to finish it by Rey writer
jiafeng1
fleetwood_2007_why_wlb_now.pdf
See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291295729
IJHRM.Why.WLB
Dataset · January 2016
READS
16
1 author:
Steve Fleetwood
University of the West of England, Bristol
45 PUBLICATIONS 652 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate,
letting you access and read them immediately.
Available from: Steve Fleetwood
Retrieved on: 02 August 2016
This article was downloaded by:[University of the West of England] [University of the West of England]
On: 29 May 2007 Access Details: [subscription number 769893986] Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
The International Journal of Human Resource Management Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713702518
Why work-life balance now?
To cite this Article: Fleetwood, Steve , 'Why work-life balance now?', The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18:3, 387 - 400 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/09585190601167441 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585190601167441
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf
This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
© Taylor and Francis 2007
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
Why work–life balance now?
Steve Fleetwood
Keywords Work – life balance; flexible working; family friendly working; discourse; neoliberalism.
Introduction
In the vast literature on work – life balance (WLB) one question remains seriously under- elaborated: Why now? Where the question is mentioned, it is usually in passing so that we tend to find, often vague, usually oblique, references to: the new challenges we now face; increased competition; the changing times we live in, especially changes in hours of business, organizations, families and labour markets. (DTI, 2003a: 63; DTI and HM Treasury, 2003: 5 – 12; TUC, 2001: 1). We often come across quasi-functionalist ideas that WLB is on the agenda because it meets certain needs, fulfils certain functions, or overcomes certain problems (DfEE, 1999: xi – xiii; Greenblatt, 2002: 177).
1 While some
studies do mention the causes of WLB (Crooker et al., 2002; Edwards and Rothbard, 2000), their focus tends to be on the psychological or micro-sociological level, tends to ignore causal factors at work in the wider social, economic and political environment, and so tends to offer an incomplete causal account.
One causal factor that has received attention relates to working women, and cannot pass without comment. The (slight) changes in social attitudes and recent government attempts to ‘help’ women back into work (driven as much by labour market shortages as a conversion to feminism) have encouraged millions of women to enter mainly part-time paid work. This has not only created a ‘double burden’ for working women, it has also generated demands for flexible working practices that improve the balance between paid work and unpaid domestic work. Unfortunately, demands from working women for greater WLB have not, generally, been translated into action – for reasons that are not entirely related to gender. I will not elaborate upon these important issues here, in part because they are widely discussed (indeed they are discussed in this issue), and in part to avoid giving the impression that the WLB agenda is driven primarily by the demands from working women.
The paper opens by discussing the inexorable link between WLB and certain kinds of flexible working practices, and then unpacking the latter. Some flexible working practices are ‘employee friendly’ and sought by employees to enhance their WLB. Other practices are ‘employer friendly’ and sought by employers, primarily to pursue profit, and only secondarily to enhance employees WLB. The data show that current flexible working practices are characterized as much by employee unfriendly working
The International Journal of Human Resource Management
ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online q 2007 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/09585190601167441
Steve Fleetwood, Department of Organization Work and Technology, Lancaster University
Management School, Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK (tel: þ44 (0)1524 594040; e-mail: s.fleetwood@
lancaster.ac.uk).
Int. J. of Human Resource Management 18:3 March 2007 387 – 400
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
practices that tend to constrain WLB, as they are by employee friendly practices that tend to enable WLB. This should not come as a surprise given the nature of paid work under capitalism. The (quasi) commodity labour power is employed as a means to an end, that end being the generation of profit. Workers do, of course, not wish to be treated as means, but as ends in themselves. The demands for working practices that enable a degree of WLB, indeed every demand for a degree of control over the deployment of worker’s labour power, is a demand to be treated as an end not a means to an end. This demand, however, brings workers into confrontation with their (quasi) commodity status, into confrontation with the very nature of capitalism, and this manifests itself in a confrontation with those who buy this (quasi) commodity, namely employers. While the degree of WLB that can be obtained depends, minimally, on the give and take of employee relations, limits will exist as long as labour power is employed as a means to an end, that is, as long as capitalism prevails.
The paper then discusses the nature of capitalism’s contemporary form, namely neoliberalism. The emergence of discourses of WLB can be understood as part of the emergence of flexible working in general, and the latter can be understood as part of the emergence of the peculiar form capitalism has recently adopted: neoliberalism. Following Harvey (2005) I interpret neoliberalism as a new class strategy whereby the iron fist of a renewed ruling class offensive is wrapped in the velvet glove of freedom, individualism and, above all, flexibility. To avoid any confusion, note that it is the nature of capitalism itself, and not its contemporary form, that is the root cause of the problems.
The third part of the paper deals with an elision between the practices and discourses (i.e. commentaries, policy agenda’s, claims and so on)
2 of WLB. This elision has
generated confusion about what is under discussion. Are we discussing the possible increases in the working practices associated with WLB; or are we discussing possible increases in the discourses about WLB? Explicitly recognizing that practices and discourses are different things alerts us to the possibility that the relationship between them is not always stable. Indeed, it is possible that discourse and practice can become ‘detached’, as it were, from one another, raising the further possibility that discourse may not reflect practice.
The fourth part begins with another elision, this time between the practices and discourses of flexible working. It then shows that, between circa 1980 and the late 1990s, the practices of employee unfriendly flexible working remained largely in place, while the discourses shifted from discourses that reflected these practices, to discourses of employee friendly working, thereby, ceasing to reflect the practices.
