Flexible Work Arrangement

Flexible Work Arrangements: the “New Normal” or Does Face Time Still Reign?

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Human Resource Management Introduction

Nguyen Duy Hoang Phuong 17698450

Flexible Work Arrangements: the “New Normal” or Does Face Time Still Reign?

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Human Resource Management Introduction

Nguyen Duy Hoang Phuong 17698450

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Body 4

Definition 4

Type of Flexibility 4

Advantages of FWAs 5

Challenges of FWAs 6

Recommendation of alternative methods 7

Conclusion 9

Reference list 10

I.

Introduction

Over the last two decade, there has been a great change in the working life and the life outside the work due to the rapid advancement of technology. As such, sociological issues are started to arise from the imbalance between work duties and family obligations that can cause social unrest and business disruption such as high divorce ratio, working absenteeism and distress (Eric 2014). Consequently, a new working system “flexibility” was introduced and adopted by many organizations to respond with the dynamic changing. Today, countries like US, Canada and Germany even have policies that give employees the right to ask for flexible work arrangements (FWAs) (Rantanen et al. 2011).

Flextime was first introduced and implemented in 1970s by a German aerospace company to reduce tardiness and absenteeism. This new model resulted successful and remarkable that the company’ overtime expense, turnover rates, tardiness and absenteeism were reduced by 40% (Sheley 1996).

However, along with the changing rapidly of society, the possible impacts of flexibility have been a long and great debate for researchers and HR managers. Researchers who are leading in the fields, show that the positive impact of flexibility is not only benefits of employees. It is beneficial to organizations as well. Accordingly, flexibility practices can improve employability...