Lecture 6 - Flexible work and flexible workers

Outline
Flexibility in the UK
Drivers of flexibility
 Organisational, demographic, social, and regulatory change
Types of flexibility (form and function)
 Employer oriented and employer oriented
Work-life balance and flexible careers
The problems of flexible working
The flexibilisation of work
• UK often seen as vanguard of flexible labour market
 Lightly regulated, varied employment forms, few restrictions on
employer hiring and firing
 Competitive economy, job creation, agility, ‘entrepreneurial spirit’…
 Flexible employment acts as a stepping stone into higher paying and
more secure jobs for those with limited experience or time out of the
labour market (e.g. casual work, internships, agency work)
• Important to balance employer and employee needs
 Employer oriented flexibility – to reduce costs, to match workforce with
changes in demand (over week, month, year), to eliminate slack time
 Employee oriented flexibility – work-life balance, flexible scheduling,
career breaks, to fulfil other roles and goals
Elements of flexibility
• Flexible employment contracts: the exact legal form of the
employment relationship; the duration and working hours; the
mutuality of obligation on employer and employee; the rights
and entitlements of the worker
• Flexible work arrangements: the way in which the
employment relationship is organised and operationalised;
usual place of work; usual working time and patterns; scope to
vary or ‘flex’ these arrangements
• Win-win scenario balances employer and employee
demands: allows employers to organise work in most efficient
way; allows employees to manage various demands;
potentially strengthens commitment, morale and mutual trust
Non standard contracts (UK data 2018, Office for National Statistics)

• Reference point is Standard Employment Relationship (SER)

i.e. directly employed, full time and permanent
• More than just the employment form - mutual commitment between
employer and employee, skill development and productivity, career
progression through internal labour markets, clear demarcation of work and
home life (e.g. overtime pay), pensions and social protection
• Self employed = 5% 10% 15%
• Part time = 10% 25% 32%
• Zero hours = 10k 100k 1m
• Temporary = 1.1% 5.6% 9.3%
• Majority still FT/perm but rising shares of non-
standard contracts since crisis (Grimshaw et al, 2016)
Drivers of flexibility
• Organisational change – restructuring, outsourcing, and
offshoring, contingent labour, and expansion of gig economy
• Demographic change – increased participation of women,
increasing retirement age, younger workers and student
workers, demands for non-standard work patterns
• Social norms – shift away from expectation of full-time 9-5
hours, job for life to more flexible working patterns, varied
careers
• Regulatory change (since 1980s) – weakening of trade
unions, dilution of employment protections
 Organisational change: The flexible firm
• Shift from large, vertically integrated firms (mass production) to smaller
more specialised firms (batch production)
• Outsourcing of non-core

activities (e.g. back office,

customer services, payroll)
• Use of contingent labour to

scale workforce up and

down in-line with demand
• Flexible buffer protects

‘core’ workforce during

recession
Types of flexibility within the organisation
• Numerical – increase and decrease staffing numbers as
required (hire and fire): allows for adjustments to business
cycle and strategies of expansion, cost-cutting, specialisation
• Temporal – hire workers only for as long as needed (e.g. fixed
term, agency staff and casual staff): provides cover for short-
term staffing gaps, projects, seasonal businesses
• Functional – move workers around within the organisation
where and when they are needed: allows firms to retain skills
and capacity but redirect where needed, multi-skilled staff
Employee oriented flexibility
• Flexible working arrangements – home working, job share,
flexible shifts, compressed hours, term time only
• Important for work-life balance: demands of one sphere of life
should not act to the detriment of all other spheres
(Gambles and Rapoport, 2007; Noon and Blyton, 2007)
• The extent to which an individual is engaged with - and equally satisfied
with different roles (Greenhouse et al, 2003)
• In career planning graduates put ‘good work life balance’
ahead of ‘earning lots of money’ and ‘being in a leadership
position’: https://www.brightnetwork.co.uk/sites/default/files/what_do_graduates_want.pdf
• Flexible working can help reduce perceptions of ‘over work’
(Hill et al, 2001) but actually increase work intensification
(Kelliher and Anderson, 2010 – seminar)
Gender dynamics and flexible work
• Traditionally women took flexible roles (esp. part-time) as
second earner in the household which allowed them to
maintain primary domestic/child-rearing roles
• But pressure on wages overall means dual earner households
with women juggling paid and unpaid labour - ‘have it all’
• Significant career and wage penalties for women who have
children, particularly high skilled women (Wilde et al. 2010)
• Increasing expectation of engaged fathers, greater scope for
male work-life balance (e.g. shared parental leave, career
breaks) but still perceived as a detriment to career
development so men use flexibility to over work and under
parent (Brandth and Kvande, 2016)
Few ‘quality’ jobs are offered on a flexible basis

