How a Shorter Working Week Can Help to Keep the Quality of Services Intact - Essay Example

? OF School of … Management Performance Module Avoiding Redundancies: How a Shorter Working Week Can Help to Keep the Quality of Services Intact Student Name: .............................. ID No.: ............... The candidate confirms that the work submitted is their own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. Acknowledgements This report is influenced by the thoughts and ideas of other people, whose works are duly cited as sources of references across the report sections, including the reference section at the end. The author apologises to anyone concerned if acknowledgement of their contribution is not being recorded. Content Acknowledgements 2 Executive Summary 3 Introduction 3 Historical Background and Statistics 6 The Vision: Problems Related to Redundancy 8 The Vision: Short-time Working vs Redundancies 10 Conclusion 12 References 13 Acknowledgements 2 Executive Summary 3 Introduction 3 Historical Background and Statistics 6 The Vision: Problems Related to Redundancy 8 The Vision: Short-time Working vs Redundancies 10 Conclusion 12 References 13 Executive Summary This report sets out arguments for shorter working hours instead of redundancies in the public sector organisations, proposing a change down what is considered ‘normal’ - of 40 hours or more, to less than 30. The report’s proposal is based on the understanding that redundancies could, and must be avoided via a shorter working week, thus preserving the quality and accessibility of services the organisation delivers to our client group. The report takes into account existing theoretical solutions and practices in both Britain and the world, as well as is firmly grounded in management and organisational behaviour theory. Introduction Mullins points out that we live in an organisational world where different types of organisations are a necessary part of the society and serve many important needs (1996d, p.4). This statement appear just as true as the one that all tiers of the present-day society’s structure are more or less regularly shaken by multiple global financial and economic crises – the latest of which is still ongoing, with yet unknown precise dimensions and tail end. Therefore, each and every organisation – whether in the public or private sector – is subjected to the consequences of these crises, with certain implications for the organisation’s modus operandi, operational capabilities, and, above all, the individuals who work for, and depend on, the organisation in question. In order to better understand how our organisation would successfully perform its functions under the above-mentioned circumstances, a few conceptions need to be reviewed. On the one hand all organisations are made of individual members, where the individual is a central feature and necessary constituent part of any organisation’s behavioural situation, whether acting in response to expectations of the organisation, or as a result of influences of the external environment (Mullins, 1996d, p.5). Individuals and groups interact within the formal structure of an organisation, which is created by management in order to establish relationships between those individuals and groups, as well as to provide order and systems, and to direct the efforts of the organisation into goal-seeking activities (Mullins, 1996d, p.6). Thus, through its formal structure, the organisation – as comprised of the organisation’s members – carry out its activities aimed at achieving certain objectives (Mullins, 1996d). On the other hand, each organisation functions as part of the broader external environment, which affects the organisation through a variety of stimuli, like technological and scientific development, social and cultural influences, economic activity, governmental actions, etc.; while the increasing rate of change in environmental factors, including crises, necessitates certain internal change, as part of a process by which the organisation adapts to the demands of the external environment (see Mullins, 1996d). The effects of the organisation’s functioning within its external environment are reflected in terms of the successful achievement of the organisation’s aims and objectives (Mullins, 1996d), thus translating the demands of the environment upon the organisation into demands of the organisation upon its structures, or individual members respectively. This may lead to a situation where the needs of the individual and the demands of the organisation are incompatible, which, in turn, can result in frustration and even conflict; and at this stage appear the role, and one of the main tasks as well, of the management, namely to provide a working environment which allows for the satisfaction of individual needs and the attainment of organisational goals (Mullins, 1996d). Although public and private sector organisations greatly differ in certain characteristics, e.g. on the basis of their ownership, finance and profit motive, they both share an extremely important feature of their external environment, namely the requirement for cost-effectiveness and economic efficiency (Mullins, 1996d). In the case of public sector organisations, however, there is increasing pressure from both government and the public to ensure the efficiency and economy in their operations, especially in the present times of an economic/financial crisis (see Mullins, 1996d). Being quite often the first choice as a possible countermeasure in the case of reduced funding, redundancy is also amongst those consequences with the most severe impact upon people’s feeling of well-being; thus appearing as a double-edged sword. There are some situations, however, in which redundancy would be considered a blunder, rather than a remedy. Such situations par excellence include organisations that have long and successful training history, and whose staff team possess just the right balance of skills and qualifications for the organisation’s client group. Moreover, given the whole purpose of public services, namely to provide viable help, protection and care outside market relationships (Flynn, 2007), worsening their quality and accessibility may have a disastrous effect on both providing organisation and services’ users. Inasmuch as we are faced with a development that appears the genuine article of one of the above-mentioned situations, the current report proposes a motion to avoid redundancies via a shorter working week, and thus to preserve the quality