9 The receptionist in your office has come to you and asked if he could change his existing work hours-now 9 am to 5 pm-to 11 am to 7 pm. His daughter has taken up rowing and he needs to drive her to rowing training four mornings a week. The office is open all day, from 9 am to 5 pm. What suggestions would you make to the receptionist?
10 You are the chief executive officer of a large women's hospital and have a 'dream' to build a Long-daycare centre for children that could be used by staff and patients. However, you know the obstetricians will oppose spending money on such a centre. They would prefer to spend money on refurbishing the consulting rooms. What would you do to try to see your 'dream' realised?
MANAGING FOR PERFORMANCE
Flexibility and work-life balance: who benefits?
The concepts of flexibility and work-life balance are not clear-cut. Different people will think of flexibility and work-life balance in different ways. Flexibility of work arrangements are an important part of facilitating work-Life balance. The benefits of flexibility are interpreted in different ways by different stakeholders.
Employees across all levels of organisations desire flexibility so that they can accommodate the competing responsibilities and interests in their lives. Almost 37 per cent of employees work part-time.
During the economic downturn there were a number of contradictory influences on the way organisations achieved work-life balance and flexibility. A survey by Hewitt Associates found 79 per cent of organisations were seeking to avoid redundancies and at the same time provide greater flexibility in their working arrangements. Some employers sought to retain employees by reducing the length of the working week, introducing part-time work and increasing the availability of flexible working arrangements.
KPMG and Virgin Australia experienced a decline in demand for business. At KPMG a number of people elected to reduce their work hours, accessing KPMG's existing employee flexibility and employee assistance scheme. Flexibility is regarded as a critical part of the employee-engagement strategy and essential for developing a diverse, adaptive and high-performing workforce. Virgin Australia implemented a hiring freeze and natural attrition for 200 roles. In addition, 100 staff were deployed and another 100 staff were offered flexible working arrangements. These workingarrangements include part-time work, job sharing or leave without pay for 12 months.
Flexibility helps to reduce costs for employers and at the same time provides employees with more time for personal activities. Professionals, managers, clerical and administrative staff are more easily able to choose their starting and finishing times than other workers and to choose to work extra hours in order to take time off. The need to reduce costs has encouraged some employers to reduce staff and at the same time examine roles in the organisation and the way work is done. Ideally, structural efficiencies, rather than short-term cost reductions should be dealt with.
Flexibility has been used by employers to further economic outcomes. However, this can result in employees being required to work even longer hours in order to achieve the requirements of the role and company results. Most Australians are increasingly dissatisfied with the balance between their work and non-work life. More than 20 per cent of people work 48 hours or more and 60 per cent do not take regular holidays. Three-quarters of these people would much rather work fewer hours.
There are expectations in the workplace, particularly when companies are seeking to reduce costs, that people will work longer hours and get the necessary results. Executives have been affected by this expectation. The expectation in the regional offices of multinational companies is that managers will be available for conference calls across time zones. This reduces the cost of travel, but Nick Greenhalgh of Career Innovations claims it also means work-life balance is disintegrating for some people in senior management positions. He claims it is not unusual for executives working for US multinationals to do all-night conference calls and also come to work during
MANAGING FOR PERFORMANCE
the day. Working long hours often 'creeps up on people and before the executive knows it these hours are taken as normal. However, when this occurs the executives often lose perspective because they are overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of the work.
The previous discussion demonstrates the complexity around the term 'flexibility: It demonstrates that initial stimulus for the use of flexible working arrangements to provide for better work-life balance has been recast. Juliet Bourke, a partner at Aequus Partners, is concerned that 'the whole paradigm has shifted to something a little negative-that is, flexibility is now about how we get more out of fewer people'.
Ross Gittins argues workers pay the penalty for one way flexibility. Although the Fair Work Act makes it more difficult for employers to buy out penalty rates, employers continue to seek to redefine ordinary hours of work. In 2012 the banks sought to redefine ordinary hours of work to include Saturday and Sunday. They argued this was to 'promote flexible and efficient modern work practices in a way that had proper regard to the considerations of productivity and employment costs'. Ross Gittins claims the flexibility being sought is 'one sided', because employers gain employees when they need them in order to maximise profits.
Nick Greenhalgh believes the requirement that people work extraordinary hours will have a long-term detrimental impact on employees. Employees will become disillusioned, unproductive, resentful and unproductive. This will have a detrimental impact on discretionary effort and productivity as a consequence of a decline in engagement.
Barbara Holmes of Managing Work Life Balance International claims this approach to worklife is not sustainable. She says that employers should consider the health, safety and wellbeing of staff. Employees can only cope with excessive hours for a short time.
Source: Adapted from IL Gains, 2012. 'Workers pay the penalty for one way flexibility, The Spiny Memel Haug 4 April. p. 13: C Donaldson. 2009. 'Woddlife: balance or bind'. Homan Remota Leader. 3 March, pp. 14-19; Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2012. Employee Earning, and Haws. Catalogue no. 3606.0, ABS. Canbetra; ABS. 2009. 114.khog Time Anangemenes. Atoms& Catalogue no. 6342.0. ABS. Canberra: B. Paco*. N. Skinner & S. Pisanidln. 2010. 'How much should we work?. AWALL Came for Work and Life, University of South Australia. Addaidc.
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS
1 Do you agree with Juliet Bourke that the use of flexibility has moved away from its original paradigm?
2 Discuss the implications of excessive working hours on the performance of employees and managers.
3 Discuss ways in which employers could facilitate work-life balance during an economic downturn.
