Workplace Flexibility across the Lifespan

Abstract

As demographic changes impact the workplace, governments, organizations and workers are looking for ways to sustain optimal working lives at higher ages. Workplace flexibility has been introduced as a potential way workers can have more satisfying working lives until their retirement ages. This paper presents a critical review of the literature on workplace flexibility across the lifespan. It discusses how flexibility has been conceptualized across different disciplines, and postulates a definition that captures the joint roles of employer and employee in negotiating workplace flexibility that contributes to both employee and organization benefits.Moreover, it reviews how flexibility has been theorized and investigated in relation to older workers. The paper ends with a future research agenda for advancing understanding of how workplace flexibility may enhance working experiences of older workers, and in particular focuses on the critical investigation of uses of flexibility in relation to older workers.Flexibility can be regarded as one the key concepts of the contemporary workplace (Bird, 2015). Organizations try to become more flexible and adaptable to ever changing economic circumstances (Volberda, 1996; Way et al., 2015), while employees are expected to be more flexible in how they approach their jobs and careers (Hill et al., 2008a). Moreover, employees are increasingly looking for more flexibility in how they balance their work with their personal lives (Allen, Johnson, Kiburz, & Shockley, 2013;Ferguson, Carlson, & Kacmar, 2015), and in how they develop their careers (Moen & Sweet, 2004). Finally, governments across the world have increasingly responded to these trends by declaring flexibility the keyword for the future workforce and workplace (Johnson, 2011). In all these instances the denotation 'flexibility' refers to a different object and consequently has a different meaning. 3It is not surprising that the increasing popularity of the allegedly multi-interpretational term flexibility has coincided with rapid demographic changes in the workforce, including the aging of populations across the world (Kooij, 2015;Zacher, 2015). These demographic changes have caused governments, organizations, and employees to take a different position in how work and careers are both conceived and realized when life expectancy will rise to 100 years and above. However, current retirement systems are largely based on people retiring at 65 years (Wang & Shultz, 2010). One of the more immediate consequences of the aging population is that the ratio of working vs. non-working people is declining rapidly, causing more non-working people to be dependent upon a smaller number of people in jobs (Johnson, 2011). As these changes have put greater pressure on the affordability of pensions in many countries worldwide, governments have been engaging in the process of stimulating longer careers and ceasing with financially supporting early retirement. However, whereas the need for people to work beyond retirement has increased...

Train to retain: Training opportunities, positive reciprocity, and expected retirement age

“…The finding that idiosyncratic factors, such as personality and belief system, influence the strength of "organizational support signals" indicates that not all career management practices are equally relevant to all employees, and speaks to the importance of adopting an individualized view on careers (De Vos & Cambré, 2017). An individual approach to managing careers may be particularly relevant for older workers as they have more heterogeneous needs in their work than younger workers (Bal & Jansen, 2016;Dannefer, 2003). Accordingly, older workers may be more receptive and willing to respond to career management practices that are tailored to fit their needs, for instance through individual arrangements regarding their career development (i.e., development I-deals, De Vos & Cambré, 2017).…”

Development of an I-Deals Motivation and Management Measure

“…Depending on the motives people have for negotiation, types of i-deals may be differentially related to outcomes. For instance, a development i-deal (e.g., additional training) may be negotiated from a perspective to enhance one's capabilities and career opportunities, or from a perspective to avoid becoming unemployable through outdated skills (Bal & Jansen, 2016). These two motivations have different meanings, induce different emotions and hence, are likely to affect outcomes differently (Brockner & Higgins, 2001).…”

“…Hence, while growth and accommodative i-deals may be related to i-deal content, it is expected that they are empirically distinct from the content dimensions and can lead to different outcomes. I-deal motives are also different from person-job fit, work-life balance and flexible work arrangements (Bal & Jansen, 2016). I-deal motives differ from person-job fit, as the latter indicates either a subjective job attitude (i.e., someone perceives a fit with one's job) or a more stable objective phenomenon (i.e., a person's skills correspond with the abilities required for the job) (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman & Johnson, 2005).…”

“…I-deals are not formal HR policies as they constitute individualized arrangements negotiated by employees (e.g., Bal, 2017). This also differentiates them from flexible work arrangements, which are generally available to all employees, while i-deals are individually negotiated (Bal & Jansen, 2016).…”

HR flexibility: Precursors and the contingent impact on firm financial performance

“…Several studies in the human resource management (HRM) domain (e.g., Bal & Jansen, ; Beltrán‐Martín, Roca‐Puig, Escrig‐Tena, & Bou‐Llusar, ; Bhattacharya, Gibson, & Doty, ; Chang, Gong, Way, & Jia, ; Ketkar & Sett, , ; Lepak, Takeuchi, & Snell, ; Martínez‐Sánchez, Vela‐Jiménez, Pérez‐Pérez, & de‐Luis‐Carnicer, 2011) have integrated the concept of flexibility to explain, in part, how firm leaders can manage volatility and competitive pressures. Wright and colleagues (Way et al, ; Wright & Snell, ) contend that HR flexibility reflects the extent to which a firm's human resources (people) possess a variety of competencies, and the firm's HR practices can effectively utilize those people to be adaptive and facilitate the capacity of the firm to pursue strategic alternatives in response to competitive changes.…”