The upshot of these shifts in discourse are dealt with in the conclusion. Shorn of its employee unfriendly connotations, the term ‘flexibility’ has been ‘discursively rehabilitated’ such that it no longer connotes any negativity. And herein lies an answer to the question: Why WLB now? The paper concludes with an analysis of one of New Labour’s key WLB policies: the right to request and the duty to consider flexible working practices.
Flexible working practices
While the practices associated with WLB are inextricably linked to the practices associated with flexible working, we must avoid naively assuming that some undefined set of flexible working practices enables WLB, as the following comments do:
Flexible working policies and other WLB practices are now becoming the norm in our
workplaces... The key issue is how to implement and operate those policies in practice, to create
a positive and supportive culture, and to deliver the potential benefits they offer, both in terms of
competitive performance and employee well-being. (CIPD, 2006)
388 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
The Government is committed to encouraging the growth of flexible working and other WLB
policies in the UK. These can benefit everyone. (DTI, 2006)
While some kinds of flexible working practices may enable WLB, other kinds
constrain it (see Gambles et al., 2006, Ch. 4). To get a handle on this, I utilize the
conventional two-fold classification, and add a third. 3
First, some flexible working practices tend to be sought by employees and usually
referred to as employee friendly or employer unfriendly. These practices are, typically:
flexible start and finish times, term-time working, voluntary part-time, job-share,
compressed working weeks such as the nine day fortnight or the four and a half day week,
shift swapping, self-rostering, time off in lieu, sabbaticals and career breaks. Second, some flexible working practices tend to be sought by employers and usually
referred to as employer friendly or business friendly; or conversely as employee unfriendly.
These practices are, typically: involuntary temporary working and involuntary part-time
working (with loss of pay), zero hours contracts, unsocial hours working such as twilight
shifts, 24 – 7 shift rotations, Saturday and Sunday working, overtime (especially enforced
and/or unpaid), annualized hours, stand-by and call-out arrangements, seasonal work and
job-and-finish. While some employees may seek some of these working practices, the vast
majority of employees do not. If evidence of this is needed, then it comes from the fact that
employees often fight hard to obtain, and to protect, things like unsocial hours payments.
Indeed, these practices are those that unionized workers try to resist. 4
Furthermore, there is
even a common, and pejorative, term to refer to these working practices: ‘flexploitation’
(Gray, 2004: 3). Other employees, especially women, ‘choose’ twilight shifts, for
example, because this allows partners to look after children in the evening (see Lewis et al.,
this issue, on the problematic nature of ‘choice’). While this might alleviate child-care
problems, it does not turn twilight shifts into employee-friendly working practices.
Twilight shifts remain employee unfriendly as those who ‘choose’ them are not around to
see their children at supper time, nor to read them a bed-time story, and they also forego
time with their partner. 5
We should not refer to employee-unfriendly practices as friendly
just because they happen to fit our current appalling childcare arrangements. 6
Third, some flexible working practices are ‘neutral’ in the sense that they may, ceteris
paribus, be ‘friendly’ to both parties. These neutral practices usually overlap with the
employee-friendly practices just noted. Discussions of WLB most often occur on this
terrain not only because employees seek these kinds of flexible practices, but also
because employers can often grant them without incurring additional costs – for
example, flexible start and finish times. Indeed, a business case can often be made:
employee-friendly flexible working practices make satisfied employees, and
satisfied employees are more profitable (Clutterbuck, 2003, esp. Ch. 1). Let us consider some data to obtain an indication of the range of flexible working
practices currently on offer. Table 1 shows the employee-friendly flexible
working practices that tend to enable WLB, and Table 2 shows the employee-unfriendly
flexible working practices that tend to constrain WLB. 7
The employee-friendly flexi-time is clearly the most common form of flexible working
practice. While this is followed by another kind of employee-friendly practice, term-time
working, this is only slightly ahead of the employee-unfriendly two shift system and
annualized hours arrangements. 8
More people are working employee-unfriendly
three shift systems than employee-friendly four and a half day weeks; more people are
working employee-unfriendly sometimes nights/sometimes days than employee-friendly
job-sharing; and more people are working employee-unfriendly evening or twilight shifts
than employee-friendly nine-day fortnights.
Fleetwood: Why work – life balance now? 389
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
Furthermore, the number of people engaged in shift work grew from 13 per cent of the
workforce in 1993 to 15 per cent in 2003 (Labour Market Trends, 2004) and the numbers
engaged in employee-friendly working practices (flexi-time, compressed week and job
sharing) have declined in the past decade – see Table 3. Aside from the problems of defining, measuring and comparing flexible working
practices, the data fly in the face of the upbeat assessments coming from those who
promote the idea that WLB is either here, or is just around the corner. Indeed, the data
show that even if some employee-friendly practices that tend to enable WLB, have
emerged, many employee-unfriendly practices that tend to constrain WLB remain
in place.
