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Flexible staffing arrangements have become a permanent feature of employment in many industrial societies. This article examines how employers perceive the consequences of using flexible staffing arrangements. It presents and assesses theoretically informed hypotheses on organisational situations in which negative consequences are more likely to be perceived.

This study uses data (n = 761) from a bespoke employers survey, fielded in the Netherlands in 2019. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to measure and explain employers' perception of downsides to flexible staffing arrangements.

Employers report distinct downsides to the use of flexible staffing arrangements in terms of performance, management and employee well-being. Model estimates show that employers using flexible staffing arrangements to acquire specific expertise or to follow other organisations in their sector perceive more downsides.

Empirical research on employers' perception of the disadvantageous consequences of using flexible staffing arrangements is scarce. This article highlights that this practice can discourage investments in human capital and lead to a sense of insecurity among young workers. It draws attention to the relevance of distinguishing between strategic motives when trying to understand organisational behaviour regarding non-standard forms of employment.

This paper aims to explore the impacts of remote auditing on auditors’ work and work-life balance.

This paper adopted a qualitative online survey approach using open-ended reflections from 98 highly experienced auditors. The survey design aligns with a “Big Q” approach to qualitative data. The reflections were interpreted through the theoretical lens of the social presence theory.

Auditors underscore that remote auditing has improved their work-life balance since it offers flexibility, greater autonomy and efficient use of time. However, they believe less social contact due to remote auditing can hurt their work.

This study aimed to holistically comprehend the concept of work-life balance in a remote auditing setting. Therefore, the study refrained from making comparisons based on demographic information (e.g. gender, experience and type of audit firm).

The findings highlight the need for adopting flexible work arrangements that prioritise auditors’ well-being. This is critical for making the audit profession attractive and enhancing overall audit quality. Updated regulatory guidance and controls are needed concerning the use of technologies in remote auditing to ensure high-quality audits.

The findings of this study can positively reshape public perception of the audit profession. Firstly, enhanced work-life balance can improve audit quality. Secondly, incorporating emerging technologies in auditing can result in society perceiving auditors as adaptive to innovation and technological advancement that has been touted for their potential for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of audit and audit quality, potentially enhancing societal trust in auditing.

The findings of this study complement the auditing literature that has mainly focused on the traditional work paradigm, requiring in-person presence. The authors identify potential challenges emanating from auditors’ remote work and propose solutions for audit firms to improve work-life balance in a remote work setting.

This paper aims to assess the design of national-level flexible work arrangement (FWA) policies, evaluating their potential to serve as an effective resource for employees to work flexibly depending on how they set the stage for flexibility claims that will be subject to industrial and workplace dynamics.

Using a capability approach, the authors conceptualize and operationalize two aspects of FWA policy design, namely accessibility and availability. The authors' analysis allows for an understanding of how the availability and accessibility of national FWA policies explicitly and implicitly restrict or facilitate flexible working in a structural manner. The study focuses on countries with differing working time regimes and gender norms on work and care: the Netherlands, Spain and Slovenia.

The authors' findings highlight how FWA accessibility is broader when national policy is specified and FWA availability is not conditional to care. In Spain and Slovenia, access to FWAs depends on whether employees have care responsibilities, which reduces accessibility and reinforces gender imbalances in care provision. In contrast, the Netherlands provides FWAs universally, resulting in wider availability and accessibility of FWAs for employees regardless of their care responsibilities. Despite this universal provision, gender imbalances remain.

The originality of this paper lies in its conceptualization and operationalization of FWAs at the national level using a capability approach. The study adds to the existing literature on flexible working and provides insights for policymakers to design more effective FWAs.

Self-employment is often viewed as a more desirable work arrangement than working as an employee for a firm. Women are pushed into self-employment due to organizational factors, such as a shrinking workforce or limited job opportunities, while being attracted to self-employment by the many psychological and social benefits (e.g., independence, flexibility, work-life balance, job satisfaction). Despite more women moving into self-employment, this type of employment still has different financial consequences for men and women. This article investigates whether a pay gap exists for self-employed women after controlling for industry, occupation, and hours worked and seeks to quantify the gender wage gap for the self-employed. A sample of 467 self-employed independent contractors in the United States was examined from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce. The results indicate a large financial disparity between self-employed women and men. On average men earned $54,959 as compared to women who earned on average $28,554. Regardless of the parity in education, work experience, number of hours worked, or occupations, women earn less than men in self-employment. Findings suggest the existence of the glass cage‐a phenomenon whereby self-employed women earn significantly less than self-employed men with limited abilities to narrow the economic inequality.

