6
SCHWERPUNKT
_INTERVIEW
PERSONALquarterly 03/16
PERSONALquarterly:
Flexible work arrangements such as flexible
working time and working from home are hotly debated among
HR professionals. You have worked for several years as a re-
searcher and consultant on this topic. We are interested in what
HR professionals can learn from your scientific insights. What
does the empirical evidence tell about the economic effects of
flexible working arrangements for both the employer and the
employee in terms of productivity, job satisfaction, and work-life
balance?
Ellen Ernst Kossek:
The effects must be looked at from employee
and employer perspectives. On the one hand these policies
reduce turnover, and increase attraction. On the other hand,
organizations have not yet fully adapted their work cultures
and HR to support flexible working. So there may be a nega-
tive impact on the pay of individual workers (often women
or people with families) who use the policies if they are seen
as having less face time and the organization hasn’t adapted
work systems to not measure performance by face time. Teams
need to manage communication consciously to promote ways
of using videoconferencing and ways of connecting easily for
team esprit de corps.
PERSONALquarterly:
Organizations have to decide who is al
lowed to work flexibly. In addition to some formalized rules
the respective supervisor often acts as a gate-keeper in this
question. Accordingly flexible work arrangements can be seen
as an individual privilege which might have a negative effect on
coworkers who are not eligible. Is there research about the effect
of different access policies and what are the key insights?
Ellen Ernst Kossek:
It is best to introduce workplace flexibility as
a team-based organizational change. In this way groups learn
how to work on flexibility and learn new ways of managing per-
formance and not have backlash against users and nonusers
don’t feel left out. Every job, even service jobs can have some
flexibility whether it is in cross-training or ability to trade work
hours for schedules.
PERSONALquarterly:
Due to the reduced presence of flexible wor-
kers at the work place, traditional monitoring techniques that
rely primarily on their observability are not feasible. What can
Flexible work arrangements can benefit
people and society and companies
Das Interview mit
Prof Dr. Ellen Ernst Kossek
führte
Daniel Arnold
organizations do to support, monitor and incentivize perfor-
mance from “virtual” workers?
Ellen Ernst Kossek:
The key is to move to a results oriented culture
where performance is defined by clear outcomes (e.g. client
satisfaction, number of projects completed etc.) and new com-
munication norms such as regular meeting times and check-
ins are established. Social events and videoconferencing can be
very effective. A mixed approach of partial virtual work is the
best solution – working in the office at least a day a week and
at home a day a week is what some US banks I have studied
have done with success.
PERSONALquarterly:
What does your work tell us about the role su-
pervisors play to make flexible work place policies a success for
both employees and organizations? And what can organizations
do to train their managers accordingly?
Ellen Ernst Kossek:
Managers need to not pick winners and losers
on flexible work arrangements. They need to involve the work
group in its implementation as a new form of work redesign
that is updating the social system of the group. Training should
be given to both workers and managers on work-life boundary
management and how to implement telework or flextime or
reduced load work successfully. I have developed a psychologi-
cal tool that many people around the world have found helpful
on looking at team styles and compositions of integrators and
separators and cyclers and how to leverage a positive leader
and team cultures.
PERSONALquarterly:
In a flexible workforce the cooperation and
collaboration between employees may be challenging. Schedu-
ling meetings is more complicated and valuable face-to-face
communication becomes scarcer. In particular, the relationship
between flexible workers and non-flexible workers may become
problematic. What can an organization – according to your
research – do to facilitate the cooperation and collaboration in
a flexible work force?
Ellen Ernst Kossek:
Basically flexible and nonflexible workers need
to be treated the same in terms of number of hours worked and
availability. The key is to make sure that people in the office
do not feel they are doing more work due to being in the office
