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This study aims to examine the key components to facilitate flexible work arrangement (FWA) and the issues and challenges arisen in preparing the workplace for FWA during Covid-19, and to recommend better approach of FWA implementation in workplace.

This study adopted extensive literature review and case studies approach using interviews and observations to determine the key components to facilitate FWA and the issues and challenges arisen in preparing the workplace for FWA during Covid-19, and to recommend better approach of FWA implementation in workplace. Three offices that owning FWA experience during Covid-19 and featuring flexible workspace concepts, elements and layouts in Klang Valley, Malaysia were chosen as case studies.

Findings have suggested that there are four components required to form flexible workspace for FWA adoption, such as open plan workspace design, task-oriented space, hot desking policy and IT infrastructure. Interestingly, the interview findings do not support the idea that the flexible furniture can facilitate FWA; instead, they believe that versatile, acoustical and aesthetical furniture may be installed when necessary. Among the issues and challenges faced were rearranging and designing open office plan layout, hot desk relocation and reconfiguration of spaces where people may congregate. Lastly, this research recommends that innovative planning software and tools, smart technology and apps, modern IT technology and infrastructure, and digital apps can be introduced to the workplace to help FM manage and monitor the facilities operations, workplace situations and occupancy rates.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, FWA such as “Work From Home” and remote working have become the mainstream in the workplace, affecting how the workplace looks and feels as flexible working is fundamentally related to the flexible workspace. From Facilities Management (FM) perspective, FWA is the biggest consequence of Covid-19, but it also presents opportunities and certain challenges to incorporate a new office environment and employees’ needs in terms of FWA into the corporate culture.

As part of an ongoing project on worker well‐being, this paper aims to examine the application of flexible work arrangements through the experiences of core workers in a small, European‐owned, New Zealand manufacturing firm.

A participatory action research approach is taken.

The research reveals that flexible employment arrangements utilised in this firm did not afford protection to core workers as theory suggests. Both core and peripheral workers were exposed to pressure primarily to extend their hours of work and to reduce their expectations regarding remuneration. Production level increases were not reflected in increases in numbers of core workers; in fact perceived job security was low. Core workers felt pressure to work extended hours out of their commitment to the firm, each other, and to maintain their own employment.

The use of more democratic processes inherent in action research oriented at workplace well‐being are shown to have had some value toward enhancing worker well‐being.

The paper demonstrates that the participative project placed pressure upon management and that it had the potential to redress a power imbalance within the employment relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between sexualization of the work environment and emotional exhaustion, and develop some key antecedents of sexualization of the work environment. It was conducted in an emerging society, India, which has a high rate of crime against women, particularly related to sexual harassment and sexual assault.

To test the hypotheses, structural equation modeling was performed. The hypotheses were tested with data from 1,098 white collar workers in India in three ways.

Contact with other gender and flexible work arrangements were positively associated with sexualization of the work environment; and sexualization of the work environment was positively associated with emotional exhaustion. In addition, sexualization of the work environment mediated the relationship between the two antecedent variables and emotional exhaustion.

There is a possible bias arising from the use of cross-sectional data. However, a number of methods were implemented to minimize it, including survey design and data analysis.

The study offers some important suggestions for workplaces with a greater proportion of young male employees, particularly in a societal context like India.

The paper provides evidence of the negative impact of sexualization of the work environment, and thereby contributes to current understanding of the “dark side” of behavior at work that might have significant impact on society.

The public sector is often considered the vanguard in terms of the availability and promotion of flexible working arrangements (FWAs). Despite this, little is known about how senior managers in the public sector engage with FWAs. This paper aims to address this gap, reporting on a number of issues, including the reality of FWAs, the existence of a flexibility stigma and whether this is gendered, and the drivers influencing the uptake of FWAs.

Theoretical insights of flexibility stigma from the literature and data from semi-structured interviews with senior managers in the Northern Ireland Civil Service explore the realities of FWAs at this level.

The findings indicate a decoupling between the rhetoric and reality of FWAs, with few senior managers availing of such arrangements. The authors also identify a complex web of issues that constrain senior managers' agency in shaping a positive culture of FWAs at senior management level in the Civil Service, including an inherent resistance to flexibility, a lack of visible role models and negative perceptions around progression. The findings also indicate deeply held perceptions among senior males and females that availing of FWAs is associated with a flexibility stigma. These perceptions were confirmed by the small number of senior females with caring responsibilities who were availing of FWAs.

The paper provides senior managers and human resource practitioners with insights into the difficulties associated with wide-scale FWA availability and use at senior levels of the Civil Service.

The findings of the study offer valuable insights into the experience of senior managers in the public sector as they engage with FWAs. The study, therefore, contributes to the limited literature in this area.

In this chapter, we theorize about online freelancers’ approaches to work flexibility. Drawing from an ongoing digital ethnography of US-based online freelancers pursuing work on digital platforms, our data question the common conceptualizations around the flexibility of online freelancing. We posit that the flexibility of where to work, not when to work, is the most important attribute of their work arrangement. Our data show (1) the online freelancers in our study prefer the stability and sustainability of full-time work over freelancing when both are offered as remote options; (2) full-time remote employment increases these workers’ freelancing control / flexibility; (3) these workers keep freelance work options open even as they transition to more permanent full-time work arrangements. We discuss how these findings relate to workplace culture shifts and what this means for contemporary working arrangements. Our insights contribute to the discourses on knowledge-based gig work and for what it means to study individuals online.

This study explored one form of remote working – work from home – to understand the impact of work disruptions on workers and human resource management (HRM) practice and therefore how to adapt to future crises. Specifically, the purpose is to understand the impact of events on employees when they are forced to move back and forth (yo-yoing) between work from home and a central office, using the case of Perth, Western Australia (WA).

