Aequus Partners' Diversity and Flexibility e-newsletter, September 2009

Dear Colleagues

In this newsletter we examine workplace flexibility - what’s new?

There is now an impressive body of academic and trade research about work/family integration and one would think that the case for workplace flexibility could not be stronger.  Nevertheless some employers and managers are not yet “with the programme” and to provide a stimulus, and framework for discussions, the Australian Government has introduced a “right to request flexibility” (“r2r”) National Employment Standard.  The r2r commences on 1 January 2010 – but are Australian employers ready?  We profile research on the current state of play and the steps organisations are planning over the next 3 months to get up to speed.

The case for enabling employers to combine work/family roles has been further strengthened by recent research from the Netherlands on positive health outcomes (eg cholesterol levels) and work performance (eg energy).  What are the conditions necessary to achieve work/life balance?  Research from New Zealand identifies the importance of “useable” work/life policies – ie policies which enable access to flexible work practices without strings attached.

In particular we look at:

1. Australian research:  “Right to request flexibility” (“r2”) National Employment Standard survey report.  This month, Aequus Partners and CCH Australia launched the results of a national survey on organisational knowledge of, and readiness for, the “right to request flexibility” National Employment Standard.  Disturbingly the research found that there is a very low (or non-existent) level of knowledge about the r2r, yet HR practitioners expect that the r2r will generate more requests from eligible and ineligible employees.
2. Dutch research:  Is managing the work-family interface worthwhile?  Benefits for employee health and performance.  This research identifies positive health and well-being outcomes for employees (in terms of cholesterol and BMI) as well as for employers (in terms of absenteeism and energy) when employees are able to combine their work and family roles so as to reduce conflict and facilitate enhancement.
3. New Zealand research:  Flexible work arrangements: exploring the linkages between perceived usability of flexible work schedules and work/life balance.  This research identifies the importance of the useability of work/life policies (ie does access come with strings attached – such as career stagnation) on positive work/life balance outcomes.  The research also identifies the relationship between flexible work schedules and work/life balance.
4. Website update:  Workplace flexibility site includes “r2r” portal.  Our workplace flexibility site now includes a dedicated page on the Australian “right to request” (“r2r”) legislation.  The page includes articles, podcast and opinion pieces about the r2r and how to comply.

1.  AUS research:  “Right to request flexibility” (“r2r”) National Employment Standard survey report

The Australian Federal Government has overhauled Australian industrial relations and introduced ten National Employment Standards through the Fair Work Act 2009.  One of these Standards is the “right to request flexibility” (r2r) which will commence on 1 January 2010.  The r2r provides eligible employees (ie those with children under school age, or children under 18 with a disability) with the right to ask an employer to change their (ie the employee) work practices (eg to working from home).  An employer is required to respond in a timely and transparent way (ie in 21 days and in writing).  Moreover the r2r Standard balances employee and employer needs by viewing every request through a lens of reasonableness.  In particular (and notice the onus here), an employer can only reject an employee’s request on “reasonable business grounds”.

This legislative framework will help facilitate transparent and pragmatic conversations between managers and employees about flexible work practices, but this outcome is dependent upon awareness of the legislation per se as well as its requirements.  To identify whether employers and employees are aware of the r2r, and more importantly whether they are ready for 1 January 2010, Aequus Partners together with CCH Australia (a publishing company) conducted a survey of diverse Australian organisations.  In essence we found that HR practitioners perceive a low level of r2r knowledge by managers and employees, but expect the r2r will generate more requests for flexibility.  Accordingly HR practitioners anticipate a high level of work (eg education and training) over the next few months to help their organisations come up to speed.

1.1  Aim

To identify (i) knowledge about the r2r; (ii) the current state of play in relation to flexibility implementation in Australia; and (iii) r2r implementation strategies.

1.2  Method

529 Australian respondents from the newsletter databases of Aequus Partners and CCH Australia completed an on-line survey in August 2009.  Of the 529 respondents, 64% were practitioners in Human Resources (HR), diversity or law, and given their expertise these respondents could be expected to have a high level of insight into practical r2r implementation issues.

