16/06/2008 1

Work-life Balance and Flexible Working

Arrangements

Věra Kuchařová,

Research Institute For Labour and Social Affairs

16/06/2008 2

Contents

• Basic questions about the use of flexible working arrangements - FWA

• Demand- supply relations (E-ers x E-ees)

• Expectations and reality of FWA

• Positives and negatives of flexibility

16/06/2008 3

Data sources

• Primary data:• GGS – Generation and Gender Survey (2005)• FEE – Family,Employment, Education (2006-

2007)

• Published data: • Eurostat• European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and

Working Conditions

16/06/2008 4

Basic questions on incidence and extension of flexible work arrangements

• Where – which spheres of labour market

• Who I – which groups of employees or social groups

use/can use particular forms of employment

• Who II – which employers (sector, branch, type of

ownership)

• When I – in what life situations employees/groups of

employees use FWA

• When II – under what conditions the employers

introduce FWA

Possibilities of interrelationship of employees’

and employers’ interests – a distribution of tensions

16/06/2008 5

Forms of work flexibility (main)

• Flexibility of place: regular/irregular, working from home

• Flexibility of time:› Part-time jobs (based on daily or weekly basis, or

organised as changing weeks or as temporary work)

› Flexitime (flexible starting and finishing time, compressed work week, working time account)

› Work sharing (job sharing, job splitting)› Work on call› Negative flexibility: work overtime, shift-work, work

in unsocial (unusual) time

16/06/2008 6

Prevailing place of work (GGS)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

men women men women

total employees

variety of places

part of the week athome/ part awaywork at home

one place awayfrom home

16/06/2008 7

Features of work from home• Homeworking – manual work prevails, more often

demanding lower skills, which corresponds with people’s demand – namely among caring people and people coping with unemployment, those who are repetedly on maternity/[parental leave; disabled people; foreigners, those who need to lower „side costs“ of their employment (e.g. on commuting);

• Teleworking – connected with IT → higher education – people’s interest is growing

There are not significant differences by gender in general, more important is current individual situation

16/06/2008 8

The pros and cons – work from home

• Under questions:

Extend of free choice, impacts on further career, adequacy of financial remuneration and other forms of evaluation

• Positives: free working hours, work close to family, compatibility with other activities

• Negatives: social isolation, inaccessibility of benefits, employee bears a part of costs Risks: often non-use of contracts, (un)certainty of employment + ambivalence of advantages and disadvantages

16/06/2008 9

Advantages/disadvantages for employers and employees – work from home

Work from home

1,3

17,6

45,3

35,8

05

10

1520253035

404550

OrganisationAdvantages,employees

disadvantages

Advantages both Organisationdisdvantages,

employeesadvantages

Disadvantages both

16/06/2008 10

Part-time job

• The most frequent form of FWA, although it is used by 8 % of women and 2 % of men

• Complicated relations between supply and demand :

› employees: strong reasons both in favour (family, health, style of living, life-cycle) and against (finances, career)

› for employers most important are characteristics of a working position (differences by occupations, branches etc.), employees’ needs reflected to a different extend

16/06/2008 11

Advantages/disadvantages for employers and employees – part time jobs

Part-time jobs

4

28,6

40,7

25,7

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

OrganisationAdvantages,employees

disadvantages

Advantages both Organisationdisdvantages,

employeesadvantages

Disadvantages both

16/06/2008 12

Influence of the phase of family cycle – family conditions

Share of women working full-time according to number of children and age of children (GGS, %)

0,010,020,030,040,050,060,070,080,090,0

100,0

1-5 6-10 11-15 16+

Age of the youngest child

1 child 2 children 3+ children

16/06/2008 13

Part-time jobs – experience by position in a family (FEE)

Reasons for refusal/non use of part-time jobs: – Lone mothers: not interested (31%); not

possible at the current employer (11%); finances (40%)

– Married mothers: not interested (47%); not possible at the current employer (21%); finances (17%)

– Married fathers: not interested (45%); not possible at the current employer (7%); finances (43%)

16/06/2008 14

How partners combine full-time and part-time work, age 20-49, at least one of them employed (Eurostat)

64

45

27

38

77

3

19

44

13

2

0

2

4

2

1

29

29

21

45

13

4

5

4

2

7

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Czech Rep.

EU-25

Netherland

Italy

Slovenia

both full-time man full-time , woman part-time

man P-T, woman F-T or both P-T only man employed

only woman employed

16/06/2008 15

Flexible working time

• Has beeen becoming more demanded, prefered to part-time work – it reduces risks of PTJ (financial, social, career)

• Organisations offer less often than PTJ

• Main risk for employees: difficult predictability

• Not used according to employees’ preferences , but rather the employers’needs (GGS)

16/06/2008 16

Usual work schedule by gender (GGS)

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

men women men women

total employees

regularly during the daytime working hours change periodically

irregular work schedule "unusual" working time

16/06/2008 17

Advantages/disadvantages for employers and employees – flexible working time

Flexible working time

1,7

47,2

34,7

15,9

05

10

1520253035

404550

OrganisationAdvantages,employees

disadvantages

Advantages both Organisationdisdvantages,

employeesadvantages

Disadvantages both

16/06/2008 18

Extend of satisfied interest in a length of working time – men and women

- parents of children up to 7 years (FEE)

men womenfull-time 97 93part-time (half or more of full-time job) 17 27part-time (less than half) 0 15

16/06/2008 19

Job sharing

• Very rare form

• Employers do not see advatages, find it complicated (difficult organization), do not understand the principle

› Employees – neutral/ambivalent attitudes (as those concerning part-timer jobs)

16/06/2008 20

Advantages/disadvantages for employers and employees – job sharing

Job sharing

3,3

19,922,6

54,2

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

OrganisationAdvantages,employees

disadvantages

Advantages both Organisationdisdvantages,

employeesadvantages

Disadvantages both

16/06/2008 21

Negative flexibility

• More ferquent than ther types of flexibility

• Work overtime: 19 % women, 27 % men• Shift work: 27 % women, 24 % men• Work in unusual time-e.g. on Saturdays

(most often): 35 % women, 47 % men

(Source: regular Sample survey of labour fource)

16/06/2008 22

Work overtime

• Longterm high incidence in Europe incl. CR› Employers – a measure of flexibility› Employees – source of higher income vs.

worse quality of life – interest in WO has been decreasing

› May be misused by employers, but also mixed with „positive“ flexibility measures

16/06/2008 23

Work in unsocial/unusual time

• Ineterests of employees: financial, variable time arrangements, work-life balance (less effective than other forms), possibility of a second job

• Impacts: exhaustment, health, family life

• Inerest of employers: ekonomy in investments, technological changes

16/06/2008 24

Summary

• High declared interest of employees • Diskrepancy of expectations of employers

and employees is sometimes dificult to get over

• Insufficiant knowledge of employees about cosequences of flexible regimes

16/06/2008 25

Summary – continues

• ¾ employers find the extend of a supply of FWA as sufficiant from the point of view of organisations

• and 1/5 of them find the extend of a supply of FWA as sufficiant from the point of view of employees’ interests; only 5 % plan changes

• Employers’ refusal sometimes based on little practice and information