the analysis of work-life balance.
Howeve r, when working at home is a requi rement for, or constraint on, staff it does not
contribute to work-life balance. The implication of our analysis, then, is that working at
home cannot be reduced to an aspect of work-life balance; it is only relevant when
offered as a choice. In this context, it should be noted that WERS98 measures the option
to work at home, not its pre valence.
Placing working at home in this conceptual context directs our attention towards the
theoretical frameworks offered by those who have sought to identify the characteristic
fe a t u res of workplaces at the fore front of these developments. In particular, four
perspectives have become salient in recent years: institutional, organisational adaptation,
high commitment and situational theories. We have considered the contribution these
theories can make to our understanding of workplaces that offer employees the
opportunity to work at home. The analysis presented here has been organised around 12
hypotheses that emerge from this literature. The bulk of the article draws on the
empirical data provided by WERS98 in an attempt to evaluate these explanations.
Hypotheses 1-4 are based on institutional theory. This predicts that work-life balance
policies and practices are, in general, associated with the size of the establishment, the
industry in which it is located, whether it is in the public or private sector and the
extent to which it is unionised. Comparisons of the characteristics of workplaces
offering non-managerial staff the opportunity to work at home with those denying staff
a similar opportunity support all but the last of these hypotheses. The ownership
structure of the workplace and its size continue to have the predicted effect, even when
other factors are taken into account; that is, public sector employees are more likely
than their private sector counterparts to have the choice of working at home, and the
l arger the workplace, the more likely this is to be the case (Hypotheses 1 and 3). The
predictions for industrial clustering receive less support, although a few pockets can be
identi ® ed (Hypothesis 2). The association between unionisation and working at home
is more complex and cuts across some of these ® ndings. Although bivariate analysis
suggests a positive association, the stronger tests offered by multivariate analysis point
in the opposite directio n (Hypothesis 4). However, there also appears to be an
association between patterns of ownership and unionisation. In highly unionised
private sector establishments the option to work at home is more likely to be available,
but in highly unionised public sector workplaces the reverse is true. There are a
number of possible explanations for this ® nding. One of these is that public sector
unions may adopt more conservative and rigid attitudes to organisational innovation
than their private sector counterparts.
The data p rovide far less sup port for the hypot he ses that emerge fro m
o rganisational adaptation theory and the importance of work design. Cro ss -tabulations
p rovide statistically signi® cant support for only two out of ® ve of these. The option to
work at home is signif icantly more likely whe n the proportion of managerial,
professional and skilled staff is high (Hypothesis 6) and more discretion is allowed to
employees in carrying out their work (Hypothesis 7). Although bivariate analysis of
data with res pect to the fem inisation of the workforce (H yp othesis 5) and
management’s acknowledgement of its role in helping employees balance work and
family responsibilities (Hypothesis 9) are in the expected direction, on neither count is
a signi® cant association detected. Cross-tabulations suggest, surprisingly, a positive
association between the option to work at home and engagement in teamworking ±
contrary to Hypothesis 8. Once we subject each of these hypotheses to the more
stringent test of multivariate analysis, all of the signi® cant bivariate ® ndings cease to
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
65
Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance
have explanatory power and the insignificant relationships are confirmed. This
highli ghts the importance of complementi ng bivariate cross-tabulations with
multivariate analysis; simple statistical associations may be misleading.
As regards the predictions of high commitment theory, we ® nd strong support for
each hypothesis according to bivariate comparisons. However, once again, the
multivariate tests are too strong for many of these associations. Most notably, the link
between employee involvement in decision making and a greater willingness by
management to allow employees the entitlement to work at home ± found using
bivariate techniques ± completely disappears when other factors are held constant.
Si m i l a rl y, high levels of employee trust, which appear to go hand in hand with a
willingness to allow the option of working at home according to cross-tabulations of the
data, become insignificant as soon as other variables are entered (Hypothesis 10).
Nevertheless, workplaces that rely on individuals monitoring the quality of their own
output are signi® cantly more likely to let workers carry out their activities without them
being present in the workplace (Hypothesis 11). This bivariate ® nding is supported by
multivariate analysis and it concurs with best practice guidelines on how employers
should manage remote workers (Huws, 1997).