The respondents were drawn from the private sector (68%), public sector (23%) and not-for-profit.  In terms of organisational size, 14.7% of respondents worked in small organisations (ie 1-19 employees); 50.09% in medium sized organisations (20-199 employees); 20.10% in large organisations (200-4999 employees); and 13.10% in very large (5000+ employees).

1.3  Findings

Findings were made in terms of the following three themes: (i) knowledge of the r2r; (ii) current practice; and (iii) future strategies to address gaps.

1.  Knowledge of the r2r

1. Do managers and employees have sufficient knowledge about the r2r to ensure compliance?  Danger danger:  Managerial and employee knowledge about the r2r appears to be dangerously low.  Over 80% of respondents rated employees’ and managers’ knowledge of the r2r as either non-existent or low.  This suggests that the majority of employees don’t know how to make a request under the r2r so that it is compliant, and the majority of managers don’t know how and when to respond.  Notably very few respondents (11%) felt “very” or “extremely confident” that managers will be able to implement the “reasonable business grounds” test.
2. Do current low levels of managerial and employee knowledge about the r2r really matter?  High expectations:  More requests for flexibility are expected.  74% of respondents expect that the r2r will generate more requests from eligible employees (ie those with children under school age, or children under 18 who have a disability) and 71% expect that there will be an increase in access to flexible work practices by eligible employees.  In addition 59% of respondents expect that they will receive more requests from ineligible employees (eg from employees with other caring responsibilities) and 39% expect an increase in access by this group.
3. If the business turns to HR for the answers, does HR have sufficient knowledge about the r2r to ensure compliance?  HR’s knowledge is tracking in the right direction, but a top-up is needed.  The majority of HR practitioners rated their knowledge of the r2r as being at a “medium” or “high” level.

2.  Current practice

1. Can organisations rely upon the current state of play regarding flexible work practices, ie does the r2r require just a tweaking of current processes?
   1. A few gold stars and much muddling along.  Only 9% of respondents categorised their organisations as implementing flexibility “very effectively” or “highly effectively” (in other words, this is a “gold star” rating), whilst 63% rated implementation much lower – ie “quite effectively” or “effectively”.  Notably over 1/4 of respondents rated their organisation as not implementing flexibility “effectively at all”.
   2. There’s a lot more heart than handiwork.  Whilst 2/3 of respondents agreed that flexible work arrangements are promoted and encouraged within their organisation and 2/3 said that managers were committed to the effective implementation of flexible work arrangements (so the “heart” is in the right place), only 1/3 said that flexible work arrangements were implemented consistently across their entire organisation.  In relation to “handiwork”, respondents rated managerial capability to implement the flexibility agenda as hovering just below the 50% level, with only 55% agreeing that managers had the necessary skills, 41% that managers had sufficient knowledge and 40% that managers had sufficient confidence to deal with difficult issues associated with implementation.
   3. We don’t know what we don’t know.  Few respondents said that their organisations have systems and processes in place to monitor requests for flexible work practices (17%), decisions (19%), outcomes (22%) and the impact of approvals and refusals to work flexibly (7%).

3.  Future strategies

1. What are the priority r2r implementation strategies for organisations before 1 January 2010?  Policies, processes and practices:  A swag of work before 1 January 2010.  The top three r2r implementation strategies identified by respondents were:
   1. Guidelines:  95% of respondents indicated that they will develop guidelines on the r2r for their managers and employees;
   2. Training:  91% that they will roll-out training for their managers; and
   3. Policies:  89% that they will update their flexibility policy.
2. What are the long term strategies to ensure the effective implementation of r2r initiatives?  A flexibility tracking blind spot?  Notably the lowest ranked remedial action was a flexibility audit, with fewer than 55% of respondents committing to this type of analytic tool.

