Integrating Flexibility to Work Patterns to Maximize Employee Engagement When Designing Jobs

 

Flexibility plays a significant role in job satisfaction with regards to the modern organisation context which makes it an integral part of designing jobs. According to (Albrecht, Furlong and Leiter, 2023), organizational change is seen as a constant and positive employee attitudes is key for sucessful change. One needed note that felxibilty and working patterns are infleuntial on the levels of enagagement each employee may have. As per (Uhlig et al., 2023),  felxibilty in organizations is deciding when to work, introduction work schedules which are flexible and collaborating across different time zones which often times require for organization members to vary and adapt when working. Therefore, it is shown that organizations should consider offering flexible work arrangements to maintain  highly engaged employees who are passionate and have a sense of pride with connection to their work and the company making the oragnization move forth through the drive of innovation.

1.  Understanding the Impact of Job Flexibility on Employee Engagement

Firstly, (Uhlig et al., 2023), points out how flexible work brings opportunites for personal development with the cognitive association of flexible work increasing emplyoees work engagement through their challenges and stimulating natures as flexible work requires frequent adaptation which give employees a sense of achievement and satisfaction for compentence and increase work engagement. The afore supports the notion of how flexibilty can fuel the innovativc drive for employees due to them being engaged in their work where mobile work would assist in generating the desired outcome. As per (Uhlig et al., 2023),  in contemprory organizations, employees may utilize mobile work where work is carried out from home, cafés or co-working spaces, client places, on the road, whilst in the office building, employees can choose the best place to work in depending on their work tasks and needs. According to (Brulin et al., 2023), in Sweden in comparision to manay European countries, the share of workers who have different types of flexible work arrangements s is high with 84% of the Swedish workforce having work arrangements with some dimensions of flexibility. The afore example depicts how in some cases on a national level, organizations take the initiative to provide such work arrangements for their employees to be satisfied with their work.

Thereafter, (Uhlig et al., 2023) denotes that employees incorporate their private needs such as lesuie activities, family times and being able to recover sufficently between work days which depcits that employees are required to paln their work time of when the work, how long they work and when they take breaks. This is due to working hours becoming more scattered throughout the day and the shift of the task maangement form centralized management to the employee. It can be noted that work-life balance is seen as a contribution factor in order to have increased engaged employees as opoosed to having disengaged and actively disengaged employees. It is important for organiaztions to understand the current attitudes and priorites of the workforce and design each employees work arrangement accrodingly in collaboration to assist which is the most productive and fulfilling arrangement for both the organization and the employee. From a theoreical perspective, Khan`s motivation theory best highlights how individuals can be personally engaged in their work by defining personal engagement as harnessing organization members selves to their roles at work where in engagement individuals are allowed to express themselves physically, cognetively, emotionally and mentally during their performance in the role. (Radley, 2018), notifies that, a diligant employee who has the ability to harness their full self at work display ownership and loyalty where engaged employees tackle tasks instaed of simply because they have to.  As per (Albrecht, Furlong and Leiter, 2023), Khan`proposes psychologyically meaningful work, availability of physcial,emotional and psychological resources and psychological safety as enabling conditions for personal enagement at work.

Acoording to (Radley, 2018), Khan defined engagement as the ability for an employee to harness their full self at work with the identification of three psychological conditions which are responsible for enablement;

1)      Meaningfulness- does the employee feel their work is meaningful enough to want to enage their full self at work? Meaningful work is seen as the driver which implies the appreciation aspect of work where employees underatsnad the imapcat and value of their roles resulting in greater motivation to full commit to their role.

2)      Safety- is the emplyee feeling safe in brining their full self to work without running the risk of negative consequences. Freedom in voicing opions as the driver where employees should feel safe to voice opinions without having to fear of any repercussions of the vocied opions.

3)      Availability- does the employee have a feeling of mentally and physically being able to harness their full self. This could describe the physical environment of the workplace where they may need space to work individually as well as collaboratively.

Furthermore, (Radley, 2018) adds that peer relationships and the support from the management siginifiacntly reflect on if the employee is able to harness their full self. The afore brings to perspective on how interperosnal realtionships are an element of the degree to which an employee wishes to engage with their work assigned by the organization. This perseciptive can be supported by Bakker and Leiter`s description of motivation as being based on taking employee engagement as a motivation concept. According to (Nurtjahjani et al., 2023), job involvement is the ability for employees to utilize their capacity to connect with individuals and solve problems. If highly engaged emplyoees are exposed too often to disengaged or actively disengaged employees, they may see a reduction in their capacity to connect with individuals and their work. In keeping with, (Nurtjahjani et al., 2023), Companies wanting employees who a bound by their work due to high work engagement levels which would depict the employees best work performance.