Table 1 Employees with employee-friendly flexible working practices, Autumn 2000
Employees with employee-friendly flexible working practices
Flexi-time 2,647,350
Term-time working 1,173,825
Four and a half day week 324,675
Job sharing 224,775
Nine day fortnight 74,925
Table 2 Employees with employee-unfriendly flexible working practices, Autumn 2000
Employees with employee-unfriendly flexible working practices
Annualized hours 1,073,925
Zero hours contracts 124,875
Two-shift system early/late 1,153,910
Three-shift system 596,850
Sometimes nights/sometimes days 477,480
Night shifts 397,900
Evening or twilight shifts 198,950
Continental shifts 159,160
Split shifts 159,160
Morning shifts 79,580
Weekend shifts 39,790
Other types of shift work 756,010
Table 3 Percentage of employees with flexible working arrangements
Trends in flexible working practices
Flexible practice 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2004 2005
Flexi-time 14.9 10.1 9.6 10.0 10.7 10.3 11.3
Annualized hours 6.2 4.0 2.7 4.0 4.6 4.7 4.7
Compressed work week 3.0 2.4 2.0 1.5 1.3 1.2 1.1
Job sharing 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.6
Term-time working 4.3 4.2 4.1 4.3 4.4 4.7 4.7
Source: Adapted from TUC, 2005: 2
390 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
Capitalism’s recent form: neoliberalism
Commentators like Crompton (2002), Gambles et al. (2006), Hyman et al. (2002), Lewis (2003) and Shorthouse (2004) have begun to consider WLB against a wider social, economic and political environment. The emergence of discourses and practices of WLB can be understood as part of the emergence of the discourse and practices of flexible working in general, and the latter can be understood as part of the emergence of the peculiar form capitalism has recently adopted: neoliberalism. Recognizing that many readers of this journal may not be familiar with the concept of ‘neoliberalism’, I decided to draw on one source: Harvey’s recent Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005).
9
Newcomers will find this accessible and, importantly, it deals with those aspects of neoliberalism pertinent to the themes of this paper. I will proceed by taking three of Harvey’s most important arguments, and using them to understand WLB.
First, neoliberalism should be understood not as a worked out strategy for running capitalism in the twenty-first century, but simply as a ruling class dash to take advantage of a favourable social, economic, political and ideological climate, and to move onto the offensive after decades of having to make concessions to a working class that this climate previously favoured. Neoliberalism is a ‘political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites’ (Harvey, 2005: 19) adding: ‘The restoration or formation of class power occurs, as always, at the expense of labour’ (ibid.: 76). Important here is the continued onslaught on the welfare state.
Second, if neoliberalism is a political project that does serious harm to the world’s working class (and he argues persuasively this is the case), why has this class acquiesced in this state of affairs? (ibid.: 38). Harvey’s answer lies in capital, working closely with the state, to construct a certain degree of popular consent, by appropriating and re- working two of the key ideals of capitalism; namely freedom and individualism.
By capturing the ideals of individual freedom and turning them against the interventionist and
regulatory practices of the state, capitalist class interests could hope to protect and even restore
their position. Neoliberalism was well suited to this ideological task. But it had to be backed
up by a practical strategy that emphasized the liberty of consumer choice (ibid.: 42).
The virtuous claims for flexible specialization in labour process and for flexi-time arrangements
could become part of the neoliberal rhetoric that could be persuasive to individual labourers...
Greater freedom and liberty of action in the labour market could be touted as a virtue for capital
and labour alike (ibid.: 53).
Third, the neoliberal state is a different animal than a laissez faire, non-interventionist state. While there are many differences, which I cannot explore here, I mention those pertinent to WLB issues. Not all the specifics mentioned here are made by Harvey (2005: Ch. 3) but they do not contradict his more general thesis.
1 The neoliberal state has a tendency to withdraw from the provision of direct state- provided services, most notably in relation to social support for care of children and elderly people, replacing them with market based alternatives – e.g. not state provided nurseries, but (some) financial support, and various voucher schemes, to allow parents to exercise their individual freedom to choose a private nursery.
2 The neoliberal state has a tendency to transfer responsibility for well being, from the state to the individual. The free, empowered individual has the opportunity to make choices, not only about things like childcare, but also about their WLB. This is, of course, facilitated by the new regime of flexible labour markets and organizations. The neoliberal state’s role is not to tell people how to make use of this new-found
Fleetwood: Why work – life balance now? 391
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
flexibility, but to create the conditions whereby employers and workers tailor individual solutions to suit their individual needs. ‘Flexibility’ not only becomes the watchword with respect to labour markets and organizations, it ‘can be seized on by capital as a handy way to procure more flexible means of accumulation’ (ibid.: 76).
3 The neoliberal state has ushered in a ‘shift from government (state power on its own) to governance (a broader configuration of state and key elements of civil society)’ (ibid.: 77). The central actors in this new civil society are, of course, business and corporations, although they operate closely with the neoliberal state, which acts to create an environment in which they can thrive. Business and corporations not only collaborate intimately with state actors but even acquire a strong role in writing legislation, determining public policies, and setting regulatory frameworks (which are mainly advantageous to themselves) (ibid.: 76).
It is worth mentioning that there has, with notable exceptions, been a marked shift away from outright hostility to unions, and a greater willingness to embrace the more moderate sections of the trade union movement. In addition, many of the (social democratic) governments traditionally sympathetic to the trade union movement, such as the UK’s Labour Party, are now spearheading neoliberalism (Budge, 2004; Osler, 2002). These developments have wrong-footed much of the trade union movement. Unwilling or unable to fight neoliberalism, many trade unions have acquiesced, preferring to have some say in setting the regulatory frameworks (Hyman, 2001; Smith and Morton, 2001). As we will see below, this acquiescence has encouraged sections of the UK trade union movement to abandon its traditional hostility to employee-unfriendly flexible working practices.