The implication of these findings, then, is that relev ant HR strategies and
techniques are not essential pre requisites for the option to work at home. However, a
capacity to manage workers v ia sel f-policing and self-discipline does appear to
provide a conducive environment for this.
Previous research frequently suggests that work-life balance policies and practices,
including working at home, are common responses to high absenteeism, high quit
rates and re c ruitment difficulties, in line with situational theory. However, both
bivariate and multivariate analysis of the WERS98 data offer no support for these
asso ciations, castin g serious dou bt on t he usef ulne ss o f situatio na l theo ry
(Hypothesis 12). A possible defence is that, where the opportunity to work at home
has been in place for sometime (we do not know from WERS98 for how long), its
e ffect has been to eliminate and reverse turnover problems. A better test of the
hypothesis would be, therefore, to examine how plans to allow working at home in
the future relate to absenteeism, turnover and recruitment dif® culties at the time of
interview. However, WERS98 did not collect data of this sort. The implication here is
that more research is needed.
In conclusion, then, theories of the rise of work-life balance programmes have proved
to be useful in understanding the characteristics of workplaces that offer the opportunity
to work at home. These theories have set an agenda of issues that have been investigated
in this article. However, some theories have been shown to have a stronger pre dictive
power than others. Overall, the hypotheses derived from institutional theory have found
most favour in the WERS98 data. The least successful appear to be those related to
situational theory, and the others fall somewhere in between.
The picture that emerges from our analysis of workplaces that offer the opportunity to
work at home is of large establishments, embedded in the public sector, that base their
management techniques on self-monitoring in which individuals are responsible for the
quality of their own output. They are typically less unionised. However, in the private
sector the more unionised a workplace, the more likely it is to promote working at home.
Contrary to some expectations, the extent to which the workplace is feminised does not
appear to be a signi® cant variable. Nor does the presence of recruitment dif® culties and
high turnover levels. These, then, are the workplaces in which working at home is most
likely to contribute to work-life balance as we have de® ned it.
66
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Annie Phizacklea and Sally Walters
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the Department of Trade and Industry, the Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC), the A d vi s or y, Conciliation and Arbitration Service
and the Policy Studies Institute as the originators of the 1998 Workplace Employee
Relations Survey data, and the Data A rchive at the University of Essex as the
distributor of the data. None of these organisations bears any responsibility for the
authors’ analysis and interpretations of the data. The article is based on analysis
carried out as part of an ESRC project funded under the Future of Work Initiative ±
`Working at home: new perspectives’ project (L212 25 2022). We are grateful to
Shirley Dex, Francis Green, two anonymous re f e rees and H RMJ’s editor for their
c on s tructive and helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. However, the
usual caveat applies.
Notes
1. For a further exposition of the concept of home-located wage labour, see Felstead
and Jewson, 2000: chapter two.
2. Previous SPSS runs on the weighted WERS98 data produced more signi® c ant
coef® cients supporting some of the 12 hypotheses tested here. However, by taking
into account the diff erential probabilities of workplace selection (using restricted
data ® les supplied by the DTI on application), some of the same coef® cients were
found to be less signi® cant and some even lost their signi® cance altogether.
3. Four separate re gression models were run on the data. A step approach was adopted
in which a set of variables associated with each theoretical perspective was added
until the model contained all the variables reported here. These results are rep orte d
in full elsewhere (see Felstead et al, 2001a,
http://www.clms.le.ac.uk/esrc_papers/blurring_home_work.html).
