The Major Types of Flexible Working Conditions - Case Study Example

Advantages and disadvantages of flexible work arrangements It is imperative for business organizations to respond to changes. Flexibility can be construed as the balance between the prosperity of the organisation and its employees. It connotes the capability of the company to meet labour requirements commensurate with the supply of labour. In such a context, it has become essential to provide flexible work schedules to employees. In addition, society is undergoing a drastic transformation, with the emergence of new types of families such as single parent families; this requires the work conditions to be modified in such a manner as to help employees to attend to their family responsibilities. Some of the major types of flexible working conditions are part-time employment, phased retirement; temporary employment; job sharing; flexible working hours; possibility to work from home and what has been termed as the compressed work week (Kerka). Such flexible working conditions have a number of attendant advantages and some of these are the possibility of devoting more time to education, welfare of the children in the family, and the possibility of commuting to work at times when the traffic is less heavy. However, such benefits imply a lower pay, benefits and terminal benefits. Moreover, such employees do not progress far in their career and are more susceptible to being dismissed from service. In addition, employers have to face opposition from organized labor, incur greater expenditure on training and an enhancement in the workload of the supervisory and administrative staff (Kerka). Nevertheless, at the managerial level, such part – time jobs are paid on par with full – time jobs. Further, there has been an increase in the number of skilled female workforce that seeks part – time employment during the years of child rearing. This has led to an increase in the number of part – time job opportunities. In addition, several such part – time employees have to shoulder additional responsibilities that are unrelated to their employment and they are usually the spouse or civil partner of a person employed on a full – time basis, this makes part – time work very attractive (Kerka). The present conditions prevailing in Australia entail the extension of support to the working class people. Such support is essential in order to facilitate them to effectively balance the requirements of the employers and their commitments to their families. This has become a mandatory practice in organizations that have a workforce. Moreover, most of the Australian women employees are mothers. Further, a significant number of employees have to look after their aged parents. Consequently, it has become imperative for employers to provide flexible working conditions to their male and female workforce so that they can fulfil their family responsibilities (Department of Consumerand Employment Protection). The potentiality of a business firm in terms of productivity and profitability can be evaluated by determining the quality and commitment of its workforce. This is due to the fact that failure on the part of the employees to coordinate their family requirements and work commitments, would adversely affect the quality of their work and performance. Furthermore, this would affect their motivation and productivity. Moreover, in some instances, employees who could not maintain concentration on their work, due to family commitments, were found to discontinue their employment. The result of such resignations is that employers and business firms are put to great difficult due the lack of skilled employees, because the cost involved in finding a suitable substitute for the resigned employee is prohibitive (Department of Consumerand Employment Protection). The law requires the employers to be sympathetic towards their employees and to support them in fulfilling their family responsibilities. In addition, the law prohibits employers from committing acts that discriminate against employees on the basis of their age, sex, marital status, pregnancy and family responsibilities. Furthermore, federal legislation with regard to employment prohibits employers from terminating the services of an employee on the basis of family responsibility and deems such acts to be unlawful (Department of Consumerand Employment Protection). There are certain legislative provisions that favour employers. Some instances of these measures are imparting training to the workforce to obtain better returns with a minimum of staff, initiating corrective action to reduce absenteeism and late reporting, maintaining a high morale and commitment in the employees. Other provisions include initiating steps to reduce work related stress and thereby increasing productivity, maintaining a flexible workforce, provision of occupational health and safety, ensuring equality and an enhanced corporate image. Firms and institutions, which had implemented these work and family arrangements, had observed that these measures were cost effective. Such employers are of the opinion that these benefits have helped them in retaining their employees. From the point of view of the employees these flexible working arrangements definitely reduce their stress, motivate them and provide them with an immense sense of job satisfaction, since both their family requirements and work commitments are fulfilled simultaneously (Department of Consumerand Employment Protection). Flexible working arrangements when implemented accord greater benefit to the employer because of the fact that the employees would be more focused on their work and this would bring about greater productivity. Moreover, these measures serve to attract the employees and induce them to remain in the same organisation, while enticing others to seek a place in such a workforce. Further, aging employees, people with parental commitments and disabled workers would find employment due to such flexible work arrangements and this would significantly enhance productivity (Why flexible work arrangements are good for business). In addition, a number of benefits accrue to organisations with flexible work arrangements and some of these are identification as an employer of choice to job aspirants; engendering loyalty of the workers towards the organisation, which would increase productivity; presence of cost effective training; a stable and reliable workforce that can be relied upon to meet any emergency situation; diminution in absenteeism and unpunctuality and compliance with anti – discrimination legislation. Moreover, employers are generally predisposed to retain skilled and motivated employees within the organisation. In general, organizations avoid relinquishing their valuable employees because of the fact that recruiting new employees involves expenditure of valuable time and money, moreover, such new employees have to be trained in order to accustom themselves to the new place and the requirements of the job (Why flexible work arrangements are good for business). Furthermore, in organizations that do not implement flexible work arrangements, talented and skilled employees are liable to opt out in favour of firms that offer flexible work arrangements. Thus there is the risk of losing efficient workers, moreover, other employees may also decide to resign from such a firm and employees who are nearing the end of their tenure with an organization may discontinue their service with it. In addition, with regard to disabled employees, it is imperative to restructure the nature of the job so that such employees find it suitable; moreover, there should be flexibility in their work and work timings (Why flexible work arrangements are good for business). Further, the attrition of employees entails a greater cost. For instance, flexible work arrangements have been implemented in the Greenslopes Private Hospital, which resulted in a reduction of employee turnover by nearly six percent. In addition, twenty – three percent of the compensation paid to