and accessibility of services we deliver to our client group. In doing so, the report takes into account existing theoretical solutions and practices in both Britain and the world (especially the European Union), as well as is firmly grounded in management and organisational behaviour theory. The report is limited to the public sector organisations and managerial issues. Historical Background and Statistics According to official definition, cited by New Economic Foundation (NEF) in their report ’21 hours’, full-time workers are considered those who work no less than 35 hours a week, with a maximum of 48 hours, including any overtime, set by the EU Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC); while a part-time worker is defined as anyone working less than 35 hours per week (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010). Data from the British Time Use Surveys have shown an average of 37.2 and 19.1 hours a week for full-timers and part-time workers respectively (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010). These averages, however, as NEF’s report points out, do not reveal the real situation in terms of overwork and chronic unemployment; while other data (Burchardt, 2008, cited in Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010) indicate that some 13.1 per cent of all employees in Britain were usually working 48 hours per week. Further in their report, NEF cite numerous practical examples of introduced changes to the ‘normal’ working week, which vary widely between and within countries, as well as in terms of duration and reasons; however, most of the examples included into the report are such imposed in times of crises (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010). While the ‘three-day week’ imposed in Britain for the first two months of 1974 was predominantly aimed at saving energy during a time of soaring inflation, high energy prices, etc., and actually led to an increased number of the registered unemployed, the 35-hour week, introduced by the French government in 2000, is thought to have dealt precisely with the issue of reducing unemployment, and enhancing the work/life balance (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010). In this regard, the French experience needs a bit more attention, although the mixed results it has produced. According to a trade union survey carried out shortly after the introduction of the 35-hour week, over 50 per cent of the respondents indicated a positive impact on their lives, mainly due to improved work/life balance; which appeared particularly valid in the case of women with young children, and employees who were generally in the middle- and higher-income groups (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010). Despite some doubts about the net effects on employment, the French government announced 350 000 new jobs created as a result of that measure (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010). Another example is the so-called ‘Working4Utah’ initiative introduced by the US state of Utah in June 2008, which shifted the standard week from five 8-hour days to four 10-hour days, i.e. from Monday to Thursday (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010). Although this initiative couldn’t be considered a typical case of reduced working week, since the total number of hours that people spent in paid employment remained the same (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010), the example may help us realise the importance of potential benefits from economising on energy consumption, for instance, as well as from increased employees’ productivity and services users’ satisfaction. However, the series of working hours’ reductions, undertaken by a number of companies in the UK as a result of the 2009 recession, instead of making people redundant, appear by far more demonstrative of the possible effects of staff hours’ cuts on overall employment. As Coote, Franklin and Simms point out, such measures were undertaken inter alia by BT, British Airways, Honda, Ford, the accountancy firm KPMG, etc.; which produced a fall in full-time employment by 80 000 between July and September 2009, while part-time employment rose by 86 000 respectively, with a total of 7.66 million people working part-time, and nearly one million doing so, because they couldn’t find a full-time job (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010). Altogether, these examples appear to actually show that shorter working hours have been part of many people’s work routines (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010), therefore, nothing novel or unwonted, especially in times of crisis. Despite being of little importance for workers with low pay and little control over their working schedule, and definitely not considered a panacea for all ills, shorter working hours would be a popular and efficient measure where the conditions, including pay, are stable and favourable (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010). The Vision: Problems Related to Redundancy The recent reduction in our organisation’s funding, imposed by the ongoing crisis and the government pursuit of spending cuts, necessitates the introduction of radical measures aimed at reducing the organisation’s overall expenditure. With an overdraft that has reached its limit, the first choice would be a number of redundancies, which is more or less a normal practice in times of financial and economic woes. Even though such a solution may look like temptingly easy, as well as radical enough, it will produce a lot of disadvantages that far outweigh the actual benefits; which disadvantages could be classified into two major groups – disadvantages concerning the organisation and such concerning the prime beneficiary of the organisation (Mullins, 1996d), or organisation’s client group. In regard to our role as public sector organisation providing services outside market relationships, the second group of disadvantages is considered equally important. Firstly, given the good training history of our staff, making part of them redundant will inevitably result in a substantial loss of organisation’s investment – both time and public money – in employees’ training and development. Even though it might appear at first sight not an immediate problem to worry about, its implications – the necessity of coping without the contribution of well-trained, and therefore reliable staff members, let alone the time and money needed to train new ones when the necessity