These aspects of neoliberalism enable the ruling class to go on the offensive, in very different ways to previous regimes. Whereas employee-friendly flexible working practices and WLB would have been anathema to the ruling class warrior of the Reagan and Thatcher era, today they form part of a new class strategy: to wrap the iron fist of a renewed ruling class offensive in the velvet glove of freedom, individualism and, above all, flexibility. Rose (1999: 157 – 8) not only captures this point, but also the role of flexibility, in what he refers to as Advanced Liberalism.
Flexibilization is the name for this arrangement of labour when it becomes an explicit political
strategy of economic government. It has a ‘macro-economic’ moment, consisting of contests
over how much it is possible to minimize or dismantle everything that can be construed as
‘rigidities’ in the labour market. And it has a ‘micro-economic’ moment, in terms of struggles
over the appropriate tactics to increase the flexibility of relations between the individual and the
workplace...The political and economic problem, then, is understood in terms of the need to
devise strategies that will retain the apparent economic benefits of flexibilization whilst
minimizing the costs to individuals, families and communities and guard against the potential
threats to public order without recreating the obligation for the state to support all those outside
the labour market in perpetuity.
Discourses and practices
WLB, and flexible working, can be thought of either as sets of practices and/or as sets of discourses. Discourses are not simply ways of representing the world, they can also influence practice. Through selection/exclusion and emphasis/de-emphasis, some discourses of WLB and flexible working become hegemonic and can influence the way various agencies operate. This does not, of course, mean that practice mechanically follows discourse, or that discourses always have the desired causal effect on practice.
392 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
It is important to note that the relationship between discourse and practice is not always stable. Discourse and practice can become ‘detached’, as it were, from one another, raising the possibility that discourse no longer reflects practice – assuming, of course, it once did. Indeed, I will argue that between circa 1980 and the late 1990s, the practices of employee-unfriendly flexible working remained largely in place, while the discourses shifted from discourses that reflected these practices, to discourses of employee-friendly working, thereby, ceasing to reflect the practices. This section sketches some of the key changes, before shifting to focus more specifically to the past five years, and providing more specific examples of the way government agencies, employers associations, voluntary organizations, think-tanks and the trade union movement have reported these changes.
Flexible labour markets, flexible firms and flexible workers
In the late 1980s and 1990s discourses and practices associated with flexible labour markets started to emerge as responses to high levels of unemployment in the form of Active Labour Market policies proposed by the OECD and introduced in many Western economies. Flexible labour markets were said to be those that minimized the ‘rigidities’ (especially in the form of restrictive labour practices associated with trade unions, and ‘generous’ unemployment benefits) preventing wages adjusting to clear the labour market. Flexible labour market practices sought the removal of these ‘rigidities’ and this was accurately reflected in the discourse of ‘supply-side economics’ that emerged in this period.
In response to the downsizing in this period, commentators like Atkinson began to see the emergence of the Flexible Firm in which a core of permanent workers were surrounded by a periphery of flexible workers. Despite the (legitimate) criticisms levelled at the ‘Atkinson Model’, he had grasped something important: a flexible labour market could not be created without flexible firms and, or course, flexible working practices. Employers began to use flexible working not simply as a stop-gap measure to cover things like peaks and troughs in order books, sickness and maternity leave, but on a continual basis. Several high profile companies replaced full-time jobs with part-time jobs; the use of temporary contracts, typically through temporary agencies grew apace; zero-hours contracts emerged; and we saw the emergence of annualized hours contracts, stand-by and call-out arrangements and a growing number of self-employed contractors.
The emergence of these flexible labour markets, flexible firms and flexible working practices in the 1980s and 1990s, angered sections of the trade union movement and the ‘Left’, sparking a range of debates over the damaging consequences of flexibility (see, Boyer, 1988; Casey et al., 1997; Crompton et al., 1996; Dex, 1997; Felsted and Jewson, 1999; Gaffikin and Morrissey, 1992; Jessop et al., 1991; Meadows, 1996; Pollert, 1991; Purcell et al., 1999; Ransome, 1995; Rubery and Wilkinson, 1994; Scase, 1991). A spate of high profile books eventually emerged announcing the End of Work (Rifkin, 1996); The Age of Insecurity (Elliot and Atkinson, 1998); discussing the Corrosion of Character, (Sennett, 1998) and introducing the Insecure Workforce (Heery and Salmon, 2000). During this period, the discourses associated with these employee-unfriendly flexible working practices were almost entirely negative but, importantly, the discourses largely reflected the practices.
Family-friendly flexible working
As employment gradually increased and labour shortages started to emerge in the late 1990s, the discourses and practices of flexible working underwent another change.
Fleetwood: Why work – life balance now? 393
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
Tight labour markets meant fewer workers were forced to adopt employee-unfriendly kinds of flexible working practices. Part-time working was very different. Employers began to offer part-time work specifically as a way of retaining, and recruiting, working mothers. The UK government (and the EU) began promoting part-time work as a way of encouraging more working mothers into the labour market at little extra net cost to the treasury. Indeed, forms of employee-friendly practices such as flexi-time and compressed working weeks, emerged to recruit and retain staff in the new ‘war for talent’. Attempts to overcome labour shortages by the extensive use of part-time women, however, ran into two problems. First, irrespective of the rights or wrongs, women were still charged with performing domestic labour in the family. Second, part-time work was not necessarily temporally flexible, and not always conducive to family commitments. If women were to be recruited and retained, work, (full or part-time) had to take into account women’s family commitments. By the late 1990s, several important agencies began to promote family-friendly working practices. The discourse of flexible working practices was now beginning to shed its largely negative image, and started to be presented as family friendly.