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Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance
APPENDICES
Appendix 1
Characteristics of workplaces offering non-managerial staff the option to work at home ±
bivariate analysis (column percentages/average scores as indicated)
Option
to work
at home
(1)
No option
to work
at home
(2)
Signi® cant
differences
(1-2)
(3)
All
w or kplaces
I BACKGROUND FAC TOR S
Establishment size
10-24 employees
25-49 employees
50-99 employees
100-249 employees
250 and above employees
46.6
23.6
11.9
11.2
6.6
50.5
26.6
12.6
6.8
3.5
ns
ns
ns
***
***
49.9
26.2
12.5
7.4
3.9
Industry
Manufacturing
Electri ci ty, gas and water
Construction
Wholesale and retail
Hotels and re s taurants
Transport and storage
Financial services
Other business services
Public administration
Education
Health and social work
Other community
10.1
0.5
2.2
8.2
2.7
3.9
3.0
22.4
9.3
19.4
13.9
4.5
13.5
0.2
4.5
20.8
8.5
4.6
3.1
9.7
4.1
12.0
13.9
5.2
ns
**
ns
***
**
ns
ns
***
*
ns
ns
ns
13.1
0.2
4.2
19.2
7.8
4.5
3.1
11.3
4.7
12.9
13.9
5.1
Sector
Private
Public
59.1
40.9
77.4
22.6
***
***
75.1
24.9
Unionisation
Trade union density
28.2
23.0
ns
23.6
5 8. 0
41.9
3 8. 5
53.9
46.0
27.5
ns
ns
***
54.4
45.5
28.9
40.0
39.0
ns
39.1
19.5
26.4
***
25.5
2.1
7.0
***
6.4
35.0
22.4
***
24.0
3.2
3.0
*
3.0
(4)
Workplace characteristics*
II WORK ORGANISATION
Gender composition
Pe rcentage of workforce female
P e rcentage of workforce male
Pe rcentage of female workforce
working full time
P e rcentage of male workforce
working full time
Percentage of female workforce
working part time
P e rcentage of male workforce
working part time
Occupational composition
Share of managerial and professional
employees in workforce
Skill level
Time to learn job index
70
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Annie Phizacklea and Sally Walters
Autonomous working
Variety index
Disc retion index
Con trol index
Teamworking index
Family-friendly arrangements
`It is up to individual employees to
balance their work and family
responsibilities’
2.5
2.1
2.0
2.4
2.3
1.9
1.8
1.8
***
**
***
***
2.3
2.0
1.8
1.9
3. 9
4.0
ns
3.9
31.1
33.5
79.5
3.4
***
***
**
ns
33.2
35.3
80.7
3.4
3.7
ns
3.8
2.3
***
2.3
1.1
37.5
***
ns
1.1
38.7
2.6
**
2.6
11.3
ns
11.0
18.3
41.4
ns
***
18.2
43.8
38.2
***
41.2
91.6
41.4
69.9
64.8
55.2
5.5
3.3
89.3
39.5
47.9
52.9
47.3
4.6
2.8
ns
ns
***
**
ns
ns
***
89.6
39.7
50.7
54.4
48.3
4.7
2.9
4.7
12.1
46.4
4.6
18.3
48.2
ns
***
ns
4.6
17.5
48.0
III PERSONNEL POLICIES AND PRACTICES
Employee involvement
P resence of quality circ le s
47.7
Formal survey of employees’ views 4 8.0
Information disclosure
88.8
`Those at the top are best placed to
3 .2
make decisions about this workplace’
`We do not introduce any changes
3 .9
he re without ® rst discussing the
implications with employees’
`Most decisions at this workplace are 2 .0
made without consulting employees’
Attitude to trade unions
Management’s attitude to trade unions 1.3
At least one recognised trade union 4 6.7
Trust
`Given the chance, employees at this
2 .3
workplace try to take unfair advantage
of management’
No compulsory redundancies for at
9. 2
least some workers
Performance measures
Individual/group-related variable pay 17.0
Formal appraisal for all non60.8
managerial staff
Job responsibilities enshrined in
6 2. 1
individual objectives and targe ts
Quality management
Managers monitor quality
Quality department monitors quality
Individual workers monitor quality
Complaints/faults re corded
Customer surveys carried out
External audits
Number of quality control measures
IV SITUATI ONAL FACTORS
Recruitment and ret e nt ion
Absenteeism
Voluntary job turnover
Rec ruitment dif® culties in at least
one occupational group
* The data presented here are either column percentages or average scores; see Appendix 3 for
details of workplace characteristic measures. The diffe rences between workplaces that offer the
option to work at home (column 1) and those that do not (column 2) were subject to t-tests using
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
71
Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance
the svymean and svylc commands in STATA. These results are shown in column 3, with *** = 99 per
cent signi® cant, ** = 95 per cent signi® cant, * = 90 per cent signi® cant and ns = not signi® cant at
these levels. Column 4 shows the baseline characteristics of all workplaces in the WERS98 sample.