Thirty-nine interviews with leaders, managers and co-workers working in private and public organisations suggest that forced changes to work arrangements affect job content and demands, well-being and potentially career trajectories.

The authors critically applied and developed the tenets of event system theory (EST) (novelty, disruption and criticality) by analysing an ongoing or “long” event rather than a discrete or time-limited one. The study found that the work-from-home experience influenced the individual perception of whether remote working would suit employees in the future, potentially influencing career paths. In addition, the selection of locations to live, preferred properties (e.g. home office space) and access to services (e.g. broadband infrastructure) has also become dominant features of work decisions.

While the study generated rich data, it is not without limitations. The participants were from one Australian state which may not reflect the COVID-19 experiences of other jurisdictions. In addition, the participants were mostly female so this may offer a different perspective than a more gender-balanced sample. The study was limited to the perspectives of employees and middle managers.

The authors note three areas of implications for practitioners. First, the findings suggest that strong organisational and HRM support assists employees to cope well with change. Second, the importance of technological and social preparedness in improving employee experiences highlights the role of HRM in job design. Third, it is key that salient events are recognised as potential determinants of career pathways.

The evidence from this research broadens the application of EST showing that forced flexibility has an influence on work arrangements by influencing a series of changes in features of work and experiences of employees. As such, this impacts employee's well-being and potentially future career decisions.

The closer integration of work and family responsibilities has become an important element in the promotion of the decentralisation of the Australian industrial relations system. This article outlines the origins of the work and family agenda and discusses how it has come to be incorporated into the industrial relations reform agenda. A work and family typology is developed. Examples of family friendly workplace arrangements are outlined and discussed, and the extent to which these are incorporated into enterprise agreements is then outlined. There must be doubts as to how far family friendly workplace arrangements can be extended in an economy with high rates of casualisation, falling trade union densities and considerable differences in bargaining power. Indeed, many of the current family friendly arrangements are distinctly family unfriendly. Finally, there are important gender issues to consider in relation to the family friendly industrial relations agenda.

This paper seeks to examine the experience of, and attitudes towards, work/life balance (WLB) by female and male senior managers in a major Irish organisation for which WLB is now a strategic corporate objective.

Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using an electronic questionnaire survey designed to obtain the views of female and male managers on strategies that would contribute to a better gender balance, promote diversity and raise leadership capacity in the organisation. Work/life balance emerged as a major issue in impeding the career progression of female managers. All female managers and a sample of male managers were surveyed. This paper concentrates on the responses of the two senior management grades below Executive Director on the issue and strategies to promote work/life balance. Additional qualitative data were drawn from interviews (with eight women and five men) and three focus group sessions with all male, all female and mixed gender groups.

The greatest obstacle to achieving WLB is seen as the “long hours” culture in which availing oneself of flexible options (e.g. working from home/reduced hours/flexitime) is incompatible with holding a senior management post. Many of the senior men have followed the “breadwinner” model by being able to delegate family and caring activities to their wives. This option has not been possible for the majority of women in senior posts. Hence, men seek WLB to resolve commuting/working time issues. Women want to avail themselves of more flexible arrangements for family/quality of life reasons. Both men and women in senior management recognise that their own careers would be seriously jeopardised by taking up WLB arrangements.

In the absence of role models willing to display any contrary behaviour there is a pragmatic need to align corporate policy and practice with prevailing and future family structures and demonstrate, by senior management example, how WLB can work and provide assistance for managers/staff who seek to avail themselves of it. WLB policies are not enough in themselves to ensure take‐up and acceptance. It will require trust, courage and a range of interventions to champion WLB, not just at management level.

This study seeks systematically to investigate the extent to which the documented aims of formal work‐family policies are being achieved at the level of individual employees.

Consistency between policy and practice in the case study organization was explored via an analysis of organizational documents which described work‐family policies and 20 interviews with employed women with dependent children.

Results show that the use of flexible work arrangements was consistent with aims related to balance and productivity. However, women’s experiences and perceptions of part‐time employment conflicted with policies aiming to support the same career opportunities as full‐time employees.

The nature of the organization and its policies as well as certain characteristics of the sample may limit the generalizability of findings to other sectors and groups of employees.

The research highlights the need to assess whether work‐family policies are experienced as intended, a process which may contribute to future policy development and assist human resource specialists to promote genuine balance between work and non‐work responsibilities.

The results inform the current understanding of how organizational policy translates into practice.

The ability to work anytime from anywhere is attractive to job seekers, who respond by developing needs regarding flexible working. Flexibility needs are compared to the flexibility perceived in job advertisements to form an overall perception of flexibility fit. The purpose of this paper is to examine both the impact of flexibility fit (on applicant attraction) and its antecedents.

The impact of flexibility fit on applicant attraction and its antecedents are examined using person–job (PJ) fit theory. 92 job seekers analyzed a total of 391 job advertisements. The hypotheses are tested using multilevel structural equation modeling.

The results show that perceived flexibility fit is positively related to job pursuit and job acceptance intentions. They further show that perceived flexibility fit is driven by perceived job advertisements' flexibility exceeding applicants' needed flexibility, which in turn is driven by the flexibility actually present in job advertisements exceeding applicants' flexibility needs.

This study contributes to literature on new ways of working by highlighting the desirable nature of flexibility and its impact on fit perceptions. It further contributes to literature on job search and PJ fit by investigating a full model of fit, examining both outcomes and antecedents of perceived fit. For practitioners, this study highlights the importance of advertising flexibility to attract applicants.