WLB
These, family-friendly practices and policies, in turn, ran into their own problems: they tended to focus on women with children, thereby, excluding men, and women without children. Groups like the National Work – Life Forum succeeded in publicising issues surrounding the lack of flexibility in work that meant men could not spend time with their families. Then, sometime in the late 1990s the discourse of employee-friendly flexible working practices changed yet again into discourses of WLB (Crompton, 2002; Hyman et al., 2003; Lewis, 2003).
In the 1980s and 1990s the flexible working practices in operation were employee unfriendly, and the discourse accurately reflected this fact. From the late 1990s onwards, while these same employee-unfriendly flexible working practices remained in operation, employee-friendly practices emerged alongside them. What is significant for our purpose, however, is the fact that by the late 1990s, the employee-unfriendly discourse of the earlier period had all but disappeared, to be steadily replaced by employee-friendly discourse. Yet as we saw above, current flexible working practices are characterized as much by employee-unfriendly practices as they are by employee-friendly practices. The discourses no longer accurately reflect the practices.
The remainder of the section focuses more specifically on the past five years, providing more specific examples of the way government agencies, employers associations, voluntary organizations, think-tanks and the trade union movement have reported these changes.
Examples of changes in discourse
The independent think-tank New Ways to Work (1999) defines the kind of flexible working practices that might be considered family friendly and demonstrates the business case for their introduction. While it carries a very short (half a page) cautionary note about what I refer to as employee-unfriendly flexible working practices, the authors appear to have done their best to understate the issue. Furthermore, these practices are not mentioned in the rest of the booklet.
Of the 11 companies in the DfEE’s (1999) large survey, no explicit mention is made of the employee-unfriendly nature of some of the flexible working practices investigated,
394 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
despite the fact that several of the companies mention 24-hour shift work, weekend work and holiday cover.
A series of DTI reports systematically fail to mention employee-unfriendly kinds of flexible working practices. For example:
Chapter 5 sets out how flexible working is: good for children, enabling families to spend time
with their children, as well as work and contribute to the family income; good for parents,
helping them to find working hours to match their caring responsibilities; and, good for
businesses, enabling them to draw on a wider pool of skills and talents in the workforce, improve
recruitment and retention rates and increase staff morale and productivity. (DTI, 2005: 8)
Flexible working opportunities benefit everyone: employers, employees and their families.
Many employers know that it makes good business sense to provide flexible working
opportunities for their staff. These employers know flexible working arrangements enable them
to: retain skilled staff and reduce recruitment costs; to raise their staff morale and decrease
absenteeism; and to react to changing market conditions more effectively. (DTI, 2003b: 2,
emphasis added)
Conveniently left unstated, here, is anything to do with those cases where the ‘reaction to changing market conditions’ might actually conflict with the needs of ‘employees and their families’. A similar contradiction runs through the following comment from the CIPD. What happens when employee needs and business needs do not coincide?
The CIPD believes that flexible working arrangements can play a valuable role in organisational
performance. HR’s role is not to promote flexible working as an end in itself, but to look for
opportunities to use flexible working where employee needs and business needs coincide.
(CIPD, 2005: 3, emphasis added)
Arguably for reasons noted above, the trade union movement has also tended to downplay employee-unfriendly flexible working practices. A 2001 TUC report sub-titled Guide to WLB, makes a distinction between ‘positive flexibility’ (i.e. employee-friendly flexibility in my terminology) and its opposite, characterized by ‘long and unsocial hours, absence of employee control, job insecurity, stress, mutual suspicion and mistrust’. Of significance, is the fact that these employee-unfriendly flexible working practices are not mentioned again in the rest of the booklet.
This book is a guide to a unique process, developed by the TUC, designed to achieve changes in
the organisation of working time which benefit both employees and employer... Organisations
that negotiate innovative work practices which also benefit staff are forward looking,
competitive and profitable... WLB is central to positive flexibility [and can] achieve a win-win
outcome for staff and management. (TUC, 2001: 2)
Navigating through the TUC’s current Worksmart programme, to the link entitled: ‘What does flexible working mean’, we find the following, which makes no reference to employee-unfriendly flexible working:
The concept of flexible working is very wide, and you could ask for a variety of different work
patterns or arrangements under these new rights. These could include: working from home;
job-sharing; teleworking; term-time working; compressed hours; flexitime; staggered hours;
annualised hours; self-rostering. (TUC, 2005)
In 1996, an LRD booklet Flexible Working Time left the reader in no doubt that the term ‘flexible work’ almost certainly referred to employee-unfriendly forms. The emphasis of the booklet is defensive, aiming to defend workers against the imposition of
Fleetwood: Why work – life balance now? 395
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
flexible working, while recognizing in passing that some forms of flexible work are employee friendly.
And while trade unions are in many cases ready and willing to negotiate flexibility which
benefits union members, they can and do oppose changes that consider only the needs of
business. (Ibid.: 2)
A similar booklet entitled Part-Time Workers (1996: 2) was equally defensive, and reminded its readers of the problems that part-time work can bring: ‘Part-time working is one of the most widely used forms of flexible working, but too often is imposed for the benefit of the employer.’
By the early 2000s, the LRD’s emphasis had changed. In 2001 a booklet entitled WLB appeared in which the interpretation of flexible working shifted. It opens as follows:
The government has set up the Work and Parents Taskforce to look at how to give working
parents the right to work flexible or reduced hours. Flexible or family friendly working has been
on the agenda for the government, unions and some employers for some time now. (2001: 2) 10
An LRD booklet, Working Parents (2003) has one small section on flexible working (p. 39) and mentions only those forms of (positive) flexible working that assist working parents.
