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Work Design for Flexible Work Scheduling: Barriers and Gender Implications

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Work Design for Flexible Work Scheduling: Barriers and Gender Implications WORK DESIGN FOR FLEXIBLE WORK SCHEDULING 33 Work Design for Flexible Work Scheduling: Barriers and Gender Implications Ann M. Brewer* The purpose of this article is to examine the nature of work design in relation to flexible work scheduling (FWS), particularly in respect to participation by women and men. There is a paucity of research evidence on this topic. Work design, essentially an artefact of enterprise culture, is constructed by the social rules of place, distance and time. Work practices that assume that work tasks are only conducted in the workplace during standard work time in the proximity of co-workers and managers do not, in the main, support FWS. While there is no significant evidence in this study that women and men perceive the barriers differently when considering taking up the option to engage in FWS options, the study addresses the reasons for this using a large survey of the Australian workforce. This article concludes that it is time to redefine these critical work design dimensions, in relation to existing power structures, in order to inject real flexibility into the workplace. Introduction article attempts to identify the barriers and hence, the facilitators in terms of men’s and he emergence of flexible work scheduling women’s engagement in FWS. There is a T(FWS), principally telecommuting, the paucity of research evidence to date on this compressed work week and flexitime, has topic. implications for the way work is designed and the type of workers who benefit from it. Driving forces of flexible work scheduling FWS refers to the use of telecommunications and/or information technology to modify As work is distributed away from centralized and/or replace the commute to the usual workplaces, the work organization is tending workplace by salaried workers, thereby pro- towards a ‘virtual’ context with managers viding them with flexibility such as improved and workers using technology to enable them choice about use of time and work location as to perform work, which may be at variance well as combining work and home demands. spatially and temporally with each other. With These factors may have greater appeal for distributed work, new work contexts become women if it is accepted that family roles com- accessible, such as access to other organizations pete more strongly with work roles and time (e.g. network organizations and strategic for women than for men. alliances), workplaces (e.g. home, car, tele- Introducing FWS into the work organization centre) or work sites (e.g. customer service has far-reaching implications for the division outlet) (Venkatesh and Vitalari 1992). of labour and how it structures the options There are two driving forces underlying for men and women to participate and benefit FWS: first, an increasing perception that in- from it. A number of studies (e.g. Mahmassani formation is a significant economic resource, et al. 1993; Mahmassani and Chen 1992; and second, a need for greater flexibility in Bernardino and Ben-Akiva 1996) focus on the conducting business regardless of national, role of the employer in influencing workers’ market, industry or time boundaries (Salomon Address for opportunities to participate in FWS but under- and Schofer 1988; Warf 1989). These forces correspondence: * Ann M. Brewer, play the barriers imposed by work design. lead to a requirement for organizational Institute of Transport The purpose of this article is to examine the flexibility in the face of intense competition Studies (Sydney and nature of work design in relation to FWS in and increased labour costs, which are placing Monash), The Australian practice, particularly in respect to participation pressure on management to raise product- Key Centre in Transport Management, C37, The by men and women. Is the way work is ivity, increase flexibility, and quality of University of Sydney, designed today conducive to workers taking outputs (Porter 1990). Distributed work is one Sydney, NSW 2006, up the option to engage in FWS? Second, this way of addressing these initiatives providing Australia. © Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. Volume 7 Number 1 January 2000 34 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION management is prepared to align work 1984), have argued that a segregation rule design with FWS (Brewer 1993, 1994, 1995; persists in delimiting a gendered division of Brewer and Hensher 1996; Harrison 1994). labour, and this may impact on those workers Third, new telecommunications and in- who have access to FWS and those who do formation technology have radically changed not. There is a strong notion in the literature an organization’s capacity to distribute work that only certain tiers of the workforce such processes, and hence, improved opportunities as managers and professionals are eligible for FWS programmes. For example, problems, for FWS (Christensen 1988). In Australia, for viewed as formidable in the past that have example, approximately 52% of