Favorable working conditions for R&D employees help to improve the use of their creative potential, supporting knowledge intensification in the economy at large. This article presents fully observed recursive structural equation estimates, based on data from the authors' original repeated survey of Estonian creative R&D employees on a sample of 153 individuals from eleven entities. It finds that opting for flexible working time is strongly driven by gender-males are more likely than females to opt for R&D jobs with flexible schedules. R&D employees who mainly work remotely are more satisfied with their work results. Noncreative work tasks reduce R&D employees' contentment with their work outcomes and lower-at least in their own perception-the productiveness of their work in terms of creating value or new knowledge. Employees of both evening and morning types are found to have much more satisfaction with their work results than employees with no distinct morning-evening profile. These findings stress the benefits of flexible work arrangements in creative R&D jobs in order to account for individual differences and stimulate R&D output.
Numerous employers provide flexible working schedules in order to attract a more diverse range of potential employees. However, not all employees use the flextime option provided by their employer. This study seeks to understand what types of employees in creative research and development (R&D) jobs utilize the flexible working time option. We present probit estimates based on data from our original repeated survey of Estonian creative R&D employees on a sample of seventy-two individuals from eleven entities. We find age, residential status, and the number of young children in the family to be associated with the use of flexible working schedules. Those who have families opt for flextime use with a significantly higher probability than those who are living alone. The more under-school-age children the employee has, the less likely it is that he or she uses flexible schedules. Older employees appear to be more likely to use flexible schedules than their younger colleagues. Although the sample for our study is small, these pilot results may provide some background information for employers in the R&D business for making decisions about the arrangement of work in light of employee diversity in flextime use preferences.
Purpose
This paper aims to identify which types of creative R&D employees prefer which daily and weekly working schedules.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds on an original repeated survey of creative R&D employees from Estonia and presents multinomial logit regression estimates based on a sample of 153 individuals from 11 entities.
Findings
The probability of women preferring their weekly work to be concentrated in three to four days is 20 percentage points higher than in men, and the case is similar for less-educated creative R&D employees. The more educated prefer the standard five-day working week. Men have a stronger preference for their week of work to be dispersed over six to seven days. Sleep patterns appear to relate to working time preferences as morning-type individuals have a stronger preference for a working day with fixed start and end times. Those who sleep 7 h or more per day prefer the standard five-day working week more, while employees who sleep less than 7 h favour a working week of six to seven days. Employees who desire more creativity intensity at work have a stronger preference for irregular daily working hours, as do those with poorer general health.
Originality/value
The results indicate that individual characteristics have a significant impact on the preferences for working time arrangements. Similar working time regulations for all employees appear outdated, therefore, and may make work inefficient and harm individual well-being, at least for creative R&D employees.
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