The challenges
Although the documented benefits of flexible work policies are encouraging, leaders could face several challenges when trying to implement them. These include endorsing and actively encouraging the use of such policies, creating fair and equitable access across employees, trusting employees and relinquishing control, and maintaining effective communication.
Active encouragement
An immediate and in some cases unexpected challenge leaders will face when flexible work schedules are introduced is endorsing their use. Indeed, a survey on flexible work arrangements conducted by the Conference Board of Canada identified managerial resistance as a primary obstacle in their implementation, with 64% of respondents indicating this as a primary issue (MacLean, 2018). In order for leaders to endorse flexible work systems, an important cognitive shift in how work is understood and evaluated needs to occur. No longer can units of time (i.e., number of hours worked) form a significant part of evaluating performance. Old assumptions, whether implicit or explicit, that equated arriving before or staying later than others with attitudes (e.g., loyalty, job satisfaction), work effort, or the quality of work performance are no longer viable. Within the context of a system that allows for flexible work scheduling, such assumptions would be both unfair and inaccurate. Leaders would now have to let go of the notion that performance monitoring necessitates shared face-time.
Supporting this, several studies have shown that the relationship between hours worked and production or output is non-linear (e.g., Pencavel, 2014). Specifically, below a certain threshold, hours worked are linearly associated with output; in contrast, output decreases once the threshold of hours (~6 hours) is crossed. In addition, evidence is mixed as to whether observing others’ task performance affects the quality of their performance (for simple tasks, observation improves performance while for complex tasks, observation harms performance; Markus, 1978); there would appear to be no evidence to suggest that the more hours a leader observes followers’ work performance, the better that performance. Shifting such beliefs can be challenging given cognitive biases such as the confirmation bias (the tendency to only pay attention to information that confirms originally held beliefs) and conservatism bias (the tendency to overvalue traditional information above novel evidence). Still, such changes would be necessary if leaders are to successfully support employees accessing flexible work opportunities.
Leaders resistant to the idea of flexible work may need to ask themselves why they are resistant. Are their attitudes based on negative anecdotes or difficult personal experiences? Might the leader fear their role will decrease in significance, or that employees will take advantage of them? One possibility is that providing leaders with disconfirming evidence will change such beliefs in some cases. Regardless, the larger lesson is that leaders themselves need to be supported in any transition by their organization when implementing flexible work systems.
The most effective leaders will ensure that accessing flexible work opportunities becomes the norm for their employees. Leaders do so by actively communicating and clearly outlining the flexible options available. They articulate the boundaries of such policies to reduce any ambiguity associated with their use; reward and recognize individuals who use such policies and discourage others from criticizing those who do so; and ensure performance expectations are not greater for those who choose to work flexible hours. In addition, they ensure equal or equivalent access to flexible work opportunities to all employees in the work group. Most importantly, they ensure that they themselves serve as models in the use of flexible systems — a topic to which we will return to later.
The importance of these leadership behaviors (e.g., feedback, reward, and recognition) should not be discounted. Across several studies, research shows that there is a persistent gap between what leaders think they have expressed to employees in terms of family-friendly work policies, and what programs and opportunities employees think they can actually access (Budd & Mumford, 2006; Sánchez-Vidal, Cegarra-Leiva, & Cegarra-Navarro, 2012). Leaders need to be careful to avoid any suggestion that accessing flexible work opportunities could harm employees’ careers in any way (e.g., work evaluation, promotional possibilities). Negative feedback, in whatever form it occurs, is invariably perceived more strongly than positive (Baumeister et al., 2001) and as such, leaders need to carefully consider how policy information is communicated and reinforced through their behaviors.