Through the understanding of the afore theories, it can be noted that not all employees are able to fully engage at work and harness meaningfulness, safety, and availability which maybe due to personal issues, burnt from the current work set-up, exposure to disengaged or actively disengaged peers or even being in the same environment for long spells.

 

2.   Influence of Flexiblity and Flexible Work Arrangements on Work Based on Gender

The modern world is notably seen to have both male and female sharing equal responsibilites with regards to their household and both genders tending towards family matters. As per (Laat, 2023), while more employees live in dual income households, they face the needs to carry out responsibilities which require felxible work policies such as remote work to be a priority which provides gender equality in orgnaizations. According to (Shell Australia, n.d.), flexibility has shown to improve work performance where schdeule flexibility for both genders reduce family conflict and provide better work life balance which positively impacts on satsifaction.

Upon furthur inspection, one is able to note that despite the modern set up being both genders sharing equal responsibilities, traditional gender roles and social norms have a strong influence on individuals which has an impact on how engaged the employee could be during their work. As per (Meekes and Hassink, 2022), women require a stronger flexibility based on the traditional gender roles where they invest more time in home production making them undertake felxible work due to lack of options, lack of affordabel childcare, cultural and social expectations.

Through the persepctive of motherhood, the traditional nine to five schedule may not be the best work arrangement due to the difficulty in being high engaged in both areas of work and personal life. As per (Partridge, 2021) , traditionally more women than men are those who take care of children or have caring responsibilites and request for flexible working. (Meekes and Hassink, 2022) points out that for mothers, the distance berween their residence, job location, children’s schools are likely to be important for labour maket attachmenets. In addition, the industry and the level of roles would also have a significance in how oragnizations can attract women who are on career breaks and as well as promoting the retention of the female workforce in industries and organizations. As per (Anon., 2022), many of the senior roles have not been made available part-time or flexible which makes female employees to apply less. In addition, (Laat, 2023) notifies that remote working options in STEM fields where women are underrepresented are important for orgnaizations to be concerned of increasing women retention and recruitment. Furthermore, (Meekes and Hassink, 2022) notes that the desire to pursue more felxible jobs may result in long spells of unemplyoement for females which brings a career break which may cause deterioration in the human capital rate of companies.

However, it can be noted that some organiaztions have taken to consideration of their female workforces concerns and arrange for felxible work arrangements. As per (Anon., 2022), in Zurich Insurance UK, the demand for women in part-time roles at Zurich had sored by 83% compared to the pre – pandemic and nearly one in four female hires accounting for 23% choose flexible working in 2021 alone.

Therafter, from the persepctive of the male workforce, it can be observed that more of them wish to establish boundries between their personal and work arrangements whilst being high performers in their organisations. As per (Shell Australia, n.d.) high performers set work boundries where as per a study of 60 men from a prestigious consultancy firm identifies high commitment to work but bounded their availability to work to not work on the weekend and spends time with their families were indeed high performers. In keeping with (Shell Australia, n.d.), workload maangement could be enhanced by felexible work and help in dealing with work overload where for instance fathers who are more flexible in work options have less stress and a better sense of purpose and wellbeing with lesser burnout. This increases the chances of them not being disengaged at work as depicted afore. According to (Laat, 2023), it is noted that desipte an employees desire to work remotley, the preception may be stigmatized with the association of mothering being associated with flexible work policies which acoomondate household labour and unpaid work which is deemed as acceptable to women in comparrison to men. In addition, (Partridge, 2021), points that even though both men and women wish for work flexibility more women will request for it as if not they are the ones who will suffer. The afore observations depict the influence felexible work arrangements have on the modern workforce who request for felxible arrangements to tend to their private needs as well which needs to be taken to consideration highly when desigining suitable jobs.

 

3.   Re-designing for High Employee Engaged Work

According to (Anon., 2022), the UK job market has a majority of 74% of job adverstiments failing to offer felxible working options where an estimate of 16 million employees had been planning on leaving their roles to strike a better work-life balance. However, (Laat, 2023) denotes that  in recent  times, many traditional organizations have introduced work designs which have flattened hierachies, accomplishing project based work through temprory teams, decentralized work, lateral career growth, fluid decision making, multiple communication forms and expectation of change.