1.4  Conclusion

In relation to knowledge levels about the r2r the report concluded that there is a need for Australian organisations to act quickly to upgrade the knowledge of HR in relation to the r2r to ensure that HR practitioners are confident in their ability to advise their organisations.  Moreover, there is a significant need to transfer HR’s upgraded knowledge about the r2r to the business as soon as possible, given the perceived low level of knowledge amongst managers and employees.  The bottom line is that there is currently a yawning gap between the high expectation of requests under the r2r and managers perceived low level of knowledge about how to comply.  Assuming this low level of knowledge is real, and not just a matter of perception by survey respondents, there is a real danger of r2r non-compliance if unattended.

In relation to current practice, the report concluded that there is considerable room for improvement in relation to the implementation of flexible work practices in the majority of those Australian organisations surveyed, ie to lift implementation from “muddling along” to a “gold star rating”.  The current state of play means that organisations should not be lulled into a false sense of security that everything is humming along, and the r2r merely represents a tweaking of current expectations and processes.  In fact the r2r requires the development of new and streamlined processes and communication strategies – all before 1 January 2010.

Finally, in relation to future strategies the report concluded that there is a clear and full work agenda for HR over the next 3 months before the commencement of the r2r National Employment Standard.  Critical action items include providing managers and employees with guidelines about the r2r, training managers on the r2r processes (and especially how to make a compliant decision), and updating policies.  Tracking and review mechanisms should not be lost in this hive of activity, and a long term plan to enhance the effectiveness of workplace flexibility should include evaluation and monitoring strategies.

To download an executive summary of the report go to
www.workplaceflexibility.com.au/r2r_NES_survey_report_1_Sept_2009_executive_summary.pdf.  For a copy of the full report email Juliet Bourke.


2.  Dutch research:  Is managing the work-family interface worthwhile?  Benefits for employee health and performance

Do organisations that enable employees to combine their work and family roles have healthier and higher performing workforces?  A response to this might be, don’t we already know this to be true?  Certainly, practitioners and policy makers consistently frame their “business case” for work/life and flexibility initiatives in these terms.  The reality is however that most of the studies used to support this proposition have focused on self-report data collected at the same point of time (that is, completing a survey that asks for your own assessment of both your level of work/life conflict and your current health and well-being or job performance).  Further, most of these studies have focused on the negative component of this – that is, the negative impact work/life conflict has on physical or psychological health.  In contrast this research (combining two studies) provides concrete links between work/family balance and positive health outcomes (eg weight loss and cholesterol level) as well as workplace performance (eg absenteeism).

2.1  Aim

The aim of the research was to examine:

1. The relationships between both work-family conflict and work-family facilitation experiences, and objective measures of health and job performance; and
2. The above relationships (conflict and facilitation) using both cross-sectional data (ie all data collected at one period of time) and longitudinal data (ie data collected at different points of time, enabling conclusions to be drawn about cause and effect).

2.2  Method

The paper is based on two studies conducted in the same multinational financial services firm based in the Netherlands.  The research was conducted as part of an organisational initiative (“Vitality Check”) that provided employees with an opportunity to have a physical check-up.

Study 1:  Based on a sample of 1134 employees (56% response rate), participants worked more than 20 hours a week and were broadly representative of all employees in the organisation.  79% were either married or cohabiting and 63% had at least one child.  Measures included both work-to-family and family-to-work conflict (eg stress at work makes you irritable at home) and facilitation (eg having a good day at work makes you a better companion when you are at home).  Health measures were:  cholesterol level, Body Mass Index (BMI), and physical stamina (a six minute performance test on a home trainer).

Study 2:  58 call centre employees participated in this study.  It involved data collection at two points in time, one year apart.  As described by the authors, this is a small-scale longitudinal study aimed at investigating whether “facilitation experiences” predict health and performance indicators over time.  A survey and a physiological check were conducted on both occasions.  There were three measurement categories:

1. Work-family enhancement  (both work-to-family and family-to-work): involving:
   1. energy-based measures (eg “Because I relax and regain my energy at home, I can better focus on performing my work”),
   2. time-based measures (eg “The amount of time I spend on my work stimulates me to undertake enjoyable activities in the time I spend on my home life”),
   3. behavioural measures (eg “Because of the things I learn at home, I also function better in social contacts at work”), and
   4. psychological measures (eg “Because of my work I am better able to put home-related matters into perspective”).
2. Physical health:  cholesterol levels, BMI and sickness absence (taken from company records).
3. Organisational job performance indicators:  A “success ratio” – the extent to which an employee has met set performance targets; and the number of times a person did not answer his or her telephone in time (an organisation based negative performance indicator).

