Balanced Workplace Flexibility: Avoiding the Traps

Abstract

This article identifies three types of traps that can emerge when implementing workplace flexibility—altered work-life dynamics, reduced fairness perceptions, and weakened organizational culture—and provides core lessons for managers seeking a balanced flexibility approach. First managers must become flex savvy to understand the variation that exists in flexibility practices to align implementation with the workforce and organizational context. Second, implementing flexibility must not be treated as an accommodation but as a broader systemic organizational change empowering individuals and teams. The article provides a Work-smart case to highlight how to avoid traps and implement balanced workplace flexibility across multiple stakeholder interests.

Relationship between Computer-Mediated Communication and Employee Engagement among Telecommuting Knowledge Workers

“…Some scholar practitioners have argued by providing enhanced flexibility in work schedules and facilitating cross-functional collaboration and extensive knowledge sharing across organizational perimeters, telework positively influences employees job satisfaction [6] [7]. In contrast, other scholar practitioners pinpointed various factors such as physical isolation, social isolation, and feeling left out or the lack of sense of organizational belonging [8] [9] that may inhibit teleworkers' satisfaction. These studies commonly signify teleworkers concerns about exclusion from decision making in conjunction with being regarded as less committed to their work group, which in turn, lead them to extensively rely on information technologies to signal their presence and to reduce their sense of social isolation at the remote workplace to a greater degree when they work in an office [1].…”

Gemeinsames Arbeiten in der dezentralen digitalen Welt

“…30,5 Millionen (eurostat 2020). Ermöglicht wird diese Entwicklung durch technologische Fortschritte in Informations-und Kommunikationstechnologien (Johns und Gratton 2013;Moriset 2014), welche es erlauben, Arbeit von überall und jederzeit zu erledigen (Kossek et al 2015;Spreitzer et al 2017). Viele dieser Selbstständigen verrichten ihre Arbeit mittlerweile in Coworking-Spaces (siehe auch Abschn.…”

Reviewing the mediating role of work/life balance and motivational drivers of employee engagement on the relationship between talent management and organization performance

“…Talent management is about attracting, developing and retaining qualified employees to satisfy organizational needs (Ulrich and Allen, 2014;Mathew, 2015). This process is not an easy task anymore and its becoming harder with time, where organizations face more work force challenges, where rate of birth is declining, older people are compromising high percentage of the population, women percentage comprise nearly half of the workforce and a family with one parent is more common (Kossek, et al, 2015). Kossek and associates (2015) suggested that organizations should be more flexible to get over work force challenges.…”