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