HR director's challenge: creating the flexible organization

You are the newly appointed HR director of a public sector utility organization. One of your friendly policies in your last organization. As this is also one of the major areas requiring attention in the organization, there are high expectations that you will make positive changes. The part-time work policies require your immediate attention.

The organization has a workforce in excess of 3000 people. It is male-dominated (80% male) and 65 per cent of the overall workforces are members of two main unions. Average employee age is 44 years, with 72 per cent of the workforce over the age of 35 and an average length of service of 16 years. The biggest group of female employees (23%) is 19-29 years old; by comparison, 8 per cent of male employees are in that age group. The second biggest group offemale employees is in the age bracket of 35-39 years (18.5%). From age 40 and up, women'srepresentation falls below 15 per cent. In contrast, the biggest groups of male employees (22%) are over 55 years old.

Work organization reflects two distinct work cultures. The differences between plant/blue-collar and managerial/white-collar workers are reinforced by different conditions under different industrial arrangements, such as award and non-award staff.

Work is mainly organized around an 'ideal worker' who is available to work full-time, including overtime or long hours, on the basis that a partner at home is primarily responsible for family or outside commitments. In the operational areas, the ideal worker is explicitly seen as a male, full-time breadwinner who is reliable because he has family responsibilities. In some of the white-collar areas, the ideal worker is less gendered; he or she is seen as someone who has a can-do attitude and is a go-getter, able to commit long hours to the company. One manager also said, 'face time is very important'.

The part-time work policy is set by company policy alone and is considered as one of the organization's flagship policies. The policy says that when investigating the feasibility of a job- sharing or part-time work arrangement the manager should consider:

1. The nature of the position in terms of its responsibilities and relationship to other positions

2. The impact of the arrangement on other members of the work group

3. The extent to which tasks of the position can be separated

4. The skills of the respective employee(s)

5. An assessment of the likely longevity of the proposed arrangement

6. Potential complications arising from the breaking of the arrangement.

It is the responsibility of the relevant manager to monitor the allocation of work to part-time employees to ensure that the nature and volume of work is appropriate.

Where part-time arrangements are made, the manager is to explain these arrangements to the work unit. The impact of the arrangement on the flow of work within the group should also be discussed.

As far as practicable, managers should take the hours and days worked by part-time employees into account when arranging employee meetings and training courses.

Although considerable interest in part-time work is expressed at both managerial and non- managerial levels, only 3 per cent of all employees accessed part-time work arrangements, with the vast majority of these being female employees.

Access to part-time employment takes place on a case-by-case discretionary basis. A recent review revealed the following information.

1. In some divisions, there is evidence of overt and covert management resistance topart-time work.

2. In cases where female employees worked full-time before the birth of their child/children and then returned on a part-time basis, the lack of a formalized process for managers and staff to deal with issues arising out of the extended leave and changed employment patterns after leave was cause for significant grief for some employees.

3. Part-time work was a critical factor in attracting and retaining not only female employees, but also employees with caring responsibilities and those with extensive skills and organizational knowledge who were about to retire or had recently retired.

4. For some, changing from full-time to part-time work brought about specific concerns suchas work intensification (e.g. 'Some part-time jobs are really just full-time workloads with a pay cut'). In these instances, the need for part-time job designs and adjusted performance reviews was overlooked.

5. Some women employees reported that returning to work on a part-time basis aftermaternity leave forced them to accept a position with less responsibility and lower pay (on a pro rata basis) than their original position, despite this potentially contravening anti-discrimination laws.

6. Some part-timers complained that they did not have the same access to and support fromtheir managers in terms of training, development and promotion opportunities as their full-time colleagues.

Typical comments from employees included the following.

1. There is a view that part-time employees don't need career development. 2  Following my second maternity leave, I requested a return to work on a four-day week basis. The only response I received was to the effect that it would be up to me to make it work. In fact, due to additional workload placed on me immediately on my return, I realized within the first week that I would be doing a demanding full-time role, but only receiving part-time recompense. Reluctantly, I had to face the reality of working full-time if I wished to keep my position.