the employees was found to have been reduced. Further, this hospital had been the recipient of the National Work and Family Award in the year 2005 (Why flexible work arrangements are good for business). It is an incontrovertible fact that significant amount of expenditure on recruitment and training has to be incurred, whenever senior employees and experienced workers leave an organization. As per the present norms in business circles, replacement of experienced staff compels a company to increase the salary by one and half times. In addition, the company has to pay the terminal benefits to such employees and also incur expenditure in advertising for replacements. Further, there are latent losses due to loss of customer relations, adverse impact of such staff turnover on the remaining staff and on the entire work environment. In order to mitigate this burden on the company, it is essential to reduce staff turnover and thereby reduce the costs involved in such a process (Why flexible work arrangements are good for business). There has been a tremendous increase in the number of contingent workers and this situation has been engendered by the proliferation of out sourcing, contracting and leasing of jobs. The result has been a significant increase in the number of persons who work from home. Such employment opportunities have proved to be of immense help to people who have to look after parents or children, people who have retired from full – time employment, people who need additional income but cannot undertake full – time employment and people who have resigned from one job and awaiting appointment in a new job. With the increase in office automation, it has become essential to have a much more sophisticated work force. Since, this would entail costly training, if existing staff had to be deployed, the utilization of part – time workers becomes very attractive (Kerka). However, there exist a number of problems with such employment. For example, employees are deprived of pension, promotion opportunities and the obtention of permanent employment. Further, employers cannot be assured of quality and the loyalty of part – time employees. Moreover, this trend has brought about a work force that consists of two categories; the first category is that of the permanent employees, who have pension and other terminal benefits in addition to a regular income; the second category is that of the part – time employees who do not have any of these benefits. Furthermore, part – time employees are mainly women, youth and members of the minority communities and this adverse trend could result in a further reduction in the obtention of training and higher pay (Kerka). The flexible firm model categorizes workers into core and peripheral workers. This model was propounded by Atkinson in 1984. According to this model core workers constitute a permanent component of the organization and they assume a vast array of tasks in order to ensure a flexible functionality. On the other hand, peripheral workers are present to only the extent dictated by labour market forces and moreover they are employed only for specific tasks. Some researchers like Bryson have opined that this model is of use in understanding the changes taking place in the nature and organization of work but is insufficient to tackle managerial problems regarding the deployment and utilization of the workforce to reach the goals of the organization (Balancing Work and Family Life).. Employers obtain a wide range of benefits if they implement flexible work arrangements. These benefits include the possibility to adapt the working provisions to suit the demands of customers with regard to the products that they manufacture, a possible reduction in fixed costs and other overheads in production, implementing flexible working conditions so as to retain workers in the same organisation, an increase in productivity of staff and their efficiency through proper motivation, improved worker morale, reduction in undue stress on employees and thereby curtailing absenteeism and the possession of a vast resource of skilled and talented workers (Balancing Work and Family Life). According to Emmott and Hutchinson, who had carried out a survey that concentrated on the employees perspective, several potential benefits have been established, which emerge out of flexible working arrangements. Employees would obtain immense job satisfaction due to proper motivation; they would be able to coordinate their commitments to their family and their employer. The authors of this survey have established that a significant portion of the workforce is constituted by women. Most employers have addressed pro – employee or family – friendly issues in order to facilitate women employees to plan their daily routine and customise their priorities in respect of work demands and individual commitments It cannot be gainsaid that the implementation of work related friendly measures provides non – discriminating and equal opportunities for women candidates. Moreover, women obtain greater access to employment due to flexible work schedules (Balancing Work and Family Life). Some critics like Legge, have claimed that the process of job – sharing and other flexible initiatives to facilitate employees to balance work and family commitments would lead to severe social stigma. Their contention is that flexible work schedules would combine with the disproportionate allocation of domestic and childcare tasks and result in fortifying the vertical and horizontal segregation of female employees. Critics further argue that the service sector would be adversely affected by part – time jobs as this could bring about a detrimental control in the overall employment environment. This would be a further disadvantage to the service sector, which is notorious for its low remuneration and presence of unskilled workers (Balancing Work and Family Life). In the public service sector, part – time workers could dominate the skilled and professional workers by forming clusters. Moreover, part – time work though facilitating women, would restrict their promotion channels, which in turn would result in unequal treatment in respect of wages and other benefits. Further, flexible work arrangements provide additional opportunities for employees to coordinate their commitment to their family and work; nevertheless, such a trend would create an environment in which there would be potential discrimination and an absence of job security (Balancing Work and Family Life). Moreover, causal employment benefitted employers by providing them with flexibility in the usage of labour and due to the fact that there was a substantial savings in the wages paid to such workers. Nevertheless, there were a number of disadvantages like difficulties in employing suitable persons and problems caused due to the high turnover of staff (Price). The various trends that have had a significant influence on organizations are the phenomenal increase in competition, which compels managements to invest to a greater extent in short term labour contracts; the ubiquitous nature of information technology, which has truly shrunk the world and made outsourcing a distinct and attractive alternative and the altered nature of demand and supply of labour, which has wrought major changes in the type of employment and employees. These trends have necessitated the implementation of work schedules that are flexible, so that there is optimal utilization of the existing workforce. Works Cited Balancing Work and Family Life. 15 August 2007 . Department of Consumerand Employment Protection. Work and Family - Employer Information Kit. 14 August 2007 . Kerka, Sandra. "Preparing for Multiple Careers, Practice Application Brief No. 29." 2003. 15 August 2007 . Price, Robin Anne. "Checking Out Supermarket Labour Usage: The Nature of Labour Usage and Employment Relations Consequences in a Food Retail Firm in Australia." 2004. Australian Digital Theses Program. 15 August 2007 . Why flexible work arrangements are good for business. 14 August 2007 . Read More