managers plagued the successful implementation of and administrators and 31% of professionals telecommuting, such as access to information use some form of flexible start and finish and maintaining the customer-interface, have times compared to 28% of clerical staff and been somewhat mastered today. With the 14% of sales personnel (ABS 1993). If the increasing dispersal of business activities, assumption that managers and professionals FWS, and particularly telecommuting, are are ‘best’ suited to FWS, this may limit more relevant today than ever before (Gray women’s access, given their representation in et al. 1993) although some concern remains in these groups, particularly managerial. terms of cost of access, security of informa- Handy and Mokhtarian (1996a) discuss the tion and occupational health and safety issues emergence of a two-tiered workforce structure for employees working remotely. More im- comprising professional workers and support portantly as information technology makes staff, and its relevance for FWS. They contend work and customer activities increasingly that a two-tiered workforce has implications location-independent, distributed work will for FWS in that each group may experience prove a greater incentive for employers in alternative work scheduling differently. creating flexible forms of work scheduling. The two tiers relate to the degree of control or autonomy associated with each group of workers, with professional workers having Analysis of work design more control than support workers do. This Work design is defined as the interrelation- division correlates with the structure of the ship of workers, tasks, practices and routines, internal labour market in which assumptions in short, the division of labour. It is important are made about the competencies of occu- to note that human resource (HR) policy pational groups based on their internal governs work design in a corporate setting. labour market value. To claim that different The nature of the division of labour in its occupational groups have different cap- simplest form is an assignment of particular abilities or capacity for controlling their work tasks to distinctive occupational groups is arbitrary. Within a distributed work con- who interrelate in certain ways. There are text, and providing appropriate organizational two issues worth exploring in relation to restructuring has occurred, there is no work design and FWS: first, what structures plausible reason as to why one group of the division of labour; and second, how is the workers positioned ‘lower’ in the managerial division of labour in work organizations hierarchy should be tied to the workplace today conducive to the implementation of compared to any other. However, the ration- FWS? Relying on past practices of work ale of distributed work is often accompanied design may no longer be appropriate in the by a decentralized organization structure current context of distributed work if workers based on trust between management and are not taking up the option to engage in workers (Pratt 1997). Yet segregation may be FWS. The increasing participation of women based on trust of particular groups rather in the workforce (53.8% in Australia) suggests than in relation to individuals. that women, where they are the primary care The assumption of a two-tiered workforce, givers in the home, may be more likely to upon which managers make decisions about engage in FWS than men (ABS 1998). In short, monitoring employees’ performance and the question is to what extent work design productivity output, is more to do with the imposes a barrier on FWS in relation to gender. power of groups defending their occupa- tional boundaries than the way work is actually performed. This in itself is a form of segregation, which separates ‘lower paid’ Factors structuring the division workers (women) from ‘higher paid’ workers of labour (men). This assumption about occupational groups provides insight into this particular First, a number of authors, e.g. Cavendish barrier on FWS. In other words, a decision (1982), Game and Pringle (1983), O’Donnell being made about eligibility for participating Volume 7 Number 1 January 2000 © Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000 WORK DESIGN FOR FLEXIBLE WORK SCHEDULING 35 Table 1: The significance of place, distance and time to worker and work organization Worker Work organization Place personal visibility/ or physical division of labour, functional boundaries presence in workplace and resource allocation Distance proximity of interpersonal contact hierarchical control and direct supervision Time amount of time invested at work is work standardization, amount of time indicative of loyalty devoted to reaching deadlines is associated with quantity of output and productivity in an FWS programme on the basis of an presumption of place conceals an important occupational label or hierarchical position dimension of being human, that is, people’s seems to be a fundamental barrier to address capacity to both shape and reshape their con- in this debate. texts, contracting or expanding the bound- Second, gendered thinking may be con- aries of work performance.
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