arises – would significantly damage the organisation’s ability to deliver the same quantity and quality of services to our client group. Secondly, a heavily increased role conflict – due to arisen role incompatibility and role overload – in regard to those staff members that remained in employment, for instance, would result in certain amount of stress, which is potentially very harmful as a source of tension, frustration and dissatisfaction; and thus would considerably worsen the organisational climate, staff morale, and commitment, hence the overall performance and effectiveness of the organisation (Mullins, 1996d). Finally, another performance problem is expected to come from the simple fact that staff is currently possessed of the right balance of skills, which will be inevitably disrupted in case of redundancies, thus additionally hampering the organisation development. Inasmuch as the whole purpose of public services is not to make and distribute profit, but to provide protection, help, and care (Flynn, 2007), the failure at sufficiently fulfilling that purpose constitute the second major group of disadvantages related to the prime beneficiary of the organisation. Worsening both quality and quantity of viable services the organisation usually provides for vulnerable people in the community would not only question the ability of public sector organisations to perform its functions, but also would put those people’s quality of life at considerable risk. Taken together, all the above-mentioned considerations communicate the idea that redundancies, as a measure to deal with limited resources in this particular case, could be potentially disastrous for both organisation’s performance and effectiveness, hence the organisation’s client group. The Vision: Short-time Working vs Redundancies The benefits of short-time working, in turn, could be allocated to organisation itself, organisation members and those service users who depend on organisation’s services. As for the overall performance of the organisation, the short-time working will prevent the disastrous effect of disrupting the current balance of skills and responsibilities, thus preserving the organisational processes and execution of work, and more or less the people-organisation relationship (Mullins, 1996d). The fact that such development will save redundancy payments would also be considered when the pros and cons are being weighed up. In regard to the workforce, there are several important considerations that should be taken into account, as follows. First and foremost is the notion of the so-called ‘happy/productive worker’, concerned with the relationship between job satisfaction and work performance; the concept of job satisfaction is comprised of various dimensions, including meaningful work, psychological well-being and stress at work (Mullins, 1996d), which are particularly important in regard to the current situation. On the other hand, the NEF report ’21 Hours’ indicates numerous additional benefits stemming from reduced work hours, like addressing over-consumption, the lack of time to live sustainably, care for each other, and enjoy life (Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010); with regard to the financial difficulties, however, the most important one would appear the possibility of less energy consumption. Given the previous examples of reduced ‘normal’ working week, or hours, the introduction of short-time working would be largely beneficial to parents – both men and women – allowing them to spend more time with their children (see above, Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010). There is also an unfavourable side of the short-time working situation, namely the inevitable drop in salary that the staff would take; however, the job loss would mean, sooner or later, a significantly lowered income in real terms, especially being considered against the background of overall cuts in government spending, and the shortage of vacancies across the country. The benefits of undisturbed provision of organisation’s services to the client group are obvious enough, since most of the negative impacts mentioned earlier, namely worsened quality of life due to insufficient services, or such of poor quality, wouldn’t be in force. Since people are likely to resist change when it’s perceived as reducing their pay or other rewards, requiring an increase in work for the same level of pay would act as threat to their job security (Mullins, 1996d); therefore, both redundancies and short-time working scheme would be perceived as such threat. That necessitates wage compensation being negotiated as part of a deal, including reduced working hours (see Coote, Franklin and Simms, 2010), which pay would be increased at a lower rate than in different situation, and thus to strike a balance between the interests of the organisation and its staff members. Here appears the role of the responsible trade unions, which would considerably contribute to the proper line of organisational development. Conclusion Recent trends, like substantial cuts in funding due to the ongoing financial and economic crisis, especially in the public sector organisations, have not only made each employee’s work place rather precarious and full of uncertainty, but also the overall management’ task of improving, or at least maintaining, productivity and standards of work performance – particularly uneasy. The redundancies, although their unquestioned potential for radical solutions of certain financial problems, are also possessed of just as unquestioned potential for a number of not that easily distinguishable problems – either immediate or postponed ones – which, in turn, would badly affect any organisation’s performance, client group, and staff members’ well-being as well. Therefore, the proposed alternative, namely the short-time working, may, if adopted, help us – as organisation members and public services providers – successfully deal with the implications of the crisis. References Coote, A., Franklin, J. and Simms Andrew, February 2010, 21 Hours: Why a shorter working week can help us all to flourish in the 21st century, London: NEF /The New Economics Foundation [online] Available at < http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/21-hours> [Accessed 20 February 2012] Flynn, Norman, 2002, Public Sector Management, 4th ed., London: Pearson Education Limited. Print Mullins, Laurie J., 1996d, Management and Organisational Behaviour, 4th ed., London: Pitman Publishing. Print Read More