Group Report Your focus in this subject has been on new trends impacting global business. For instance:
i. Organisations are experimenting with radical workplace arrangements such as, amongst others, hot-desking, working from home, corridor meetings standing-up etc. What is the motivation for these developments and are they succeeding?
You will conduct this assessment as a group effort (size 3 or 4 persons). Your tutor will ensure all students are allocated to a group
- Choose one of the questions (I to x above). You might also frame your own question provided it is acceptable to your tutor.
- You will research the question you have chosen (using Proquest) collecting learned opinion on that question. You may also use any material that any of your group members might have found in their Literature Review (first assignment).
· This is a research assignment; we are NOT interested in your opinion, we want you to research scholarly articles and find learned opinion on the question you have selected. Do not be surprised if learned opinion makers differ amongst themselves. Your job is to collect a range of learned opinion on the question you have chosen. The Written Report
- Your group will prepare a written research paper outlining the various learned opinions (and their sources) that you have discovered. It is essential that all your sources are from scholarly academic publications. If there is any doubt please consult your tutor to ensure Academic Integrity.
Introduction
The 1990s witnessed a crumbling in working-time arrangements for employees in Australia, driven by globalization, demographic and structural change and labour market deregulation. However, working-time courses of action in the main decade of the 2000s have either enhanced for employees or remained moderately unaltered notwithstanding proceeded with worldwide weights and further changes of domestic labour law. Fewer employees are working extend periods of time or at introverted circumstances, hours inconstancy has fallen and worker control over working time has expanded(Venn, D., Carey, G., Strazdins, L. & Burgess, J. 2016).The analysis on factual proof on the idea of working time arrangements in Australia, and particularly their distribution has been presented through statistical evidence. Moreover , the paper investigates: (I) the conveyance of week by week working hours in Australia and how that has changed after some time; (ii) the degree of mismatch amongst normal and preferred hours of work, and the degree of persistence such mismatch; (iii) annual leave usage and its connection with week by week hours of work; and (iv) how working time arrangements in Australia contrast and that in other industrial countries.(Wooden, M. & Drago, R. 2007).However,there is different point of view of Australian health and safety inspectors in working arrangement of australia. Extensive international research focuses to a relationship between changed working arrangements, particularly those regularly named as unforeseen work, with adverse occupational health and safety outcomes(OHS) results. Research likewise demonstrates these working arrangements have debilitated or avoided existing OHS and specialists' pay administrative administrations. In any case, there has been close to nothing if any exploration into how OHS inspectors see these issues and how they address them amid work environment visits or examinations. In the vicinity of 2003 and 2007 research was attempted that involved point by point narrative and factual investigation, expanded meetings with 170 administrative managers and inspectors, and observational data gathered while going with examiners on 118 'ordinary' working environment visits. Key discoveries are that auditors in charge of a scope of enterprises see changed work game plans as a genuine test, particularly work enlist (organization work) and subcontracting. In spite of the fact that the law forces clear commitments, reviewers distinguished misjudging/blame shifting and poor consistency among gatherings to these courses of action. The many-sided quality of these work courses of action likewise postured strategic difficulties to inspectorates(Quinlan, M., Johnstone, R. & McNamara, M. 2009).
Working arrangement beneficiaries
According to the Fair Work Ombudsman (2018) the employees that have the right to request the working arrangement benefits are:
- "Parent, or have responsibility for the care, of a child who is school aged or younger
- are a carer (under the Carer Recognition Act 2010)
- have a disability
- 55 or older
- experiencing family or domestic violence, or
- provide care or support to a member of their household or immediate family who requires care and support because of family or domestic violence"
All those employees if they have been with the same employer for more than twelve months the same period of time apply for casual employees that are expected to continue working in the organisation.
Those are the legal requirements, however, if the employer has a better internal agreement that will prevail over the relationship and the request of the flexible working arrangement.
Types of flexible working arrangements
In Australia workers are ruled by basic employment standards, that is legally called National Employment Standards or NES. One of these minimum rights is that employees can request some flexibility in their working conditions for example change of hours or working from a different location than the organisation's main office.
In this regard the Fair Work Ombudsman (2018) establish some of the working arrangements that can be agreed on:
- Hours of work:
- Reduced hours - Part time work: it is when the employee works a pro rata of full time work, but with access to the same benefits, what it means is that the employee works less than 38 hours a week and still has the right of personal and annual leave (Workplace Info 2018).
- Flexible work times: The employee will work the same amount of contracted hours,but vary the start and finishing times.
- Accrued time: Queensland government (2014) states that accrued time is when an employee surpasses the amount of established working hours in a day or in a week. Those accumulated hours can be taken later on as a day leave or part day leave.
- Compressed workweek: employees can work less days a week with a bigger amount of hours a day (Lambert et al 2008).
- Patterns of Work:
- Job sharing: it is as the name establish when two or more people share one full time job role, being co- responsibles for the total result of it. In this case, the benefits and payment being done according with the pro rata of the full time role divided between all the participants in the job share situation (Branine, 2004).
- Locations of work
- Telecommuting: "performing job-related work at a site away from the office, then electronically transferring the results to the office or to another location" (Cross and Raizman 1986). It is mostly known as work from home, however, it can be done in any location. One the down side to it is that is not suitable for every role as some jobs have to be done in site. Solomon and Templer (1993) mention a few aspects of telecommuting one of them is that, it has to be consulted with all stakeholders involved for example the supervisors and that staff member supervisor. Also those authors explain that there is no need for high tech expensive technology and that it can be done in a different set of job roles.
- Hot desking: in this model of working arrangement, employees does not have an allocated work desk or permanent work station. They will have to share it with someone else or find one when needed (Evans et al 2011).
Meeting innovations
Globalisation and the access to technology have made the business world go at a faster pace. In this regard, organisations can not keep working with the same protocolar models of the past where the higher governance body decided and passed this information downwards. This is what is know nowadays as agile organisation (Aghina et al, 2018). The authors explain how agile organisations have a culture of 'rapid learning and fast decision cycles', it also means diminishing protocols and increase productivity.
In that regard, some of the the fast decision methods adopted are:
- Stand-up meetings: the meeting takes place standing up instead of sitting down. The main purpose is to keep them concise, short and effective, and according to different studies the quality of the decisions is the same as if the participants were sitting down (Dutton, 1998).
- Informal Communication:
What is the motivation for this developments?
Are they succeeding or failing?
Conclusions and Recommendations