Source Own calculations, WERS98, management interviews, weighted in STATA with full
adjustments made for sample strati® cation and sampling fractions.
Appendix 2
Characteristics of workplaces offering non-managerial staff the option to
work at home ± multivariate analysis
Logistic regression coef® cients Level of statistical
(standard errors)
signi ® c ance
(1)
(2)
Workplace characteristics*
I BACKGROUND FAC TOR S
Establishment size
10-24 employees
50-99 employees
100-249 employees
250 and above employees
0.1900
-0.1111
0.6060
0.5898
(0.3237)
(0.3630)
(0.2996)
(0.3471)
ns
ns
**
*
Industry
E le ct rici ty, gas and water
Cons tru ction
Wholesale and retail
Hotels and re s taurants
Transport and storage
Financial services
Other business services
Public administration
Education
Health and social work
Other community
1.7319
-0.0505
-0.6917
-0.3527
0.6598
0.0857
0.3696
0.6523
-0.0843
-0.5089
0.5314
(0.6249)
(0.8903)
(0.6126)
(1.0225)
(0.7855)
(0.8770)
(0.5153)
(0.6417)
(0.8409)
(0.5638)
(0.8439)
***
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns
Sector
Private
-1.0071
(0.5243)
*
U nio nisation
Trade union density
-1.5359
(0.7322)
**
-0.5557
(2.9204)
ns
-1.3918
(2.8059)
ns
-1.2482
(1.1942)
ns
-4.3316
(2.0204)
*
1.1759
(0.7776)
ns
Skill level
Time to learn job index
-0.0631
(0.1058)
ns
Autonomous working
Variety index
Disc retion index
0.2563
-0.0620
(0.2027)
(0.1058)
ns
ns
II WORK ORGANISATI ON
Gender composition
Pe rcentage of female workforce
working full time
Percentage of male workforce
working full time
P e rcentage of female workforc e
working part time
P e rcentage of male workforce
working part time
Occupational composition
Share of managerial and professional
employees in workforc e
72
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Annie Phizacklea and Sally Walters
Cont rol index
Teamworking index
0.0620
0.2162
(0.1594)
(0.1397)
ns
ns
- 0.1262
(0.1910)
ns
(0.2520)
(0.3112)
(0.4000)
(0.1156)
ns
ns
ns
ns
(0.1724)
ns
(0.1416)
ns
0.8892
-0.9652
(0.2642)
(0.4736)
***
**
-0.1283
(0.1590)
ns
-0.7675
(0.4099)
ns
Performance measure s
Individual or group-related variable pay
-0.2282
Formal appraisal for all non-managerial staff 0.3925
Job responsibilities enshrined in individual
0.3364
objectives and targe ts
(0.3291)
(0.2971)
(0.2782)
ns
ns
ns
0.5706
-0.3287
0.6639
0.3275
0.2452
0.6808
(0.4320)
(0.2457)
(0.3188)
(0.3176)
(0.2887)
(0.6339)
ns
ns
*
ns
ns
ns
0.0247
-1.4712
-0.1917
(0.0287)
(1.1.0084)
(0.2888)
ns
ns
ns
1,621
-1.3585
(3.1034)
na
ns
Family-friendly arrangements
`It is up to individual employees to balance
their work and family re s p onsibilities’
III PERSONNEL POLICIES AND PRACTICES
Employee involvement
P resence of quality circ le s
-0.1553
Formal survey of employees’ views
0.2499
Information disclosure
-0.2215
`Those at the top are best placed to make
- 0.0459
decisions about this workplace’
`We do not introduce any changes here
- 0.0987
without ® rst discussing the implications
with employees’
`Most decisions at this workplace are made -0.1145
without consulting employees’
Attitude to trade unions
Management’s attitude to trade unions
At least one recognised trade union
Trust
`Given the chance, employees at this
workplace try to take unfair advantage
of management’
No compulsory redundancies for at least
some workers
Quality management
Managers monitor quality
Quality department monitors quality
Individual workers monitor quality
Complaints/faults recorded
Customer surveys carried out
External audits made
IV SITUATI ONAL FAC TOR S
Recruitment and retention
Abse nt ee is m
Voluntary job turnover
Rec ruitment dif® culties in at least one
occupational group
Features of models
Number of cases
C ons tant
* The data presented here are based on a logistic reg ression model including the explanatory
variables presented in Appendix 1. The analysis uses the svylogit commands in STATA .
