1. What are the implication for the employee?
2. What are the implication for the HRM how might be operate differently?
3. What are the implications for leaders and managers?
The following report is attempting to recognize and thereafter evaluate the implication of workplace changes upon the internal stakeholders of business organizations. More precisely, the present assignment will understand the consequences of workplace changes on the employees, management and upon the human resource departments of business enterprises. For this considered purpose, the report has desired to evaluate consequences of an anticipated workplace change, which is the replacement of work-life balance by work-life flexibility. In this context, it is essential to denote that the phrase “work-life flexibility” refers to a flexible working atmosphere where employees are often provided with the opportunity to take control over where and in which time they work (Cameron & Green, 2015). For establishing an atmosphere like such, an organization needs the active support from the management who will show complete support to their subordinates and their lives. However, the definition of work-life flexibility should not be misinterpreted as work-life balance, which means having equal amount of time for personal and professional life (Chermack et al., 2015).
The need to replace work/life balance with work/life flexibility is that the option of work/life flexibility helps in improving the productivity and engagement of the employees in an organization. Employees feel more energized and at the same time prioritized when they find flexible work schedule (Galea et al., 2014). However, if an organization changes its policies from providing support from work/life balance to work/life flexibility, then most possible resistance is expected to come from the management of any business organization (Adame-Sánchez et al., 2016).
The motive to implement work/life flexibility in place of work/life balance is to make employees comfortable in a workplace atmosphere for obtaining a more refined and standard performance from them (Lewis, 2014). Therefore, when an organization desires to implement work/life flexibility in place of work/life balance, it implicates that the organization is demanding more productivity from the workforce. However, it is also an implication for the employees that they should not utilize this opportunity inappropriately and take unnecessary advantage of it. However, if a business organization decides to replace the culture of maintaining work/life balance with work/life flexibility, it means the organization wants to retain their potential employees (Berg et al., 2014). Therefore, the particular workplace change would act as a message from the authority to the employees, which will signify how much the organization takes concern about their employees. In details, the varied implications of the considered workplace change are –
Employees will be able to reduce stress
It has been identified that arrangements for flexible work acts effectively in reducing the stress level of the employees. More specifically, work/life flexibility keeps employees to stay satisfied with their job along with their personal life. For those employees who fears about losing scopes for balancing work and life, should take lesson from this workplace change that they will have more opportunities to stay with their families by having flexible shift hours (Berg et al., 2014). Therefore, it can be said that work/life flexibility in terms of a workplace change would work as an updated version of work/life balance programs.
Reduce negative spillover
According to Williams et al., (2016), spillover is a particular procedure through which both behaviors carry over from one person to another individual and it increases work-family conflict in terms of negative and increases work-family enhancement in terms of positive effect. More precisely, if a job provides high level of negative spillover in form of long working hours that produces stress, it would surely influence in a harmful way on the personal premises of the employees (Kossek & Thompson, 2016). Therefore, if an organization decides to implement work/life flexibility in place of work/life balance, then it suggests that the employees would not have to suffer through any negative spillover.
Better physical and mental wellbeing
Through providing an improved work/life balance in terms of having the opportunity to control work schedule as well as place of working and the chances for avoiding the negative spillover, work/life flexibility improvise the physical and mental conditions of the individuals. Long distance between work and home and long hours of work schedule increase the amount of mental as well as physical stress, which bring numerous health issues (Chermack et al., 2015). Therefore, if an organization considers workplace change, it is indicative of the fact that employees in future will successfully avoid any chronic and critical health disease.
Attachment to the company
If an organization considers its employees to work according to their preferable time and place, then it is easy to anticipate that the employees will show more loyalty towards the organization. In terms of consequence, they will increase their productive level and will dedicate their hundred percent to accomplish the organization goal. Therefore, the selected workplace change is indicative of the fact that employees will find themselves more attached with the company after the implementation of the change (Sweet et al., 2016).
Possible challenges
In this context, it should not be ignored that implication of implementing work/life flexibility in terms of workplace change is that, after the implementation employees would have to befit themselves with a different way of working atmosphere. Considering this probability, several negative aspects could be elaborated. Firstly, employees may not accept the particular workplace change as they may stay skeptic about the resistance coming from the manager and may fear about having negative consequences in their carrier (Cameron & Green, 2015). On the other hand, it is also a possibility that the employees may not accept the new change as most of the time employees stay unaware about the advantages of the policy regarding work/life flexibility.