This paper aims to explore the extent to which Covid-19 has challenged work habits and outcomes. The authors argue that after the lockdown period workers have been experiencing a new work mode called “Covid-working”. The aim is to provide a first interpretation of this phaenomenon and elaborate on future real estate strategies and workplace policies based on this experience.

Using survey data, this research analyses Covid-working in a large-sized company in Italy. The survey was answered by 90 employees and addresses three domains: locations of work; a comparison between work-from-home (WFH) and work from the office; and outcomes of Covid-working vs office-working.

With Covid-working, the workers of the case company drastically changed their traditional work from the office approach to pure WFH. While this abrupt switch might generate difficulties in adaptation, this working practice was generally appreciated by this company’s workers. Positive and negative outcomes of Covid-working confirm previous studies on remote working. Recommendations on multi-location of work, new value for the headquarters and diversity empowerment open up avenues for future real estate strategies.

Observations on Covid-working are still limited and mainly appear on grey literature, due to the newness of this phaenomenon. Empirical studies such as the proposed one can increase companies’ awareness of the positive and negative outcomes of this experience and support their future workplace strategies.

Although the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic appears to disproportionately affect those in informal employment, they often receive less government support than the formally employed. This paper considers definitions of the informal economy and informal employment, explores the rationale for participating in the informal economy and reflects on some effects of the pandemic on these workers.

The paper presents a narrative literature review with analysis of the selected academic and policy literature.

There are considerable short- and long-term implications of the pandemic for informal employment and the informal economy. This occurs against the background of unresolved tensions arising from informal workers' desire for more employment security and employers' striving for continued labour flexibility while transferring costs to government and workers. The COVID-19 pandemic might accelerate current trends and force new solutions to better protect basic work security while helping organisations to remain competitive. Government policies supporting work safety, income security, moves to formalisation of employment and fairness for informal employees are particularly important.

As statistical and qualitative evidence is currently limited, it is too early to identify the full effects of COVID-19 on employment in the informal economy.

The results suggest that governments need to carefully consider explicit support for those in informal employment to create fair, resilient and ethical structures for workers, businesses, economies and wider societies.

The paper identifies some of the social implications of COVID-19 for the informal sector.

The analysis offers initial insights into the impacts of a major health, economic and social shock on informal working.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a synthesis of the contingent work field and to advocate a sustainable career perspective on contingent work.

Adopting a broader review approach allowed to synthesize the contingent work literature across contingent work types (temporary agency work, gig work and freelance work) and develop a sustainable career perspective on contingent work. The authors searched for empirical, conceptual and review articles published from 2008 to December 2021. In total, the authors included 208 articles.

The authors advocate a sustainable career perspective that allows for organizing and synthesizing the fragmented contingent work literature. Adopting a sustainable career perspective enables to study contingent work from a dynamic perspective transcending one single organization.

The field is suffering from fragmentation and most importantly from an oversight of how contingent work experiences play a role in a persons’ career. This paper addresses this problem by adopting a sustainable career perspective on contingent work.

The purpose of this paper is to pinpoint some key variables that help shape the notion of older workers as a source of organizational wisdom capital.

Toward that end, the paper reviews a selective bibliography in order to support its arguments.

The evidence garnered throughout this paper – fundamentally through different lens of analysis – suggests that older workers may be considered as valuable assets. Furthermore, a sizeable number of members of this cohort continue, even in the latter stages of their careers, to be willing, well-equipped, and able to enhance, if properly utilized, companies to achieve other patterns of performance. Accordingly, it is advocated here that their knowledge and expertise constitutes an authentic source of organizational wisdom capital that deserves careful attention from organizations to maintain by means of suitable incentives and training.

This paper highlights other aspects that should not be disdained by organizations such as career-ending, work characteristics, and mastery-avoidance goals. Thus, companies that are interested in keeping older talents must be attuned to their wishes and aspirations, as well as being proactive by offering tailor-made job-products to them.

Given the trend of aging workforce, it is likely that organizations will be increasingly impacted by societal demands and public policies toward benefiting and respecting older talents.

This paper advocates that older workers are usually living memories of organizational life. Rather, they tend to keep in their minds those failures and successful ideas, projects, initiatives, and leaderships, which added or not value throughout their trajectories, as well as things that worked out or not. Fundamentally, they are able to provide answers to vital questions.