The tendency to avoid discussion of employee-unfriendly flexible working practices and instead to focus upon employee-friendly practices, of the kind assumed to enable greater WLB, can also be seen on the websites of several UK trade unions who are actively promoting a WLB agenda, with no mention of their employee-unfriendly counterparts.
11
In sum, then, between circa 1980 and the late 1990s, even if some employee-friendly practices that tend to enable WLB emerged, many employee-unfriendly practices that tend to constrain WLB remained in place. The discourses, however, shifted from those that reflected employee-unfriendly practices, to discourses of employee-friendly working, that is, to discourses that no longer reflected these practices.
Conclusion
Shorn of its employee-unfriendly connotations, the term ‘flexibility’ has been ‘discursively rehabilitated’ as it were, such that it no longer connotes any negativity. And herein lies an answer to the question: Why WLB now? The discourses of WLB have increased markedly because they have been useful in legitimizing the employee- unfriendly working practices central to neoliberalism: they have acted as a Trojan Horse. The discourses of WLB conceal, while promoting, the now ‘rehabilitated’ discourses of flexibility. Employee-unfriendly flexible working practices remain, but are veiled by the mask of WLB discourses with their employee-friendly connotations.
This would, of course, tend towards the conspiratorial were it not for the fact that those who have actively promoted these discourses can be identified: the UK government and its agencies like the DTI and the DfEE; employers’ associations like the CBI and CIPD; voluntary organizations like Parents at Work and Working Families (nee New Ways to Work); think-tanks like Employers for Work Life Balance and trade unions. While trade unions have not sought to legitimize neoliberalism, their unwillingness, or inability, to oppose it, has encouraged acquiescence and a preference for having some say in setting the regulatory frameworks. There is always a place at the table for trade unions who wish to talk the language of flexibility and WLB – provided the talk is mainly about employer- friendly kinds of flexibility.
396 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
Let us conclude by analysing one of New Labour’s key WLB policies: the right to request and the duty to consider flexible working practices. This is an interesting example because this policy has all the appearance of a WLB success story. The conceptual apparatus developed in this paper, however, reveals a different story. According to Harvey (2005: 80 – 1), neoliberalism’s: ‘inherent tendency to commodify everything can all too easily run amok and produce incoherence...The inevitable response is to reconstruct social solidarities, albeit along very different lines – hence the revival of interest in religion and morality.’
New Labour’s popular discourse of rights and duties can be understood as a quasi- moral ‘response’. Employees now have a legal right to request flexible working practices on the grounds that it may enable greater WLB, and employers can only reject an application ‘when the desired pattern cannot be accommodated within the needs of the business’ (DTI, 2003b: 3). While this appears to be a major concession from employers, notice two things.
First, the discourse of rights and duties are potentially dangerous because once employees accept their apparent fairness and symmetry they can find themselves trapped, not by a legal, but by a quasi-moral, obligation. Once employees accept these discourses, they often feel obliged to reciprocate. One could easily imagine an employer granting a request for an employee-friendly flexible working practice, but then asking for something in return. The employer would be exercising, not their legal, but their quasi-moral, right to ask the employee to accept (say) an employer-friendly flexible working practice in return. This point is not lost on employers, one of whom observed that: ‘if people are happy in their job, they are better workers, and if we need a little bit extra from them, they are more than willing to do it’ (DTI, 2004: 49).
12
Second, the discourse of rights and duties is potentially dangerous because it builds in, while concealing, an asymmetrical power relation. When employers are asked why they do not provide family-friendly flexible working practices (say flexi-time), the typical reply is that ‘such arrangements are not compatible with the nature of the business’ (DT1, 2003: 68). Imagine the derision that would meet an employee who refused to accept an employer-friendly working practice (say annualized hours) because ‘such arrangements are not compatible with the nature of the family!’ The law recognizes the needs of business, not the needs of the family, as paramount and hence loads the right to request and the duty to consider in favour of business, while maintaining a veneer of symmetry.
Notes
1 Greenblatt is one of the few that offers more than a passing mention of three causes: ‘changes in
(1) social needs, (2) available technologies and (3) personal expectations’. She adds that these
‘social forces have converged to move work/life balance battles from the living room to the
boardroom (ibid.: 179). There are, however, two problems with Greenblatt’s argument. First the
argument reduces to the claim that people (somehow) simply changed their social needs and
expectations. Second, she implies that companies passively responded to the changed needs and
expectations of the workforce and were not active in setting the agenda for their own reasons. 2 For an elaboration of the relationship between practice and discourse, see Fleetwood (2005). 3 As Conley recently noted: ‘Flexibility is an amorphous term used to describe many qualitatively
different forms of work, and it is sometimes... employed as a term holding both positive and
negative connotations’ (2006: 52). 4 I would also cite, as evidence, the fact that we can probably name very few (if any) friends or
acquaintances who would freely choose working practices like these. See any copy of Labour
Fleetwood: Why work – life balance now? 397
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
Research Department’s monthly Bargaining Report, to see how these practices are fought over
and extra premia sought. 5 Commentators on WLB such as Lewis and Giullari (2005) have picked up on the Aristotelian
approaches of Sen and Nussbaum. Interestingly, these approaches argue that humans flourish,
and suffer, under certain conditions and these are not just a matter of subjective opinion. 6 Even those who are keen to promote WLB via employer-friendly flexible working practices are
forced to ‘recognize that these strategies may be intended to serve economic purposes that may
be more compelling for the employer than are the WLB needs or preferences of their
employees... It is feasible that, while managers may espouse concerns about WLB per se,
alternative motives, including cost reduction or productivity improvements, may underlie
employers’ decisions to implement WLB strategies’ (De Ceri et al., 2005: 91). 7 Data compiled from Labour Market Trends October (2002: 506), Social Trends (2005: 55).
