Policies which help employees balance their work and non-work priorities have become increasingly popular among UK employers in recent years. Along with a legislative imperative for family leave-related policies, employers are being encouraged to introduce work-life policies and make them more inclusive in order to enhance their business performance. This paper looks at how four financial services organisations have approached the work-life balance agenda and examines the fit between the organisational intentions for work-life policy and actual outcomes for both organisations and employees. Culture played a large part in determining the experience of policies but so did resources. What managers were being asked to achieve in the business was often incompatible with formal work-life policies. Despite the rhetoric, work-life balance was still viewed as a tool for, and was used by female parents, limiting its potential to achieve the promoted business benefits.
Using evidence drawn from case studies in four companies in the Scottish financial sector, this paper examines how both statutory and company family leave policies are operated by line managers. This paper considers the extent of line managers’ knowledge of statutory and company family leave policies and finds that their knowledge, particularly of statutory measures, is often wanting. In exploring the reasons for this situation, training on statutory and company family leave policies was found to be extremely limited and although support from human resource professionals was provided, line managers only referred to them in exceptional circumstances. This situation has clear implications both for consistency of operation of these policies and for the role of human resource professionals in ensuring that statutory and company provisions are effectively put into practice.
Background: The need for greater flexibility is often used to justify reforms that redistribute tasks through the workforce. However, "flexibility" is never defined or empirically examined. This study explores the nature of flexibility in a team of emergency doctors, nurse practitioners (NPs), and registered nurses (RNs), with the aim of clarifying the concept of workforce flexibility. Taking a holistic perspective on the team's division of labor, it measures task distribution to establish the extent of multiskilling and role overlap, and explores the behaviors and organizational conditions that drive flexibly. Methods: The explanatory sequential mixed methods study was set in the Fast Track area of a metropolitan emergency department (ED) in Sydney, Australia. In phase 1, an observational time study measured the tasks undertaken by each role (151 h), compared as a proportion of time (Kruskal Wallis, Mann-Whitney U), and frequency (Pearson chi-square). The time study was augmented with qualitative field notes. In phase 2, 19 semi-structured interviews sought to explain the phase 1 observations and were analyzed thematically. Results: The roles were occupationally specialized: "Assessment and Diagnosis" tasks consumed the largest proportion of doctors' (51.1%) and NPs' (38.1%) time, and "Organization of Care" tasks for RNs (27.6%). However, all three roles were also multiskilled, which created an overlap in the tasks they performed. The team used this role overlap to work flexibly in response to patients' needs and adapt to changing demands. Flexibility was driven by the urgent and unpredictable workload in the ED and enabled by the stability provided by a core group of experienced doctors and nurses. Conclusion: Not every healthcare team requires the type of flexibility found in this study since that was shaped by patient needs and the specific organizational conditions of the ED. The roles, tasks, and teamwork that a team requires to "be flexible" (i.e., responsive and adaptable) are highly context dependent. Workforce flexibility therefore cannot be defined as a particular type of reform or role; rather, it should be understood as the capacity of a team to respond and adapt to patients' needs within its organizational context. The study's findings suggest that solutions for a more flexible workforce may lay in the organization of healthcare work.
PurposeThe purpose of this article is to assess whether tele‐nursing in Scotland (NHS24), when compared with traditional face‐to‐face nursing, facilitates greater employee control over working time and therefore a potentially better work‐life balance.Design/methodology/approachThe article draws on evidence from two independent research projects; a survey of 64 ward nurses and midwives, which involved face‐to‐face interviews; and a field study of tele‐nursing in a large site in Scotland, using interviews and observations of 15 nurse advisors or tele‐nurses.FindingsThree elements of work organisation are central in shaping nurses' working hours and their control over the balance between their work and their home life: the management of working hours; the degree of mutual dependency of nurses within teams; and the nature of patient care.Research limitations/implicationsThe two pieces of research reported offer a strong basis for comparative study. However, the two projects were designed independently, though research questions overlapped and one researcher conducted the field work in both settings; there is an imbalance in the number of interviews conducted in each setting; and the nurse advisor interviewees are of the same clinical grade, whereas a variety of grades and clinical areas are represented among the hospital nurse interviewees.Originality/valueThis is the first study of work‐life balance amongst tele‐nurses. The research demonstrates that call centre work has rationalised, depersonalised and yet enabled more “control” by nurses over their work‐life balance, while paradoxically offering less autonomy in their task environment. In conventional work settings professional values make it difficult for nurses to disengage from the workplace.
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