Workplace characteristics are shown in the left-hand column; for details of these characteristics see
Appendix 3. Column 1 shows the coef® cients and the standard errors produced by the model, and
column 2 rec ords the level of signi® cance with *** = 99 per cent signi® cant, ** = 95 per cent
signi® cant, * = 90 per cent signi® cant and ns = not signi® cant at these levels.
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
73
Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance
Source Own calculations, WERS98, management interviews, weighted in STATA with full
adjustments made for sample strati® cation and sampling fractions.
Appendix 3
Measures of workplace characteristics
Workplace characteristics
Measures
I BACKGROUND FAC TORS
O ffering option to work at home
`Looking at this card, are any non-managerial employees here
entitled to any of the following?’ List includes `working at or
from home in normal working hours’.
Establishment size
Derived from information given on the employee pro® le
questi onnaire in response to the question: `Currently how
many employees do you have on the payroll at this
establishment?’ In the analyses this information was used to
const ruct ® ve size groups.
Industry
Taken from the SIC92 groups provided with the data set.
Sector
Managers were asked to describe the formal status of their
establishment: `Is it privately or publicly owned?’
Trade union density
This percentage was derived by dividing the number of
employees thought to be trade union members by the number
of employees on the establishment’s payroll. This information
was extracted from the data provided by managers on the
employee pro® le questionnaire completed before interview.
II WORK ORGANISATI ON
Gender composition
These percentages were derived by making the approp riate
calculations from information supplied by managers on the
employee pro® le questionnaire. Part time is de® ned as `fewer
than 30 hours a week’.
Occupational composition
These percentages were derived by making the appropriate
calculations from information supplied by managers on the
employee pro ® le questionnaire. Respondents were given a
short de® nition of the nine major SOC groups used.
Time to learn job index
Managerial respondents were asked: `About how long does it
normally take before new [employees in the large s t
occupational group] are able to do their job as well as more
experienced employees already working here?’ The options
were: one week or less, more than one week, up to one month,
more than one month, up to six months, more than six months,
up to one year and more than one year. The index is based on
scores of 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 re s pectively.
Variety index
Managerial respondents were asked to specify the degree of
variety in the work of the largest occupational group using a
f ou r-point scale: a lot, some, a little and none. The index is
based on scores of 3, 2, 1 and 0 re s pectively.
Discretion index
Managerial respondents were asked to specify the degree
of discretion individual workers in the largest occupational
group had over the work they do using a four-point scale: a lot,
some, a little and none. The index is based on scores of 3, 2, 1
and 0 re spectively.
C ontrol index
Managerial respondents were asked to specify the degree of
cont rol individual workers in the largest occupational group
had over the pace at which they work using a four-point scale:
74
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Annie Phizacklea and Sally Walters
a lot, some, a little and none. The index is based on scores of 3,
2, 1 and 0 re sp e ct iv ely.
Teamworking index
Managerial respondents were asked whether or not at this
workplace teamworking involved: team members working
togethe r, teams appointing their own leaders, members jointly
deciding how the work is to be done and teams given
responsibility for speci® c products or services. Each
a f® rmative answer is awarded a score of 1. The index
represents an average for each type of workplace.
`It is up to individual employees
to balance their work and family
responsibilities’
Managerial respondents were asked to specify the extent
to which they agreed or disagreed with this statement.