2.3  Findings

In summary, Study 1 found links between health outcomes and work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, as well as work-to-family facilitation:

1. Work-to-family conflict was related to both higher cholesterol and BMI indicators.
2. Family-to-work conflict was not related to health indicators.
3. Work-to-family facilitation was related to lower cholesterol and higher physical stamina.
4. Family-to-work facilitation was related to lower BMI.

In summary, Study 2 found links between work-to-family facilitation and health and performance outcomes:

1. Using energy-based measures, work-to-family facilitation predicted lower cholesterol levels one year later.
2. Using time-based measures, work-to-family facilitation predicted a lower BMI one year later.
3. Using energy-based measures, work-to-family facilitation and family-to-work facilitation predicted all health indicators one year later.
4. Using time-based measures, work-to-family facilitation predicted all health indicators one year later.
5. Using behavioural measures, work-to-family facilitation predicted lower absenteeism one year later.
6. Using psychological measures, family-to-work facilitation predicted lower scores on the negative performance indicator (not answering calls on time).
7. Using higher time-based measures, work-to-family facilitation predicted higher job performance success ratios one year later.

Caveat:  As is pointed out by the authors there are several limitations of the study.  These include:

1. Conflict measures (and especially those which were time-based) were not included in the second study and therefore the combined effects of the negative and positive measures were not examined.
2. Facilitation was not measured at Time 2 and therefore it is possible that employees’ facilitation experiences are the drivers of health and performance effects at this time.
3. The very small sample size and the fact that female employees and those who worked fewer hours were more likely to engage in the follow-up phase of the study.
4. Although statistically significant, a relative small percentage of variance is explained by the variables.  For example, in Study 2, facilitation experiences explained only 3% of the variance in cholesterol levels and 1% in BMI.  The authors argue that a finding that this amount of variance is explained by work/family variables is “striking” given that objective health measures are largely predicted by genetics, food preferences and living circumstances.  Further they provide an interesting statistic to support the importance of their findings by showing that a shift of one point on a facilitation scale translates into a reduction of 1.82 kilograms in body weight one year later!

2.4  Implications

This research adds to the growing list of studies, articles and books that advocate a more balanced approach to our thinking about what matters in the interface between work and life:  it is about both conflict and facilitation.  Moreover, a more sophisticated approach to conflict and facilitation is needed by considering the different dimensions (energy, time, behavioural and psychological) and how these might be related to different outcomes.  A focus on work-life facilitation also means we are more likely to consider positive emotions (feelings) and how these can result in people being more flexible, integrative and creative in their thinking – both at work and in their personal lives (see the paper for research findings on this aspect).

The findings have implications for the development of “the business case” for work/life and flexibility.  Additionally, and it can be argued, more powerful evidence is provided to support the proposition that being able to combine work and family/personal roles (both key components of a person’s identity) lead to better individual health, lower absenteeism and higher job performance.  These effects are easily translatable into financial benefits for organisations.

Current work-life policies and practices are more likely to address the time-based conflicts and facilitation.  These findings suggest that more emphasis should be given to work-life support programmes that focus on energy-based, behaviour-based and psychological-based facilitation experiences.

For more information see Van Steenbergen, E.  F.  & Ellemers, N.  (2009).  Is managing the work-family interface worthwhile?  Benefits for employee health and performance.  Journal of Organisational Behaviour,  Vol 30, pp.  617-642


3.  New Zealand research:  Flexible work arrangements:  exploring the linkages between perceived usability of flexible work schedules and work/life balance

One of the apparent disconnects between work/life policies and employee uptake is whether the flexible work arrangement comes with strings attached, eg access is seen as career-limiting.  If this is the case, then it can be assumed that the policy offering will not deliver all that it is designed to achieve, neither for the organisation nor the employee, namely enhanced work/life balance.  On the other hand, it might be assumed that policies which do enable greater work schedule flexibility (without strings) will lead to enhanced perceptions of work/life balance.  Are these assumptions correct?

