Line managers influence the ongoing effectiveness of flexible working

Flexible working is often used by employees to help them achieve a satisfactory balance between the work and non-work aspects of their lives. In this context, the extent of family-specific support from line managers is an important element of the organization’s ongoing support for flexible working. Family-supportive supervisor behaviours (FSSBs) are those actions by line managers that are perceived to provide support for those workingflexibly, including instrumental support, and proactive management of work-family arrangements (Hammer et al., 2009). FSSBs have been linked to the success of flexible working, especially time flexibility, such as reduced work hours (Allen, 2001; Breaugh & Frye, 2008). In a meta-analysis, general organizational and supervisory support was found to be important for reducing work-family conflict, but most important was family-specific support (Kossek et al, 2011). There is evidence that family-supportive supervisors enable employees to better balance work and family through the reduction of work-family interference (Greenhaus et al., 2012). Family-supportive supervisors are perceived as empathetic, and also actively help employees to manage their work and non-work time. For example, line managers might take action to ensure that flexible workers maintain control over their work time, which helps to increase employees’ contextual work performance (Aryee et al., 2013). The positive effects of family-supportive supervision depends on the quality of the relationship with the line manager; for example, based on social exchange theory, Bagger and Li (2014) found that the influence of family-supportive supervision on employee work outcomes was mediated by leader-member exchange. While the literature has tended to focus on supporting families, the provision of supervisory support extends to employees who negotiate flexibility i-deals seeking work-life balance more generally (Crain & Stevens, 2018), such as working towards retirement. Indeed, research has demonstrated that flexibility i-deals can motivate employees to continue working beyond retirement (Bal et al., 2012).

While i-deals are specifically requested and negotiated with the line manager by the employee, and granted based on the employee’s perceived value, FSSBs are initiated by the employee’s line manager (Crain & Stevens, 2018). Limited research has focused on identifying the antecedents of FSSBs, but a theoretical model developed by Straub (2012) suggested that the quality of the relationship with the employee together with their felt responsibility would act as key mechanisms encouraging FSSBs. Felt responsibility would be increased when line managers developed a social bond based on perceptions of common experience and an understanding of the benefits of work-family enrichment; contextual factors, such as supportive senior managers and family-supportive organizational culture, would also encourage FSSBs. Line managers may be constrained by their ability to engage in role modelling if they lack dependant care responsibilities, face difficulties with managing flexible work teams, or experience increased workload and burnout themselves (Crain & Stevens, 2018). The value of demonstrating FSSBs is reflected in research conducted by Walsh et al. (2019), which provides evidence of a potential employee backlash when supervisors fail to engage in FSSBs; the study found that this can lead to workplace ostracism against supervisors with impacts on their well-being. This would suggest the possibility of a vicious cycle where line managers are too drained to engage in FSSBs, but this leads to negative employee reactions, which further drains the line managers’ personal resources.

In managing flexible work over time, line managers face the reality of management challenges, including difficulty in managing an employee’s work activities and preventing unproductive developments (Hertel et al., 2005). For example, Richardson (2010) found that managing employees who work remotely requires line managers to enhance communications, balance autonomy with micromanaging, and increase trust. Thus, it is important for flexible workers to agree with their line managers from the outset how they will work with their colleagues and their manager to maintain work productivity (Kossek & Thompson, 2016), such as when handing over incomplete work and information for others to deal with in order to hit deadlines. Rousseau et al. (2016) argue that the nature of the manager-employee relationship may change over time, given that those who work reduced hours or work remotely may feel less connected to their line manager and the organization, and so feel less committed, leading to the relationship becoming more transactional over time. This shifting in the quality of the manager-employee relationship may subsequently affect the line manager’s ongoing provision of support, leading to potential marginalization of flexible workers. In addition to the relationship with the manager, flexible working may also affect relationships with co-workers, particularly where the implementation of i-deals leads to increased peer dissatisfaction, perceptions of inequity, and resentment from colleagues. Line managers who have good relationships with their team may be able to mitigate these effects as the i-deals of others may be more accepted as colleagues trust the manager. Thus, colleagues are less likely to perceive i-deals as favouritism, and may see their line manager as open to flexibility (and so amenable to negotiating an i-deal for others in the future). Line managers might also be well-placed to mitigate the “dark side” of flexible working, which has been identified as operating through three primary mechanisms (at a micro-level): inequity mechanism, a stigma mechanism, and a spillover mechanism (Perrigino et al., 2018). It is important for line managers to manage the team as a whole, and not just flexible working employees, to ensure that flexible working “works” for the team as well as the individual.