The options were: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor
di s agree, disagree and strongly disagree. Each option is
associated with a score of 5 to 1.
III PERSONNEL POLICIES AND PRACTICES
P resence of quality circles
`Do you have groups at this workplace that solve problems or
discuss aspects of performance or quality?’
Formal survey of employees’
views
Have you or a third party conducted a formal survey of your
employees’ views or opinions during the past ® ve years?’
Information disclosure
`Does management regularly give employees or their
representatives, information about internal investment plans,
the ® nancial position of the establishment or staf® ng plans?’
Af® rmative answers to at least one of these is taken to denote
information disclosure.
`Those at the top are best placed
to make decisions about this
workp lace’
Managerial respondents were asked to specify the extent
to which they agreed or disagreed with this statement. The
options were: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree ,
disag ree and strongly disagree. Each option is associated with
a score of 5 to 1.
`We do not introduce any changes
here without ® rst discussing the
implications with employees’
Managerial respondents were asked to specify the extent
to which they agreed or disagreed with this statement.
The options were: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor
disagree, disagree and strongly disagree. Each option is
associated with a score of 5 to 1.
`Most decisions at this workplace
are made without consulting
e mp loyees’
Managerial respondents were asked to specify the extent
to which they agreed or disagreed with this statement.
The options were: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor
disa gree, disagree and strongly disagree. Each option is
associated with a score of 5 to 1.
Management’s attitude towards
trade unions
Managerial respondents were asked: `How would you
describe management’s general attitude towards trade
union membership among employees at this establishment? Is
management ¼ in favour of trade union membership, not in
favour of it or neutral about it?’ Those in favour were awarde d
a score of 2, those taking a neutral position were awarded 1
and those against 0. The ® gu res reported here re p resent the
average for each type of workplace.
Trade union re cognition
At least one trade union at workplace is recognised for
negotiating pay and conditions for at least a section of
the workforc e.
`Given the chance, employees at
this workplace try to take unfair
advantage of management’
Managerial respondents were asked to specify the extent
to which they agreed or disagreed with this statement.
The options were: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002
75
Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance
disa gree, disagree and strongly disagree. Each option is
associated with a score of 5 to 1.
No compulsory redundancies
for at least some workers
`Is there a policy of guaranteed job security or no
compulsory redundancies for any of these groups at
this workplace?’
Individual or grou p- related
variable pay
`Do any employees at this workplace receive payments
or dividends from any of the following variable pay schemes?’
One of these options was `individual or group performancerelated schemes’.
Formal appraisal for all nonmanagerial staff
`What proportion of non-managerial employees at this
workplace have their performance formally appraised?’
Job responsibilities enshrined in
individual objectives and targets
`What are the main methods by which [employees in the
largest occupational group] are made aware of their
job responsibilities?’
Managers monitor quality
Measu res whether work quality is monitored by `managers
or supervisors’.
Quality department monitors
quality
Measures whether work quality is monitored by `inspectors in
a separate department or section’ .
Individual workers monitor
quality
Measu res whether work quality is monitored by `individual
employees’ .
Complaints/faults recorded
Measures whether work quality is monitored by keeping `records
on the level of faults/complaints’.
Customer surveys carried out
M e a s u res whether
`customer surveys’.
External audits made
Measures whether work quality is monitored by `external audits’.
Number of quality control
measures
From the above, the number of quality control measures
in place is calculated. Maximum number = 6.
work
qualit y is
monitored
by
IV SITUATIONAL FACTORS
Absenteeism
Managers were asked to indicate on the employee pro ® le
ques t ionnai re `over the last 12 months what percentage of
work days was lost through employee sickness or absence’.
Voluntary job turnover
Managers were asked to indicate on the employee pro® le
questionna ire how many employees `left or resigned
voluntarily’ over the last 12 months. A p ercentage rate was
derived by dividing this into the total number of employees on
the payroll.
Re cruitment dif® culties in at
least one occupational grou p
Managers were asked whether or not there were any
occupational groups in which they had dif® culty ® lling
vacancies.
Source WERS98, Management Questionnaire in DTI (1998).
76
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 1, 2002