Prelims

Peter Woolliams (Anglia Ruskin, Cambridge, UK)

Fons Trompenaars (Trompenaars Hampden-Turner Consulting, The Netherlands)

New Approaches to Flexible Working

ISBN: 978-1-83549-523-0, eISBN: 978-1-83549-520-9

Publication date: 10 June 2024

pdf (1.4 MB) ePub (224 KB)

Citation

Woolliams, P. and Trompenaars, F. (2024), "Prelims", New Approaches to Flexible Working, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. i-xiii. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83549-520-920241032

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Half Title Page

NEW APPROACHES TO FLEXIBLE WORKING

Series Page

THE NEW BUSINESS CULTURE SERIES

Already published

New Approaches to Recruitment and Selection

Forthcoming in the series

New Approaches to Creating a Culture of Innovation
New Approaches to Mergers and Acquisitions
New Approaches to the Digitalisation of the Organization
New Approaches to the Management of Change
New Approaches to Leadership

Title Page

NEW APPROACHES TO FLEXIBLE WORKING

BY

PETER WOOLLIAMS

Anglia Ruskin, Cambridge, UK

and

FONS TROMPENAARS

Trompenaars Hampden-Turner Consulting, The Netherlands

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2024

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83549-523-0 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83549-520-9 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83549-522-3 (Epub)

List of Figures and Tables	ix
About the Authors	xi
Rationale for the Series	xiii
1. The Need for an Evidence-led Framework	1
2. Changes in How We View Work	5
2.1. First Impressions	5
2.2. The Job Life Cycle	7
2.3. The Socio-Technical Effect	9
3. History of Flexible Working	11
3.1. Historical Trends	11
3.2. Shift Work	12
4. Our Early Research	15
4.1. In Partnership with Vodafone UK	15
4.2. Our Own Early Research	16
5. Changing Values of the Workforce Including Younger Generations	19
5.1. New Generations of Employees	19
5.2. Generational Values	20
5.3. Why Generation Z Resigned from their Job	24
6. Work-life Balance	27
6.1. The Work-life Balance Movement	27
6.2. Presenteeism	28
6.3. The Corridor Effect	29
6.4. What Respondents to our Early Surveys Told US about Work-life Balance?	30
7. Our Early Flexible Working App	33
7.1. Four-dimensional Model	33
7.2. Flexible Working Database	36
7.3. Typical Feedback Comments the App Gives Users	37
7.4. Example Recommendations Generated by the App	39
7.5. Advantages of Working from Home from Our Respondents	39
7.6. Disadvantages of Working from Home from Our Respondents	40
8. Review of Key Issues in Practice	41
8.1. Flexible Working and Career Progression	41
8.2. Going Self-employed When Flexible Working Is Not Awarded	42
8.3. Freelance Working	44
8.4. Flexible Working Other Than Working from Home (WFH)	45
8.5. Telechirics	46
8.6. Collateral Changes	47
9. Information Technology and Flexible Working	49
9.1. The Acceleration of It Developments	49
9.2. Remote Video Meetings	51
9.3. Software to Monitor Flexible Working	52
9.4. Keystroke Activity	53
9.5. Personality Types Suited to Flexible Working?	54
9.6. Maintaining Diligence	55
9.7. Vigilance Decrement	56
9.8. Jobs that Don’t Lend Themselves to Flexible Working	57
10. Cultural Differences	59
10.1. The General Impact of Culture	59
10.2. Days Working at Home/In the Office	60
10.3. Some National Differences	62
10.4. Further Country Trends – Especially Working from Home	65
10.5. Lower Rates of Flexible Working	66
10.6. Higher Rates of Flexible Working	66
10.7. Limitations of Correlation Statistics	67
11. New Approaches to Flexible Working	69
11.1. The Gap in Knowledge	69
11.2. Trying to Encourage Staff to Return to the Office	71
11.3. New Body of Knowledge Required	72
11.4. Work-Life Balance Revisited	73
11.5. Our Integration Model	74
11.6. Competing Demands Give Rise to Dilemmas that Need to Be Reconciled	75
11.7. Through-Through Thinking	78
12. The Meta-Level Dilemmas of Flexible Working	81
12.1. Universalism (Rules)–Particularism (Relationships/Exceptions) Dimension	81
12.2. Individual–Group Dimension	83
12.3. Specific (Low Involvement) – Diffuse (High Involvement) Dimension	84
12.4. Neutral (Emotions Concealed) – Affective (Emotions Displayed) Dimension	86
12.5. Achievement (What You Achieve) – Ascription (Who You Are) Dimension	88
12.6. Time Orientation	91
12.7. Internal (Take Control) – External (Go With The Flow) Dimension	92
13. Conclusions – Future Ways of Working	95
Appendix	97
Index	99