The fundamental concern of Human resource management of business organizations is to establish a flexible working atmosphere and nurture the work culture on regular basis. Therefore, it is understandable that an HRM is responsible for bringing any workplace change according any stubborn issue or requirement (Snell et al., 2015). Regarding the considered choice of workplace change, it is to denote that without active support from the HR department, it is beyond possibility to implement any policy regarding work/life flexibility. However, when an authority of a particular organization decides to consider work/life flexibility in place of work/life balance, it signifies and indicates a number of aspects, which are –
New policies
With the decision to replace work/life balance with work/life flexibility, an authority of organization implicates that the HRM department would have to initialize new policies and terms and conditions for both the employees and managers (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). In this case, the department has to stay aware of two particular matters; one is employee skepticism and lack of involvement in this change. On the other hand, HR should also stay conscious about the possible resistance coming from the existing management.
Work as a change agent
In the words of Hayes (2014), when an organization decides to change its working culture, it expects the HRM department to work as an agent. More precisely, in time of implementing work/life flexibility in place of work/life balance, the HRM department would be responsible for performing as a change agent and accomplish the following –
In this premise, the theoretical concept of David Ulrich should be considered with high priority. It has been David Ulrich who dominantly established that HR department should act as an agent in time implementing any kind of workplace change through his underpinned model on HR roles. The model coined by David Ulrich address four key responsibilities of HR department, in time of workplace change, which are – act as a business partner, as a change agent, as an administrative expert and as an employee advocate (Ulrich, 2013). The first responsibility of being a business partner, is indicative of the role of making strategic relationship with the internal stakeholders, who are management and workers. Therefore, it can be said that when an organization will consider the selected workplace change, the HR department of that organization as a business partner should convey the predominant objectives related to the intention of implementing the new change (Ulrich et al., 2013).
On the other hand, performing as a change agent, HR would initially show complete support to the new decision and should plan for a procedure that would enable internal communication. The present context implicates that, the role of a change agent is required for individually sharing company’s purpose of implementing work/life flexibility and collect relevant feedbacks (Ulrich et al., 2013). However, according Ulrich’s model, the third strategic role is probably the most crucial one as in this role, the HR management stays accountable in implementing and fulfilling the predominant requirement related with the considered change (Ulrich et al., 2013). More specifically, HR department would prioritize all the relevant legislation and follow them while accomplishing the requirements.
In case an organization implements work/life flexibility, the HR as an administration expert would find the need to adopt the QAHC work life balance policy. The purpose of the policy is to establish a work place atmosphere in a way that can be reputed as “employer of choice”. However, when the HR department would act as an employee advocate in time of change management, the HRs would be responsible for running regular surveys for identifying gaps between the new change and the level of employee satisfaction (Hayes, 2014). Therefore, it implicates that in time of implementing work/life flexibility in place of work/life balance, the HR department of an organization would run survey on both the manager and the employees for obtaining feedbacks.
The considered work place change would prove beneficial for the employees; therefore it is easy to assume that strong resistance would come from the management and team leaders. However, the fundamental implications of the selected workplace change are as follow –
Responsibility to select correct employee
If an enterprise would decide to implement work/life flexibility in place of work/life balance, then the situation would be indicative of the managerial responsibility to deciding which employees should be entitled for the opportunity. In this context, it is easy to comprehend that, managers or team leaders should prioritize three particular aspects – productivity, dedication and need to have flexible schedule of the subordinates (Breevaart et al., 2014). In this respect, it is to denote that one of the potential concerns, which could be implied by the side of management, is the capability of the employees to work independently. Moreover, the considered situation would implicate that managers should select only those who will stay productive while utilizing the arrangements for flexible work (Williams et al., 2016). Therefore, leaders should possibly select those who have a very satisfying productivity report throughout a year. For example, organizations like Telstra, St. George Bank and Allens using the framework of work/life flexibility concentrates upon this aspect very strongly.
Managers would avoid any act of partiality
It has been identified that several companies have suffered through inappropriate and biased selection made by the managers, while implementing work/life flexibility arrangement. Managers or team leaders several times prefers to show biasness in time of selecting appropriate employees to have the benefits of flexible work schedule due to personal interest (Chermack et al., 2015). Therefore, understandably the implication for the managers is, they would not show any kind of inappropriate consideration while selecting workers.