I have used data from 2000, because it is the latest data available on the extent of shiftworking
and I wanted to make the data comparable. I leave part-time working out of the picture as, in and
of itself, part-time hours may be very inflexible. 8 Notice that Table 2 does not include several employee-unfriendly practices like stand-by and
call-out arrangements, seasonal work, job-and-finish or spatial flexibility involving working on
multiple sites. Notice too that while annualized hours (AH) arrangements are often associated
with the kinds of employee-friendly flexible working practices that might promote WLB, they
should be associated with employee-unfriendly kinds. Simply shifting from (say) a 39 hour
working week to its equivalent 1,778 hour working year does not make a workplace more
flexible. Flexibility is usually introduced by: (a) adding some compulsory overtime, and
increasing the basic hours to (say) 1,900; and (b) adding in ‘windows’ where the working week
can range from (say) 30 to 50 hours. Because these additions remove a degree of employees
discretion over working hours, they can easily clash with non-work considerations such as
family commitments, school holidays and so on (Bacon and Storey, 1996; Hayes, 1997; IDS
Study, 1993; LRD, 1996). 9 Sentiments in-keeping with the arguments on neoliberalism presented here can be found in
Berberoglu (2001), Feldman and Lotz (2004), Gamble (2001), Gray (2004), Rose (1999) and
Saad-Filho and Johnston (2005). 10 Compare the sections on Annualized Hours in LRD, 1996 (30 – 1) and LRD, 2001 (20 – 3). 11 See websties for UK unions Amicus, PSC, UNISON and Usdaw. 12 A DTI report noted that 62 per cent of employers agreed or strongly agreed that ‘employees
should be aware that they should not “change their working pattern if to do so would disrupt
business”’ DTI (2003: 239 – 40).
References
Amicus, http://www.amicustheunion.org/default.aspx?page ¼ 287. Available December 2005.
Bacon, N. and Storey, J. (1996) ‘Flexible Working: Introducing Annualised Hours and 24 Hour
Working’. In Storey, J. (ed.) Blackwell Cases in HRM. Oxford: Blackwell.
Berberoglu, B. (2001) Labour and Capital in the Age of Globalization: The Labour Process and the
Changing Nature of Work in the Global Economy. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Boyer, R. (1988) The Search for Labour Market Flexibility: The European Economies in
Transition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Budge, I. (2004) The New British Politics, 3rd edn. London: Pearson Longman.
Casey, B., Metcalf, H. and Millward, N. (1997) Employers Use of Flexible Labour. London: Policy
Studies Institute.
CIPD (2005) Employment Trends Survey: People Driving Performance. London: Pertemps and
Confederation of British Industry.
CIPD (2006) online at http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/wrkgtime/wrktmewrklfbal/worklifeba.
htm?IsSrchRes ¼ 1
Clutterbuck, D. (2003) Managing WLB: A Guide for HR in Achieving Organisational and
Individual Change. London, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
398 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
Conley, H. (2006) ‘Modernisation or Casualisation? Numerical Flexibility in Public Services’,
Capital and Class, 89: 31 – 58.
Crompton, R. (2002) ‘Employment, Flexible Working and the Family’, British Journal of
Sociology, 53(4): 537 – 58.
Crompton, R., Gallie, D. and Purcell, K. (1996) Changing Forms of Employment. London:
Routledge.
Crooker, K., Smith, F. and Tabak, F. (2002) ‘Creating WLB: A Model of Pluralism Across Life
Domains’, Human Resources Development Review, 1(4): 387 – 419.
De Cheri, H., Holmes, B., Abbott, J. and Pettit, T. (2005) ‘Achievements and Challenges for
Work/Life Balance Strategies in Australian Organizations’, International Journal of Human
Resource Management, 16(1): 90 – 103.
Dex, S. (1997) Flexible Employment: The Future of Britain’s Jobs. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
DfEE (1999) Family-Friendly Employment: The Business Case. Research Report RR136, London:
Department for Education and Employment.
DTI (2000) Work and Parents: Competitiveness and Choice. London: Department of Trade and
Industry.
DTI (2003a) The Second WLB Survey. London: Department of Trade and Industry.
DTI (2003b) Flexible Working: The Right to Request and the Duty to Consider. London:
Department of Trade and Industry.
DTI (2004) Maximising Potential Through WLB. Case Studies from the IT, Electronics and
Communications Industries. London: Department of Trade and Industry.
DTI (2005) Work and Families: Choice and Flexibility. London: Department of Trade and
Industry.
DTI (2006) http://www.dti.gov.uk/er/fw_wlb.htm
DTI and HM Treasury (2003) Balancing Work and Family Life: Enhancing Choice and Support for
Parents. London: Department of Trade and Industry, and HM Treasury.
Edwards, J. and Rothbard, N. (2000) ‘Mechanisms Linking Work and Family: Clarifying the
Relationship Between Work and Family Constructs’, Academy of Management Journal, 25(1):
178 – 99.