This is the question Jeremy Hayman (Auckland University of Technology) answered via a recent survey of 710 employees.  In essence, Hayman found direct linkages between the perceived usability of flexible work schedules and three aspects of work/life balance namely work interference with personal life, personal life interference with work, and work/personal life enhancement.  Further, employees using flexi-time schedules experienced higher levels of work/life balance than employees working traditional fixed hours.  Surprisingly, Hayman also found that the positive relationship between flexibility and work/life balance did not hold true for employees who used job-sharing or telecommuting arrangements.

3.1  Aim

Firstly the purpose of the study was to obtain a better understanding of how the perceived usability of flexible work policies influences work/ life balance, namely:

1. Work interference with personal life  (WIPL)
2. Personal life interference with work  (PLIW)
3. Work/personal life enhancement  (WPLE).

Secondly, the aim of the study was to identify whether employees who use flexible work arrangements (ie flexi-time, flexi-place and job-sharing) experience greater work/life balance.  This is because these employees were expected to have greater work/balance given their assumed greater level of autonomy than those working a traditional fixed-hour schedule.

3.2  Method

710 self-report questionnaires were collected from administrative employees in a large university in Western Australia.  The sample was representative of the variety of work arrangements used by the University’s office-based employees, ie flexi-time (43% of respondents), flexi-place (14% of respondents), job-sharing (8.5% of respondents) and standard fixed hours (34.5% of respondents).

In relation to perceived usability, respondents were asked to self-rate against seven items relevant to perceived usability of the University’s flexible work policy and dimensions of work/life balance (eg ‘In general, I feel free to use the flexible work programmes provided by this organisation’).

In relation to work/life balance, respondents were asked to assess how often they felt a particular way during the past three months in relation to 15 items covering work interference with personal life, personal life interference with work and work/life enhancement.

The study controlled for parental status, gender, hours worked, and salary.

3.3  Findings

1. Policy usability makes a difference:  Hayman found that perceived usability was significantly correlated to all three dimensions of work/life balance (i.e.  WIPL, PLIW and WPLE).  Accordingly Hayman argued that the usability of work/life policies actively reduces “the negative impact of work conflicting on personal life and personal life interfering with work” plus perceived usability is associated with “positive enhancement of personal life on work and vice versa”.
2. Working with a flexi-time schedule makes a difference:  Hayman found that flexi-time schedules were generally associated with significantly higher levels of work/life balance in terms of WIPL and WPLE than for people working fixed schedules.
3. Telecommuting and job-sharing of less value?  Hayman found that “flexi-place and job-share work schedules did not appear to significantly enhance work/life balance”.  Hayman surmised that this finding may reflect previous research findings that working from home and job-sharing can result in greater conflict balancing work and non-work responsibilities.

3.4  Implications

Whilst Hayman is at pains to identify the limitations of his study (eg cross sectional design, small sample size), he also suggests that the findings provide a compelling argument that organisational work/life policies have the capacity to enable work/life balance if they are perceived as usable, and that those policies which offer schedule flexibility have the greatest chance of converting the possibility of work/life balance into reality.

For more information see Hayman J.  R., (2009) “Flexible work arrangements: exploring the linkages between perceived usability of flexible work schedules and work/life balance” Community, work and family Vol 12 (3) pp 327 – 338.


4.  Website update:  Workplace flexibility site includes “r2r” portal

Aequus Partners’ workplace flexibility site now includes a dedicated “right to request” (r2r) portal, with information (including a podcast) about the fundamentals of the r2r legislation, research, opinion and international comparisons.
www.workplaceflexibility.com.au/right_to_request_workplace_flexibility.html.


Regards,

Juliet Bourke and Dr Graeme Russell
Partners
Aequus Partners
www.aequus.com.au

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