Kossek and Ollier-Malaterre (2019) studied line managers’ work redesign tactics, which are manager-initiated activities aimed at ensuring that workload is decreased in line with reductions in work hours and pay for those with reduced-load work arrangements. This is important for flexible workers as the failure to manage workloads can lead to frustration and overwork for employees, as well as impacting on career progression and opportunities for networking (Gascoigne & Kelliher, 2018). Line managers discussed how they would proactively reorganize work such that reduced-load work still maintained an appropriate level of challenge without leading to work intensification, such as identifying tasks that could be removed from the scope of the job. These ongoing activities formed a stage of sustainable career embedding, which involved communication to resolve issues and cultural readjustment to ensure that flexible working did not become stigmatized over time. In addition, both line managers and employees would engage in collaborate job crafting to co-create sustainable careers (Kossek & Ollier-Malaterre, 2019), which takes place informally from implementation and through ongoing collaborative activities. The extent to which these collaborative activities are successful in building a sustainable and rewarding job depends on the quality of the manager-employee relationship.

The use of informal job crafting by employees is discussed by Gascoigne and Kelliher (2018); they highlight that some job crafting needs to be done by the employee on a day-to-day basis in order to “fine-tune” the arrangement (e.g., so that they are not seen to be doing less than colleagues). They emphasize how few flexibly working employees in their study were able to negotiate a workable i-deal, and that informal reworking of the “deal” would continue over time, which would involve both individual and collaborative job crafting by the employee. Flexible workers will continue to craft their jobs on a daily basis to optimize the fit between their own requirements and job characteristics (Wessels et al., 2019). This continues on a micro-level after the negotiation of an i-deal and allows employees to decide where and when to work on a daily basis. Wessels et al. define time-spatial job crafting as:

[a] context-specific type ofjob crafting in which employees (a) reflect on specific work tasks and private demands; (b) select workplaces, work locations, and working hours that fit those tasks and private demands; and (c) possibly adapt either their place/location of work and working hours or tasks and private demands to ensure that these still fit to each other thereby optimizing time/spatial-demands fit.

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They propose this as a specific type of person-environment fit (PE fit) that employees manage using job crafting to actively adapt their work environment to align with their personal work demands. As this job crafting is personalized and occurs on a daily basis, whilst optimizing fit for the individual, it may still create significant challenges for line managers in terms of coordination, and may exacerbate marginalization of employees from their colleagues. Gascoigne and Kelliher (2018) found that those employees who relied only on individual job crafting tended to focus on reducing demands (which had disadvantages, such as the potential for marginalization and/or work intensification). However, engaging in collaborative crafting with colleagues was a more successful tactic, such that their co-workers would be able to provide cover for the employee’s absence within the team by substituting for them. Such tactics would depend on maintaining good relationships not only with the line manager, but also with co-workers.

We have focused on the role of line managers, highlighting their importance not only in managing special arrangements for flexible workers, but also in managing the broader needs of the team. Many aspects of the success of flexible working rely not only on the efforts of line managers, but also on the effects of collaborative job crafting with colleagues, which depend on

Line managers and flexible working 107 building positive relationships within teams, and avoiding the development of resentment from colleagues. Although they have received less research attention, it is also important to note that line managers’ efforts are much assisted by a positive team climate and a supportive organizational culture (Bal et al., 2012; Bourdeau et al., 2019; Rofcanin et al., 2017b). For example, Rofcanin et al. (2017b) examined the moderating effects of a family-supportive organizational culture, such that FSSBs had a stronger relationship with employee work engagement within a positive organizational culture. Thus, this research illustrates the additive effects of positive support from line managers together with a supportive organizational culture.