Employee FWA needs and employer provisions across diverse age groups

Introduction

Employees constitute an important resource for organisational success (Guest, 2011; Jiang et al., 2012) because their tacit knowledge, abilities, skills and experiences are often inimitable and non-substitutable, making them valuable for competitive advantage (Wright & McMahan, 2011; Wright et al., 2001; Barney et al., 2011). Unlike physical resources, employers must design the work environment and employees’ work to motivate and assist employees to higher performance. The human resource (HR) literature has focussed on identifying practices that help achieve this aim (Jiang et al., 2012). However, the literature points to a gap in alignment of HR practices with changing employee values, attitudes to work and personal situations (Kooij et al., 2013; Gogin, 2012).

Technological advancement, intense competition, globalisation, consumerism and multiculturalism (Lewis et al., 2007), in addition to increasing féminisation and ageing of the workforce (Stirpe et al., 2018), require a rethink of the factors that create conducive environments for employees and motivate them to perform. Establishing conditions that enable employees to achieve an effective balance between their work and non-work commitments and appeal to the diverse age groups in the workforce (Cogin, 2012) are at the forefront of HR practices that improve employee performance (Posthuma et al., 2013). The importance of work-life balance (WLB) to employee welfare and performance has seen some countries legislate a ‘right to request' flexible work arrangements (FWAs) for employees (for example, the Australian Fair Work Act 2009; the Flexible Working Legislation (UK) 2014). In response, organisations make a variety of FWAs available so employees can tailor FWA requests to their specific needs. These needs differ with employee characteristics, including gender and age (Atkinson & Hall, 2009; Armstrong-Stassen & Lee, 2009; Bal & de Lange, 2015). As such, the gender and age distribution of employees in an organisation should impact the volume of requests for specific FWAs. This situation poses a challenge to employers who must effectively negotiate FWA requests to ensure the organisation is not subsequently disadvantaged by the changes in work conditions.

In Australia, the legislation addresses this dilemma by allowing employers to refuse FWA requests on specific grounds such as excessive costs, significant loss of productivity, negative impact on customer service and lack of capacity to accommodate the request (Australian Fair Work Act 2009). Despite employers’ rights to refuse FWA requests, Thevenon et al. (2016, p. 6) find that between 50% and 90% of employees in Europe benefit from some form of flexible work schedule. Nonetheless, the means of access (whether through pursuit of non-standard positions or FWA requests) are not so clear.

Limited attention has been paid to how age diversity in the workforce affects HR practices (Cogin, 2012; Twenge, 2010); although it is known that employee values, health, expectations and behaviours vary across age groups and that these affect their work performance (Glass, 2007; Cogin, 2012). The literature base is even more unclear on how age differences affect requests for and access to FWAs (Sweet et al., 2014). To motivate performance, organisations must tailor their HR practices, including FWAs, to the age groups within their workforce (Kooij et al., 2014; Cogin, 2012). Nonetheless, specific conditions within organisations may prevent accommodation of the flexible work needs of employees.

This chapter explores how employers address the flexible work needs of the diverse age groups within their workforce. It identifies employee age groups for which employers would explicitly negotiate FWAs and those whose FWA needs are likely to be met from employer numerical flexible practices. The latter are at risk of either not meeting their FWA needs or becoming under-employed. Numerical flexible practices involve alterations to the number of employees or their work hours to match available labour with labour required to meet demand of an organisation’s goods or services (Valverde et al., 2000). This chapter makes recommendations for an effective balance between FWA needs and provisions for all age groups within an organisation’s workforce.