Implication for applying transformational leadership
According to Cameron and Green (2015), complete acceptance from the employees for accepting any form of workplace change is possible only when employees will receive encouragement from their managers. The fundamental concept of transformational leadership is to provide support in form of motivation. More precisely, transformational leadership says that it is necessary to work along with the employees to understand their need and issue regarding any change (Dvir et al., 2015). Henceforth, considering the previous implication, it can be said that transformational leadership is essential for the process of employee selection. It is because; this kind of leadership will make it easy to understand individual employee need, which finally will help to provide the opportunity of work/life flexibility to the right employees.
A strong interpersonal relationship
It has been pointed out that for accomplishing the replacement of work/life balance with work/life flexibility is determined by management selection of employees. Therefore, it is understandable at the same time that, managers need to establish comfort zone with the employees, which is possible only when the management shares a healthy interpersonal relationship with their subordinates (Kossek et al., 2015). Thus, it is one of the crucial implications of the change that management would have to practice interpersonal communication skills and particular awareness regarding the need.
Possible challenges
The considered workplace change implicates numerous challenges, which are possible to occur in time of work/life balance with work/life flexibility. They are –
Conclusion
The above report has evaluated several implications of a certain workplace change upon three internal stakeholders of the business organizations, which are employees, human resource department and the managers. The considered workplace change, which is replacement of work/life balance with work/life flexibility, has been identified as beneficial for the employees. Therefore, according to the report, its implications upon the employees are better attachment with organization, chance for better productivity and chance for reducing stress. On the other hand, the report has implied that the HR department would have to work as a change agent between management and the employees, whereas the management in time of the considered workplace change would have to select right employees who deserve to get the opportunity. However, the report has indicated that in time of implementing the workplace change, employees may not agree to adopt the new change and at the same time, organizations may encounter bias selection by their management.
Considering the certain challenges made by the report, it can be recommended that –
References
Adame-Sánchez, C., González-Cruz, T. F., & Martínez-Fuentes, C. (2016). Do firms implement work–life balance policies to benefit their workers or themselves?. Journal of Business Research, 69(11), 5519-5523.
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bardoel, E. A. (2016). Work–life management tensions in multinational enterprises (MNEs). The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(15), 1681-1709.
Berg, P., Kossek, E. E., Misra, K., & Belman, D. (2014). Work-life flexibility policies: Do unions affect employee access and use?. Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 67(1), 111-137.
Breevaart, K., Bakker, A., Hetland, J., Demerouti, E., Olsen, O. K., & Espevik, R. (2014). Daily transactional and transformational leadership and daily employee engagement. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 87(1), 138-157.
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: a complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Chermack, K., Kelly, E. L., Moen, P., & Ammons, S. K. (2015). Implementing institutional change: Flexible work and team processes in a white collar organization. In Work and family in the new economy (pp. 331-359). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Dvir, T., Eden, D., Avolio, B. J., & Shamir, B. (2015). The impact of Transformational Leadership.
Fee, M. C. (2014). Human resources management.
Galea, C., Houkes, I., & De Rijk, A. (2014). An insider’s point of view: how a system of flexible working hours helps employees to strike a proper balance between work and personal life. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(8), 1090-1111.
Hayes, J. (2014). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Kossek, E. E., & Thompson, R. J. (2016). Workplace Flexibility: Integrating Employer and Employee Perspectives to Close the Research–Practice Implementation Gap. The Oxford Handbook of Work and Family, 255.
Kossek, E. E., Thompson, R. J., & Lautsch, B. A. (2015). Balanced Workplace Flexibility. California Management Review, 57(4), 5-25.
Lewis, R. A. (2014). EFFECTS OF FLEXIBILITY ON WORK-LIFE BALANCE: PERCEPTIONS OF MANAGERS AND EMPLOYEES IN ONE LUXURY HOTEL. Economic and Social Development: Book of Proceedings, 414.
Snell, S. A., Morris, S. S., & Bohlander, G. W. (2015). Managing human resources. Nelson Education.
Sweet, S., Pitt-Catsouphes, M., & Boone James, J. (2016). Successes in Changing Flexible Work Arrangement Use: Managers and Work-Unit Variation in a Financial Services Organization. Work and Occupations, 43(1), 75-109.
Ulrich, D. (2013). Human resource champions: The next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Harvard Business Press.
Ulrich, D., Younger, J., Brockbank, W., & Ulrich, M. D. (2013). The state of the HR profession. Human Resource Management, 52(3), 457-471.
Ulrich, D., Zenger, J., & Smallwood, N. (2013). Results-based leadership. Harvard Business Press.
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