Attitudes To Flexible Working And Family Life

This report is the first to examine attitudes towards flexible working and family life. Drawing on a study of over 1500 members of the AEEU and interviews with 53 shop stewards, the report addresses key questions around rights and benefits, employer's attitudes, gender differences and the effects of flexible working on health and well-being.

Building upon the recent global escalation of the remote work phenomenon, Flexible Work and the Family provides timely insights into flexible work’s implications for the increasingly blurred work-life divide.

Dramatic changes in the composition of today s workforce combinedwith intense competitive pressures on employers, call for new waysof structuring where, when, and how employees accomplish their jobresponsibilities. This book makes the business case for flexibleworking in an organization, and shows how flexitime, job sharing,telecommuting, and compressed work weeks can be used as strategicmanagement tools. Key features: * identifies ways flexible work arrangements can be designed toenhance the personal well-being and job performance of employees,while improving the corporate bottom line. * provides a comprehensive, systematic framework for planning andimplementing flexible work arrangements, including handyquestionnaire style forms assessing employee needs and evaluatingthe impacts of flexible job arrangements. * uses case studies and calls on advice from those with experiencein diverse organizations in order to show how to position flexiblework arrangements and optimize their beneficial effects. Managers and HR managers should read this book if they arecontemplating or embarking upon more flexible options forscheduling work and assisting employees to achieve a healthybalance between their jobs and the rest of their lives. It providespractical answers and how-to guidelines for designing a moreflexible workplace.

This book chronicles the evolution of women’s participation in the labour force in Ireland over the last five decades. This was largely spearheaded by married women and mothers, leading to many related social issues including childcare, flexible working, the sharing of domestic work and work-life balance. The book presents empirical data on these topics, drawn from the author’s research spanning several decades, and shows how attitudes have evolved and influenced the development of social policy. The book begins by exploring the factors which predisposed some married women to enter the workplace in the early 1970s while most did not and examines the relative well-being of housewives and employed married women. It demonstrates the effects the anti-discrimination legislation of the 1970s had on women’s perceived discrimination over time, showing that women initially denied their own discrimination. The history of childcare policy is examined from the early Government Working Party reports of the 1980s to the evolution of childcare policy in Ireland. Issues of work-life balance are presented through cross-cultural comparisons from Ireland and several European countries, and key questions are asked, such as "are men who work part-time seen as less serious about their careers?" The concluding chapter focuses on how women’s role in the workplace impacts on men and gender relations. Questions are posed concerning the ways in which men’s roles need to adapt and the extent to which workplaces and social policy also need to change to accommodate men and women’s needs for work-life balance. The book will be of interest to social scientists and to students. It will be a valuable resource for courses in the sociology of work and the family, gender studies, social psychology and Irish studies. By providing quantitative data in an accessible form, it will also provide a valuable case study for courses in social research methods.

Misbehaviour in organizations can be difficult for management to detect and correct, and as a consequence, the cost to organizations can be high. This book presents useful theories and empirical evidence that help to describe, explain, predict and control both attitudinal and behavioural problems in an organizational setting. The book analyzes the current research, examines the causes of different types of misbehaviour, and makes suggestions for remedies and managerial practices that can help to reduce its occurrence and impact.

There is growing interest in flexible working, not only as a means to manage labour more efficiently and for greater agility, but also as a response to increasing concerns over well-being, work-life balance, and participation in the labour force of those with significant non-work commitments (e.g. parents, carers, older workers). As a result, a comprehensive stream of literature on the benefits and challenges of flexible working has developed and led to a body of evidence on the implementation and outcomes of different forms of flexible working arrangements. This book assesses the current state of this literature as follows: Background: the authors review the different definitions that have been proposed, policy developments, availability and uptake. Outcomes from flexible working: the main chapters focus on the outcomes for employers (e.g. performance, employee retention, organisational commitment etc.), as well as for individual employees (e.g. well-being, job satisfaction etc.). Evaluation of extant knowledge: the authors comment on the existing literature and consider the methodological approaches adopted in the literature. Conclusion: suggestions for future research are proposed. Of interest to students, academics and policy-makers, this book provides an expert overview of the empirical evidence and offers critical commentary on the state of knowledge in the field of flexible working and new forms of work.