Introduction
Thomas Gilbert acknowledges the role of management in eliciting worthy performance. Effectively managing behavior and environmental factors in the behavior engineering model is critical to achieving desired outcomes. Changes in modern workplace environments, however, require adjusting traditional management practices. Research investigates the role of management in the context of the 21st century flexible workplace.
Article
Fogarty, H., Scott, P., & Williams, S. (2011). The half-empty office: Dilemmas in managing locational flexibility. New Technology, Work and Employment, 26(3), 183-195. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-005X.2011.00268.x
Background
Much of the earlier research on telecommuting (aka, “teleworking) focused on the teleworkers themselves and their relationship to the overall organization. Little attention was paid to the impacts of different forms of teleworking on office-bound workers and the nature of their interactions with offsite colleagues. Nor was the dynamic between onsite and offsite work arrangements in terms of organizational flexibility, control, and justice (equity) interactions examined. This could be due to early researchers viewing teleworkers as somewhat autonomous entities, tangential to the formal, onsite organizational structure.
Whereas several newer studies have examined the impact of teleworking arrangements on perceptions of organizational justice, the impact of these arrangements on flexibility and control has not yet been fully explored. The researchers of this article looked at all three factors in a flexible work environment to determine which of two contrasting managerial approaches were most successful in mitigating problems in those areas.
Research
The researchers took advantage of a unique situation: a long-established London publishing house with approximately 250 employees was using two different teleworking programs concurrently. The first, set in place prior to 2004, was a structured pilot program of 49 employees who teleworked three-days a week. The pilot program was intended to “test the waters” prior to a full-blown effort to turn the organization into more of a virtual workplace. Formal protocols concerning scheduling, organizational technical support, and relinquishing office space were adopted as part of the pilot.
A change in management in late 2004 led to the pilot being discontinued, although current participants could still maintain the teleworking arrangement as it had been configured. The program was closed to new participants. Subsequent teleworking arrangements for staff were made on a much more informal, ad hoc basis. Consequently, no official data existed regarding these arrangements. Decisions concerning scheduling of work-at-home days were at the discretion of line managers, and no IT support was provided to employees.
The coexistence of two differently managed teleworking programs within the same organization made it possible for researchers to compare the effects of managerial practices in a somewhat controlled setting. The researchers conducted a qualitative single case study to determine the following:
- Do office-based co-workers believe it more appropriate that the practice of flexible teleworking should be supervised and controlled (1) closely and formally or (2) loosely and informally?
- Do office-based co-workers believe it more appropriate that the control of the practice of flexible teleworking should be (1) equitable with the existing ‘in-house’ practices for the control and supervision of workers or (2) discontinuous and specifically tailored to teleworkers?
- Do office-based co-workers believe it more appropriate that the practice of flexible teleworking should be (1) regulated within the confines of a proceduralized, formal scheme or (2) unformalized and not specifically regulated in this way?
- Do office-based co-workers believe it more appropriate that access to flexible teleworking opportunities should be (1) conditional on formal procedures or (2) ad hoc, depending on circumstances?
Data were collected using two qualitative research methods. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a simple random sample of eight office-based employees (from a pool of 189 eligible candidates) who had not participated in the formal teleworking program. In the course of interviewing, the researchers learned that six of the eight had participated in the informal teleworking arrangement. Thus, two of the informants had not engaged in teleworking at all. An additional sample of six key informants with particular background knowledge of the formal teleworking program was drawn in order to enrich the possible data.
Informants were asked about their knowledge of the formal flexible teleworking scheme, its benefits and challenges, and any communication or performance management issues that occurred. The informants were then asked the same questions about the informal teleworking scheme.
Findings and Implications
The results suggest that from the coworker perspective, a more formalized teleworking scheme provides control mechanisms for off-site workers and affords high levels of flexibility, control, and procedural justice for all workers in the organization. The more uncertain calculus of informal teleworking arrangements provide low levels of flexibility, control, and procedural justice for on-site workers, while affording higher levels of all three for their teleworking colleagues. This imbalance stresses working relationships and compromises organizational performance. In addition, a laissez-faire approach concerning accessibility to teleworking arrangements contributes to a sense of inequity among staff.
Questions for OPWL-N Members
Does your workplace have a formal or informal teleworking (telecommuting) policy, and how is it working for you and your coworkers? Are the expectations for teleworkers any different from those for in-house staff? How do teleworkers interact with workers who are on site?
Workplace Oriented Research Central (WORC)
Prepared by OPWL Graduate Assistant, Susan Virgilio
Directed by OPWL Professor, Yonnie Chyung
Posted on March 4, 2013