Furthmore,(Uhlig et al., 2023) protarys that organizations rely on employees to take decisions, work tasks and plan work steps ahead of time and monitor work progress as higher orgnaizational felexibility  involve demands related to coordinating with others. In keeping with (Uhlig et al., 2023), many tasks are high complex and require diverse abilities, knowledge henec, with fewer shared routines, employees needed invest. As per (Bankins et al., 2023), the introduction of AI technology into organizations, both bring the views of significant job loss whilst on the contrary will optimize productivity and improve job quality. This is depicted by the arrangement of remote work for instance where employees can cut short of their commute time and utilze the time to be more engaged in their work with collegues.

As per, (Unilever, 2023), it is notified that the tradtional employer-employee dynamic does not fit either parties in the modern contxet as people are increasingly looking for more personally and professionally satisfying  jobs to which is more flexible and tailored to their needs and stage of life. In keeping with (Unilever, 2023), it is noted that the older experienced individuals are opting to work for longer whilst younger people are seeking meaningful jobs with more flexibility. Through (Ahamad, Saini and Jawahar, 2023), it is noted that offering work-life balance benefits makes employers more attaractive to prosepctive applicants. According to (Unilever, 2023),  in 2021 they had introduced a set of global principals to help guide to best make use of the office space while giving employees flexibility and choice including spending 40% of their time in office for collaboration and connecting with their colleagues. However, (Partridge, 2021) notifies the challenges for managers is that many have not been trained on how to supervise remote workers. This is notably a grey area which needed be addressed by organizations at the earliest by providing trainings to managers of how to effectively collaborate on tasks effectively through the set up of different work arrangements.

 

4.   Flexible Working Arrangements Organizations Can Integrate when Designing Jobs

According to (Goddu, 2020),  with globalization, the traditional 9-5 workday has been replaced by flexible working arrangements which revolve around 24/7 as businesses are done across different time zones. As per (Goddu, 2020), organizations can gain a competitive advantage by offering flexible hours and recognition outside work which broadens the talent pool with employee engagement, retention and diversity benefiting the work environment. (Birt, 2023), states that flexible work arrangements can improve employee job satisfaction, productivity, and overall happiness. Also, (Hoeven and Zoonen, 2015) denotes that job demands consist of social, physical or organizational aspects which require sustainable mental and physical efforts whilst job resources comprise of physical, psychological, social and organizational aspects of a job function which is to wither achive goals, reduce the job demand or stimulate growth and development. Hence, it can be noted that there are many elements which need to be taken into consideration prior to choosing which arrangement suits the employee the best.

1)      Flex Time – this arrangement accords for flexibility with regards to the workday start and end times which is more convenient with the employee’s personal schedule and seen as a method of reward for the quality of work as opposed to focusing on the hours worked (Birt, 2023).

2)      Compressed Workweek- accounts for an employee to work up to 40 hours in less than 5 days where they can start earlier or finish later than the normal workday times (Birt, 2023),.

3)      Reduced hours or part-time work- (Birt, 2023),depending on the employee’s circumstances, this option maybe either temporary or permanent where they choose to work for a few hours which are pre negotiated with the employer.

4)      Annualized hours – two members within a team are allowed to agree upon the maximum number of days and the working hours for a certain period which is often times used for job fields which have variations such as peak hours or seasonal demands (Birt, 2023),.

5)      Flex place- (Birt, 2023), allows employees to work remotely from either home or a remote location which maybe 100% remote or a few days at office.

6)      Job Sharing – (Birt, 2023),this is where one full time- position is split between two co-workers which affects the holidays, pay and benefits received.

7)      Work Sharing – (Birt, 2023),this arrangement is often done to avoid layoffs where temporary reduction of the salaries, number of working hours is done whilst maintaining the employee count by the employer.

8)      Phased retirement- (Birt, 2023),this arrangement is where both the employee and employer agree upon gradually reducing the full-time work commitments which is useful for training replacements, when restructuring or allowing co-workers adjust to redistributed tasks.

9)      Leaves and Sabbaticals - allowing authorized periods of time away from work without the loss of employment rights. Sabbaticals are either paid or partially funded which is in addition to the vacation time (Birt, 2023).

 

Further, it should be noted that organizations needed have policies in place which support flexible work arrangements such as the afore mentioned which can be selected for based on the nature of the role and the amount of collaboration required. As per (Goddu, 2020), workplace flexibility is a talent management policy which is an essential organizational practice which attracts and develops skilled talent. This would not only have value addition to the role but also the company as a whole who will be seen as supporting all kinds of individuals regardless of their situations in becoming highly engaged employees.

 

 

 

References

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