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Who is introducing
family-friendly working practices, and why? What sort of practices do
they favour? And do they bring any business benefits?
These are the kinds of
question examined in a new study published by the Joseph
Rowntree Foundation, The Nature and Pattern of
Family-friendly Employment in Britain. The results form a
compelling analysis of developments so far in the availability
and uptake of family-friendly working practices - but also some
intriguing areas where the answers raise further questions.
Headline results
The researchers found that family-friendly
policies were more likely to be found
-
in large organisations
-
in public sector organisations
-
where there are lower degrees of competition
-
where there are recognised unions
-
where there are resources of HR and good
performance
-
where there is high employee involvement in
decision-making
-
in workforces with larger proportions of women
-
where there is a highly educated workforce who
have large amounts of discretion in organising their work.
The study also found that in general
family-friendly policies were associated with improvements in
productivity and performance. But the "business case" is
one of marginal improvements, or at least an argument against
the view that the costs of family-friendly policies outweigh the
benefits.
What kind of
practices
The practices under the
microscope in this analysis are:
-
parental leave
-
paternity leave
-
scheme of time off for
emergencies
-
job sharing
-
term-time working
-
working at or from home
during normal working hours
-
ability to change form full
to part-time hours
-
workplace or other nursery
provision
-
help with child-care costs
-
flexi-time
The analysis is largely based
on data from the Workplace Employee Relations Survey* (WERS) of
1998, which asked a wide range of questions not normally covered
in other workforce surveys on equal opportunities,
family-friendly policies, performance and payment issues, etc.
It also asked questions of both managers and employees, so that
awareness of and uptake of policies could be measured against
availability of family-friendly working practices.
Differences in
the effects of different practices
The study looked at several areas of
performance:
These were assessed through a mangers'
questionnaire
How different kinds of
practices were associated in the findings with different levels
of performance improvement. For examploe:
Above-average labour
productivity was associated with
-
(non-statutory) parental
leave
-
paternity leave
-
the ability to change from
full-time to part-time work
-
having a broad range of
family-friendly policies.
Improvements in quality
performance were associated with:
-
term-time working
-
the ability to change from
full-time to part-time work
-
employer providing help with
child-care
-
having a broad range of
family-friendly policies.
Reduced labour turnover was
associated with
-
job-share
-
flexi-time
-
help with childcare
-
working at or from home.
Some of these may be the
result of coincidence: for example there would seem to be no
compelling reason why their should be an connection between
financial performance and the cited family-friendly practices of
job-share and paternity leave.
But overall, it seems that
there is a connection between having family-friendly practices
and higher than average performance. As the authors say,
"increases in performance were associated with having one or
other family-friendly policy in the case of 5 out of 6
performance indicators".
What this means in terms of
causality is hard to say: it could the case that high-performing
workplaces are more likely to introduce what they see as
progressive working practices.
The family-friendly/work-life
balance business case is, however, only part of the business
case for introducing flexible working. The bottom-line issues
are always more likely to be persuasive for an employer.
If family-friendliness is a by-product of new working practices,
a win-win situation is achieved.
Flexibility and
family-friendliness
The authors explain their use
of the term "family-friendly" rather than the more current
"work-life balance". The two terms do not, of course, mean quite
the same thing. And in the report, the terms are used more or
less interchangeably with "flexible working". This may
lead to some blurred edges in the analysis.
Flexible working may well be
family-friendly, whether it's part of a formal family-friendly
or work-life balance set of policies or not. However, as
we have noted elsewhere, the benefits of that flexibility may
accrue more to the employer than the employee. So the existence
in a firm of flexible working practices is not necessarily an
indication of family-friendliness.
Some of the working practices
referred are more clearly family-friendly: such as provision of
child-care and term-time working. Others, such as
home-based working or flexi-time, may be driven by other
considerations - such as reducing costs, or extending opening
hours and reducing overtime costs.
The researchers also left out
some flexible working practices such as temporary contracts,
annualised hours and compressed working week, etc. These too may
also be styles of work preferred by people to dovetail with
non-work life, depending on the degree of choice they have over
when work is done.
This is a valuable piece of
research, with its academic caution reflecting a rigorous
approach to the limitations of the data. It is unfortunate that
the official figures it is based on hail from 1998. Much has
happened since then, not only with the extension and
re-baptising of the concept of "family friendly" as "work-life
balance", but also with substantial campaigns to promote the
ideas, awareness and practices.
So we look forward to a
similar analysis of the next WERS survey, pencilled in for 2004,
to see what progress we have made in the meantime.
* There is currently a
consultation document out from the DTI, asking for views about
what the next WERS should be asking. So if you want your
questions to be in there, go to
www.dti.gov.uk/er/inform.htm and download the document. The
consultation ruins until 16 September 2002.
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