The flexibility gap: the employer perspective

There is a certain degree of variation in the extent to which flexible working can accommodate the interests of both employers and employees, which may explain why, as previously mentioned, not all employers tend to offer flexible working arrangements, and not all employees, even in the same organization, gain access to these flexible working arrangements. From an employer perspective, relative to the magnitude of the demand for a work schedule that could better align with personal needs and aspirations, the supply of flexible

Flexible working and skill-biased inequality 147 working is limited by structural or external constraints (Hill et al., 2008). These constraints are linked to the nature of jobs and to business-related variables (such as industry, types of market, and types of production), which may hamper the ability of workplaces to implement flexible working, restrict the range of flexible options available or limit the number of employees eligible for flexible working (Chung et al., 2007). For instance, in the case of occupations whose operational nature requires that most job-related tasks are performed at the employer’s premises, employees cannot be given much choice over when and where they work. Flexibility in relation to the timing and/or location of work may simply not be introduced for most employees in certain sectors (e.g., education, social care, and health) given that customers/ students/patients need support during specific/regular work hours and/or in person. Employees involved in teamwork or with low levels of autonomy generally need to maintain regular interaction and to receive systematic supervision and monitoring, which may require predictability in work schedules and make remote working problematic. Consequently, employers usually choose whether to allow flexible working and what different types of flexible work arrangements may be feasible, in addition to deciding which employees are the most suitable for flexible working.

Swanberg and colleagues (2005) suggest that, within an organizational justice framework, three principles may motivate decisions about whether, how, and to whom to distribute flexible work options: equality, need, and equity. Employers may decide to respond to the preferences and demands of all their employees and make flexible working accessible to everyone (principle of equality). Alternatively, they may agree that flexible work arrangements should be primarily offered to those who need them the most (principle of need). However, a large body of research has found that the equity principle prevails, meaning that the provision of flexible working is generally contingent on the potential contribution of the employee to the organization (Kossek & Lautsch, 2018). When meeting employee demands produces concurrent benefits to the employer, there may be, in fact, a business case for introducing flexible working (Kossek & Friede, 2006). Hence, core employees (i.e., those who are most valuable to the organization) are most likely to be entitled to flexible working. In particular, after controlling for a wide range of individual and organizational factors, high-skilled employees seem privileged, as they have comparatively greater access to flexible working (Chung, 2019; Golden, 2008). Indeed, an increasing number of employers use flexible working, as part of high-performance work systems, as a valued tool to attract, engage, reward, and retain better educated and qualified employees (Sweet et al., 2014). Moreover, in tight labour markets, high-skilled employees, based on the demand for human capital as a leverage for workplace competitiveness, usually have relative bargaining power to push for their interests. Therefore, they are usually able to win better and more flexible workingschedules compared to low-skilled employees (Budd & Mumford, 2006).

The different meanings of flexible working and the employee experience

Less traditional ways of working may result in increased efforts to coordinate employees’ flexible schedules with those of their co-workers and supervisors, as well as in growing human resource management problems, such as those deriving from the need to hire additional staff or to redistribute tasks and responsibilities. Accordingly, once again building on the logic of the business case, the expected costs and benefits may allow employers (and employees) to take, or prevent them from taking, full advantage of flexible working. Nonetheless, numerous studies indicate that, above and beyond economic factors and rationales, the inconsistent provision of flexible working is related to organizational culture factors, which contribute to shaping and influencing how flexible working is enacted and responded to in the workplace (Williams et al., 2013).

Undoubtedly, flexible working questions the conventional model of working and the ideal worker culture (Blair-Loy, 2003). As such, there is considerable divergence concerning employers’ views about it. As anticipated, some employers consider flexible working as an integral component of their business strategy, motivated by the belief that redesigning work may be conducive to better performance by means of a more engaged, committed, and diverse workforce (de Menezes & Kelliher, 2019). On the other hand, many employers perceive flexible working as irrelevant or even counterproductive for meeting business needs. The underlying assumption in this perception is that alternative work schedules distract employees from dedicating time and energy to their work (Bourdeau et al., 2019). Within this framework, flexible working may be socially constructed, in the organizational context, either as the norm, to be provided on a regular basis and in a formalized way as part of some strategic human resource management approach, or as the exception, to be permitted on a contingent, casual, or ad hoc basis (Kossek & Friede, 2006).

From an employee perspective, organizational culture provides both opportunities and constraints for individual agency. In particular, different conceptualizations of flexible working translate into different attributions - by employers, managers, and co-workers — about the reasons why employees make use of or request flexible working. These attributions differ depending on the differential nature of flexible working options. In this regard, enclosing (i.e., promoting greater availability for work) versus enabling (i.e., giving employees more chances to spend time and energy outside work) (Bourdeau et al., 2019) or work-facilitating versus work-reducing (Chung, 2019) policies are associated with varied experiences of flexible working in the workplace, which are coherent with the organizational culture. For instance, despite the presence of a strong interest, employees may reveal a weak demand for flexible working, as they may not consider flexible working to be viable due to shared assumptions, beliefs, and values in the workplace regarding individual preferences and behaviours for managing work and non-work roles (Bourdeau et al., 2019;

Williams et al., 2013). This holds true for high-skilled employees. When requesting and/or having flexibility and control over one’s schedule and work environment may conflict with the “work devotion schema” (Blair-Loy, 2003), employees in more demanding and rewarding jobs may not fully benefit from the wide range of flexible arrangements available or may even end up working harder or longer rather than modelling working patterns that suit them best. This brings us to the issue of the so-called implementation gap as well as to the paradoxes and other unintended negative consequences with which flexible working is associated when it is implemented ineffectively.