List of Figures and Tables

Figures

Fig. 1.	Why Managers Find GenZ Difficult to Work With.	22
Fig. 2.	People (Staff) Dimension.	34
Fig. 3.	Space Dimension.	35
Fig. 4.	Technology Dimension.	36
Fig. 5.	Process Dimension.	37
Fig. 6.	Example Profile.	38
Fig. 7.	Country Differences in Working from Home.	60
Fig. 8.	Variation in Working from Home for Levels of Employee Status.	61
Fig. 9.	UK Civil Service Staff Working from Home.	71
Fig. 10.	Employer/Employee Needs.	77
Fig. 11.	Employee/Employer Needs.	77
Fig. 12.	The Dilemmas Between Rules and Exceptions.	82
Fig. 13.	The Dilemmas Between Individual and Team Working.	84
Fig. 14.	The Dilemmas Between Low and High Involvement.	85
Fig. 15.	Emotions Concealed in Different Job Disciplines.	87
Fig. 16.	Reconciling Thinking with Passion.	88
Fig. 17.	Reconciling Top-Down with Bottom-Up.	90
Fig. 18.	Reconciling Efficiency with Effectiveness.	92
Fig. 19.	Reconciling Inside-Out with Outside-In Approaches.	93
Fig. 20.	Companion App.	97

Tables

Table 1.	People in Employment With Flexible Working Patterns.	13
Table 2.	Five Generations in the Workplace.	21
Table 3.	US Trends.	43
Table 4.	Achievement Orientation and Working from Home.	62
Table 5.	Competing Demands as a Dilemma.	76

About the Authors

Fons Trompenaars, PhD, is Director of Trompenaars Hampden-Turner (THT) Consulting, an innovative centre of excellence on intercultural management. He is the world’s foremost authority on cross-cultural management and is author of many books and related articles. He is CEO of THT Consulting and Culture Factory and Visiting Professor at The Free University of Amsterdam.

Peter Woolliams, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of International Management at Anglia Ruskin Cambridge (UK) and is partner in Trompenaars Hampden-Turner (THT) Consulting and its technical subsidiary Culture Factory. He has collaborated and published jointly with Fons over some 25 years. He has worked with Fons to develop a whole series of diagnostic apps and profiling tools and cultural databases which has led to the creation of the intellectual property of THT Consulting.

Rationale for The Series

The business environment continues to change ever more rapidly. Established practice is constantly challenged in our post-Covid, climate changing, technology-driven world leading to the further proliferation of digitalisation, new flexible ways and places of working, leadership styles, diversity, etc. All areas of business and management are finding that traditional frameworks for organisation design, marketing, HR and other functional disciplines no longer provide models for best practice. Not only driven by such changes in the external environment but together with the differing value systems of younger generations there is an urgent need to provide new frames of reference that can help formulate new business strategies while synergising with the career aspirations of the labour market.

‘The New Business Culture’ is a series of micro-books with each addressing an area of business and management that seeks to demonstrate how and where established traditional models and frameworks are no longer providing optimum frameworks for the purpose that informs the range of subject areas discussed. The authors offer new approaches that transcend convention.

In this series of volumes, each distils the essential elements of a key topic and retains focus and purpose and seeks to offer new approaches to overcome the limitations of existing practice.

The content and new concepts therein originate from the synergy between the authors own fundamental research (including supervision of PhD students) triangulated with evidence and application from their extensive client base in their consulting practice (THT Consulting, Amsterdam).

Purchase of each volume in the series includes exclusive access to a corresponding companion App. Each App enables readers to explore the application of specific concepts in further detail for individual volumes and what it means for them and/or their organisation.

Book Chapters

Prelims

1. The Need for an Evidence-led Framework

2. Changes in How We View Work

3. History of Flexible Working

4. Our Early Research

5. Changing Values of the Workforce Including Younger Generations

6. Work-life Balance

7. Our Early Flexible Working App

8. Review of Key Issues in Practice

9. Information Technology and Flexible Working

10. Cultural Differences

11. New Approaches to Flexible Working

12. The Meta-Level Dilemmas of Flexible Working

13. Conclusions – Future Ways of Working

Appendix: Test Yourself (Or Your Organisation) with Our Online App

Index