Elliot, L. and Atkinson, D. (1998) The Age of Insecurity. London: Verso.
Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London:
Routledge.
Feldman, P. and Lotz, C. (2004) A World to Win: A Rough Guide to a Future Without Global
Capitalism. London: Lupus Books.
Felsted, A. and Jewson, N. (1999) Global Trends in Flexible Labour. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Fleetwood, S. (2005) ‘The Ontology of Organisation and Management Studies: A Critical Realist
Approach’, Organization, 12(2): 197 – 222.
Gaffikin, F. and Morrissey, M. (1992) The New Unemployed: Joblessness and Poverty in the
Market Economy. London: Zed Books.
Gamble, A. (2001) ‘Neo-Liberalism’, Capital and Class, 75: 127 – 35.
Gambles, R., Lewis, S. and Rapoport, R. (2006) The Myth of WLB: The Challenge of Our Time for
Men, Women and Societies. Chichester: Wiley.
Gray, A. (2004) Unsocial Europe: Social Protection or Flexploitation. London: Pluto.
Greenblatt, E. (2002) ‘Work/Life Balance: Wisdom or Whining?’, Organizational Dynamics,
31(2): 177 – 93.
Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hayes, J. (1997) ‘Annualised Hours and the “Knock”’, Work, Employment and Society, 11(1):
65 – 81.
Heery, E. and Salmon, J. (2000) The Insecure Workforce. London: Routledge.
Hyman, J., Baldry, C., Scholarios, D. and Bunzel, D. (2003) ‘Work – Life Imbalance in Call Centres
and Software Development’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 41(2): 215 – 39.
Hyman, R. (2001) Understanding European Trade Unionism: Between Market, Class and Society.
London: Sage.
IDS Study 544 (1993) Annual Hours. Incomes Data Services.
Fleetwood: Why work – life balance now? 399
D ow
nl oa
de d
B y:
[U ni
ve rs
ity o
f t he
W es
t o f E
ng la
nd ] A
t: 12
:5 3
29 M
ay 2
00 7
Jessop, B., Kastendiek, H., Nielsen, K. and Pedersen, O. (1991) The Politics of
Flexibility: Restructuring State and Industry in Britain, Germany and Scandinavia. Aldershot:
Edward Elgar.
Labour Market Trends (2002) October.
Labour Market Trends (2004) January.
Labour Market Trends (2005) October.
Lewis, J. and Giullari, S. (2005) ‘The Adult Worker Model Family, Gender Equality and Care: The
Search for New Policy Principles and the Possibilities and Problems of a Capabilities
Approach’, Economy and Society, 34(1): 76 – 104.
Lewis, S. (2003) ‘The Integration of Paid Work and the Rest of Life, Is Post-Leisure Work the New
Leisure?’, Leisure Studies, 22: 343 – 55.
LRD (1996) Flexible Working Time. London: Labour Research Department.
LRD (1996) Part-Time Workers. London: Labour Research Department.
LRD (2001) WLB: A Negotiators Guide. London: Labour Research Department.
LRD (2003) Working Parents. London: Labour Research Department.
Meadows, P. (1996) Work Out – Or Work In: Debate on the Future of Work. York: Joseph
Rowntree.
New Ways to Work (1999) Time For Change. London.
Osler, D. (2002) Labour Party PLC: New Labour as a Party of Business. Edinburgh: Mainstream
Publishing.
Pollert, A. (1991) Farewell To Flexibility. Oxford: Blackwell.
PSC, see http://www.pcs.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID ¼ 885263
Purcell, K., Hogarth, T. and Simm, C. (1999) Whose Flexibility? York: Joseph Rowntree
Foundation.
Ransome, P. (1995) Job Security and Social Stability: The Impact of Mass Unemployment on
Expectations at Work. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Ransome, P. (2005) Work, Consumption and Culture: Affluence and Social Change in the Twenty-
First Century. London: Sage.
Rifkin, J. (1996) The End of Work: The Decline of Global Labour Force and the Dawn of the Post-
Market Era. New York: Tarchet/Putnam.
Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Rubery, J. and Wilkinson, F. (1994) Employer Strategy and the Labour Market. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Saad-Fihlo, A. and Johnston, D. (eds) (2005) Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader. London: Pluto
Press.
Scase, R. (1991) Poor Work: Disadvantage and the Division of Labour. Milton Keynes: Open
University Press.
Sennett, R. (1998) The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New
Capitalism. New York: Norton.
Shorthouse, J. (2004) ‘Like Summer and Good Sex’, Capital and Class, 82: 1 – 8.
Smith, P. and Morton, G. (2001) ‘New Labour’s Reform of Britain’s Employment Law: The Devil
is Not Only in the Detail but in the Values and the Policy Too’, British Journal of Industrial
Relations, 39(1): 119 – 39.
Social Trends (2005) Newport: Office of National Statistics.
TUC (2001) Changing Times. London: Trades Union Congress.
TUC (2005) ‘Challenging Times: Flexibility and Flexible working in the UK’, online at: http://
www.tuc.org.uk/work_life/tuc-11171-f0.cfm?text ¼ 1and
TUC Worksmart (2005) online at: http://www.worksmart.org.uk/rights/viewquestion.
php?eny ¼ 579
UNISON, http://www.unison.org.uk/worklifebalance/index.asp
Usdaw, http://www.usdaw.org.uk/getactive/network_journal/08/spc_campaign.html
400 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
