Post on 18-Jan-2015
description
Het Nieuwe Werken
Netwerkbijeenkomst EKSBIT 23.09.2009
Marc van Veldhoven Associate Professor HR Studies
Content
Intro Telework
Flexible Office HR Implications
Framework
Technology
Culture/ Society
Work & Organization
Economy
Effects
Work force Netherlands NL 1899-1997 (based on CBS/Steijn, 2001)
Core implications
• Working with computers EU-27/2005: 46% (>quarter of working time)
• Working with people/direct client contact EU-27/2005: 63% (>quarter of working time)
• Source: – 4th European working conditions survey (2005) ->
(N=1.000 employees interviewed per country)
Study on the “Virtualization of organizations” TNO Quality of Life 2004 (De Leede & van Dalen)
• 4 types of virtualization have been researched
• Telephone survey among 525 employers NL
• Frequency: mobile work: 69% virtual teams: 32% shared services: 2% virtual networks: 35%
What is telework? ‘Types of work from a distance mediated by ICT, facilitated by the
employer’: -mobile work -working from a satellite office -tele-homework
*Frequency (per week, per year?), *Facilitated by the organization: financially, workplace, scheduling?
>no universal definition or phenomenon!
NEA 2008 (TNO Quality of Life) • Random sample NL workforce (N>20.000)
– Average contractual hours worked at home (excl. overtime): 1,57 hours/week (only 5% of all NL working hours)
– Are you a teleworker? 12,2% of the workforce
4th European working conditions survey (2005) (N=1.000 employee interviews per country)
Why does telework not reach a larger part of the workforce?
• Employees would like to…
• Employers and managers often have a rather passive attitude towards the implementation of telework: resistance! Why?
• For some jobs presence on site is absolutely necessary (e.g. hospitals, construction, manufacturing)
• Telework is considered by employers and managers rather as an employee benefit for higher educated, valuable professionals than as a total solution for all employees (as politicians argue)
Bailey & Kurland (2002)
• A review of telework research: findings, new directions, and lessons for the study of modern work
Central questions: -who participates in telework? -why do individuals telework? -what happens when people telework?
Overview of 20 years or research on telework (>130 studies) -> Does the “teleworker” exist?
Why do individuals telework?
Demand for telework: which factors determine the wish of employees to use telework?
-shorter commuting; less traffic jams; less costs commuting -better possibilities to combine work and care for children ?gender ?family composition +familiarity with ICT -age
Supply of telework: which factors determine the wish of employers to use telework?
-willingness to change -need to control employees (monitoring) vs trust -costs ?size of the organization
What happens when people telework?
+ productivity (as indicated in self-reports, more hours of work)
? Job satisfaction
- loyalty
The overlooked question • > how do people telework?
“most teleworkers work at home or in telework centres only a few days per month”
> If this is the case: at the individual level hardly any differences in comparison with regular full-time work at the office can be expected
> Isolation can hardly be a problem > Telework appears to be a temporary escape from the office (in
order to meet important deadlines/targets) rather than a structural working arrangement; maybe we have to reconsider what telework actually is…
New issue in telework research
• frustration in employees who stay behind in the office… (Golden, 2007)
Telework: management resistance
• Further dispersion of telework meets resistance from managers
• Why? -> – Most direct answer can be found in a paper by Charles
Handy (1995) in the Harvard Business Review: “How do you manage people whom you don’t see?”
– Telework requires a starting point of trust in employees on behalf of management
The Flexible Office • ICT offers new possibilities for office design, by creating flexible,
shared office spaces in combination with telework/mobile work
• Goals of flexible office projects: - Break with “closed door/closed department” culture - Combine separate locations in one new location - Increase efficiency in administrative processes - Save money: need less office space and less technical
facilities, reduce service costs
Study Interpolis • In 1996 Interpolis introduced a flexible office concept
• Longitudinal study: 3 surveys among 90 employees of 2 business units over a 2-year period (De Jonge & Rutte, 1999):
- more autonomy, cooperation & possibilities for contact - no changes in communication, concentration & participation
• 25% reduction in exploitation costs for the office • No panacea: some problems of adjustment in some of the
employees; not everyone fits well within such an office model; some difficulty in employees to keep concentrated.
What impact do new office concepts have on employees?
Literature review study by de Croon et al. (2005)
• Literature-review: found 49 relevant studies
• 3 independent variables: – Office location (home vs office) – Office lay-out (openness, distance between work stations) – Office use (fixed vs shared workplaces)
• 3 dependent variables: – Working conditions, short term reactions (job satisfaction, job
stress etc), long term reactions (health, performance etc).
Results • Office location (home vs office)
– Insufficient evidence
• Office lay-out (openness, distance between work stations) – Open-ness leads to less privacy (strong evidence) – Open-ness leads to higher cognitive workload and worse
interpersonal relationships (limited evidence) – Close distance between work stations leads to higher cognitive
workload and lower privacy (limited evidence) – Close distance between work stations leads to lower job
satisfaction (strong evidence)
• Office use (fixed vs shared workplaces) – Desk sharing leads to better communication (limited evidence)
Telework/New office concepts: implications for HRM?
• HRM will be asked to offer a strategic contribution in the discussion on the pros and cons:
Try to counterbalance technological or financial points of view with input about the human element
• HRM might play a role in the implementation: Keep in mind the balance between business logic and the logic
of human needs Employees as well as employers might show problems of
adjustment: these hang-ups deserve (temporary) appropriate attention
How do you develop trust in employees among managers?
Good commisionership
• Relatively new niche in ICT-market: – selecting, testing, implementing & controlling ICT-solutions
with strong emphasis on user acceptance and adoption
– Valori, kennisleider in Goed Opdrachtgeverschap