Most are part-

time, and in
health, social
services,
hospitality

Source: Timewise flexible jobs index 2018

https://timewise.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Timewise_Flexible_Jobs_-Index_2018.pdf
A failed promise on flexible working?
• Despite the potential win-win scenario of flexible working,
significant gaps remain between the promise of work life
initiatives and their reality (Kossek et al, 2010)
Why?
• Organisational Cultures – long hours, unpaid overtime,
presenteeism, direct supervision
• Gendered assumptions about the ideal worker (e.g. male,
middle aged, limited obligations outside of work)
• Line manager and co-worker attitudes to flexibility
• Workers only have the right to request flexible working, there
are no legal obligations on employers to provide it
• Easier not to offer any flexible working rather than assess on a
case-by-case basis
Effects of flexible working gap
• On employees?

• On employers?
Wider implications of ‘flexibility’
• Loss of long-term employment contract corrodes trust,
loyalty, and commitment (Sennett 1998), undermines
mutual investment in skill development (Bosch, 2004)
• From institutionalised to ‘boundaryless’ careers (Arthur and
Rousseau 1999), emphasis on soft skills & ‘employability’
• Fragmentation of working time and blurring of home and
work life (Rubery and Grimshaw, 2010)
• Assumes that workers can easily switch jobs in pursuit of
more hours, higher pay, greater security
• High socio-economic costs for redundant workers (risk of poor quality
transitions to new jobs – Blyton and Jenkins 2013)
Insecurity at work
• 1980s/90s shift in work norms = end of ‘job-for-life’ (Sennett),
rising unemployment, use of downsizing and ‘delayering’
(Cappelli, 1999; Beynon et al, 2002)
• In the UK facilitated by legislation and short-term economic
rationale: employer friendly support for ‘needs of the business’
(e.g. new working methods, higher work intensity)
• Austerity/recession worsened insecurity for particular groups,
but also more general acceptance of insecurity
• Increasing shares of involuntary part-time and non-
permanent working – suggests that not a ‘positive choice’ for all
(Grimshaw et al., 2016)
Is flexibility all bad?
• The ‘quality’ of many part time jobs is poor – low pay, limited
prospects, lack of training and development, limited discretion
• But
• Gash et al (2012) using national survey BHPS - women who
had switched from full time work to part time work reported
higher life satisfaction – this was particularly the case for
those who reduced hours with the same employer
• 53% of fathers want to move to a less stressful job, while 48%
would take a pay cut to achieve a better work-life balance
(2017 Modern Families Index)
Positive flexibility: ICT contractors
(Barley and Kunda, 2004)
• Highly skilled workers, moving between firms, projects and
agencies – building portfolio and seeking out ‘stretchwork’
• All had moved out of permanent job into contract work (or been
made redundant) - firms increasingly using contractors to
manage headcount within budgets
• Different types of IT contractor – gurus, warm bodies etc.
• High hourly/daily wages (which causes resentment among
permanent workers), but no sick pay, holiday pay or pension
• Wouldn’t move back into regular job - value freedom and
discretion, but greater responsibility for skill development,
always looking for more work so not able to utilise ‘downtime’
Conclusion: a question of balance
• Multiple drivers of flexibility in the UK – e.g. social,
demographic, regulatory, organisational change
• Increasing levels of non-standard working, but most people
still work full-time and on permanent contracts
• Flexible work and working arrangements can balance employer
and employee needs, but much hinges on the sector, the
firm, and the skill level of employees
• Increasing shares of involuntary part-time and temporary work
suggests that that flexibility does not suit all
• Part of the problem is that it is women (rather than men) that
are still expected to fulfil dual roles which reinforces
segmented labour markets
Additional references
• Beynon, H., Grimshaw, D., Rubery, J., & Ward, K. (2002). Managing employment
change: The new realities of work. Oxford University Press on Demand.
• Brandth, B., & Kvande, E. (2016). Fathers and flexible parental leave. Work,
employment and society, 30(2), 275-290.
• Capelli, P. (1999). The new deal at work: Managing the market-driven workforce.
Harvard Business School.
• Grimshaw, D., Johnson, M., Rubery, J., & Keizer, A. (2016). Reducing Precarious
Work. Protective gaps and the role of social dialogue in Europe European Work
and Employment Research Centre. Manchester: University of Manchester, 315.
• Hill, E. J., Hawkins, A. J., Ferris, M., & Weitzman, M. (2001). Finding an extra day
a week: The positive influence of perceived job flexibility on work and family life
balance. Family relations, 50(1), 49-58.
• Rubery, J. (2015). Change at work: feminisation, flexibilisation, fragmentation and
financialisation. Employee Relations, 37(6), 633-644.