Employee Resourcing

Questions: 1. Define flexible working within the legislative framework within the EU and critically discuss the implications, both legally and with regards to good practice, when recruiting staff to work flexibly.2. Critically evaluate the impact of the flexible working hours upon the organization (Sysdoc Group) and its employees performance. You should use examples to support your answer and draw conclusions and make any relevant recommendations that may be of benefit to Sysdoc Group and to employers considering implementing similar flexible working practices. Answers: Employee Resourcing Flexible working is an approach of working that suits the need of the employees working in a particular organization. Flexible working not only helps in providing moral support to the employee but it also plays a crucial role in enriching the performance of the employee (Prowse and Prowse 2015). Flexible working also provides suitable assistance by providing a platform in which the employees can address in a reasonable manner. According to Deakin and Morris (2012), a recent survey reported that more than 70% of the employees have asked for giving them the opportunity that would help them in requesting flexible working. Flexible working provides a variation of the working pattern that includes options like work from home, flexible timing, part time working, shift working and job sharing. Flexible working represents a permanent change that produces a happier and productive work force environment. Impact produced by the flexible working provides positive energy in the workforce environm ent, which plays a significant role for satisfying the aims of the organization by enriching the output of the work. Thus, the present report will help in understanding the impact of flexible work environment with reference to the guidelines provided by different kind of legislations and by taking into consideration the case study based on The Sysdoc Group. 1. Flexible Working According to the legislative framework within the EU, flexible working pattern is defined as any other working pattern apart from the normal working pattern that specifically includes change in the working hours of the employees, time invested to do the work or their associated place of work (Wallace et al. 2014). According to the European employment strategy, increase in working time flexibility is a vital constituent of the European employment strategy (Klimek et al. 2015). Flexibility in the work force environment helps in responding to the unexpected changes according to the changes in demand, adapt to the new technologies and get a suitable position that will help them in innovating continuously to hold a position in the competitive market. Flexibility is an important component that provides a quest of competitiveness among the employees. The importance of the policy measures provides a relatively diverse position of EU Member States that specifically emphasizes on the flexibili ty spectrum that is followed as per the regulations in the legislation of the EU (Radcliffe and Cassell 2015). As per the norms of the EU legislation, flexibility acts as an instrument for increasing participation of both the persons subjected to specific work hours. Increase in the flexibility of the working hours helps the employees to bring together their work obligations affecting the personal life. Various number of working practices involves suitable changes to the hours and times involved in the working hours. This specifically includes: Providing a suitable flexi-time arrangement provides the employees to remain at work during a specific period but also provides them the opportunity to work according to the time that suits them. Work flexibility also provides the employees with the opportunity that helps them in better understanding of the work pattern It reduces the burden of additional cost and gives an ability for reorganizing the work among the other employees There are different manners and ways in which companies can adopt flexible working hours, these different ways are as follows:- Job sharing Job sharing is done when two individuals collectively do one task by dividing the time and hours of working between them Part time Part time is incorporated when an employee is allowed to work for lesser hours than required by the routine working hours of the company Work From Home Work from home allows employees to work from their houses without coming to office. This is most ideal when an employee is sick or recovering from an illness. Flextime Under flextime, an employee is allowed to choose his working hours within the agreed time period. Phased retirement Default retirement age is abolished under the said manner of flexible working and older employers are allowed to choose their retirement age. Staggered hours Under the staggered hours, employee has different start, end and break times as compared to other employees. Implications Since 30 June 2014, a new law on flexible working is passed in the United Kingdom. The said law on flexible working states that every employee who has served an employer or a company for at least 26 weeks has the right to demand for flexible working. The law also states that an employer can refused the said demand only under the eight reasons mentioned under the flexible working legislation (Schulz 2013). Flexible working means working in a manner, which is suitable for the employee. After the introduction of the said law, many significant benefits are observed when an employer adopts flexible working. The introduction of flexible working, which was provided to the employee, increased their efficiency by increasing production levels, resulting in excellent quality customer care services and more committed ad focus employees. Initially the introduction of flexible working hours created many concerns in both employers and employees. The employers were worried about their level of control if too much flexibility in work was provided, whereas the employees were worried about their career growth if they started working part-time from home. However, a correct manner to set the changes in working hours and adopting the new law of flexible working is what is important to derive benefits from the same (Horning, Gerhardt and Michailow 2015). It is first important to check that whether the business type is suitable for supporting flexible change law and if yes, which type of flexible working changes will be the most suitable for the business. For example, an employer maybe planning to introduce shift timings for increasing the productivity of a business, however best results from introduction of shift hours will only be achieved when the labor costs are cheap compared to capital costs in a business. However, a recent report states that nearly 97% of employee feel that introduction of flexible working legislations has positive impacts. When an employer provides an employee flexible working, it increases the productivity of an employee as he is allowed to work the way he wishes without the pressure which often reduces efficiency. For example, when an employee has the option of flexible working, he will choose to work from home when hes sick, which without the said option would be a sick leave demanded by the same employee. Thus, the number of sick leaves is reduced due to flexible working option, which is available to employees (Deakin and Morris 2012). The legislation of flexible working when adopted increases the efficiency of an employee as he has the option to makes choices where he can mange work with other activities. For example, employees when given flexible working options stay healthy as they often visit gyms, or indulge in sports they like and spend quality time with fa mily (Chung 2016). Thus, when an employee is satisfied with his life, his productivity at work automatically increases. For example, Germany has recently made it a law to not work after 6 pm and another related law, which states that employees are allowed to ignore work calls or calls from superior after working hours are over. Thus, these laws are in support of flexible working and help the employer to achieve maximum productivity and efficiency from an employee. 2. Impact of Flexible Working The Sysdoc Group is one of the leading management consultancies that has adopted a customer focused approach by taking suitable measures that provides unique and flexible working environment. The Sysdoc group has created a work culture that embraces flexibility that helped them in building a committed and enthusiastic team that has helped them to deliver well above the average business results and as a result, in the year 2008-09 the company grew nine times faster than the sector as a whole. Thus, critically evaluating the impact it can thus be stated that flexible working hours helps in enhancing the performance and the efficiency of the performers (Jessoula, Graziano and Madam 2010). Providing work time flexibility thereby helps in increasing and motivating the employees in way that has a direct impact on the performance of the company. A flexible working hour is a part of the mainstream approach that helps the employees to work as a team. This provides them with a range of options with regard s to the way what are the suitable outcome associated with for affecting the performance of the individuals and the impacts that they produce in providing a suitable profit for the organization as observed in case of The Sysdoc Group. The positive approach of providing a flexible working produced a suitable impact on the employees that is clearly obtained from the case study, which stated that the employees were able to work depending upon their choice. As a result, the company has not only made a suitable contribution in obtaining growth in the business but also played a crucial role in influencing the performance of the employees as well. This can further be evaluated because it has enhanced the employee performance, which has helped in building a strong positive relationship between the flexible working and the individual performance for participating in the given organization (Baranowska and Gebel 2010). It has also involved an average number of respondents for iden tifying the importance and the role of working flexibility that provides a suitable performance benefits in various number of ways. The interplay between the employee wellbeing, work life balance and the performance makes helps in understanding several factors that includes understanding of other factors such as organizational commitment, energy, enthusiasm and satisfaction. Taking into consideration of the several examples from other industries the findings helped in providing a clear support regarding the intuitive expectation by highlighting how the flexibility plays a major role in better understanding of how to integrate work and non work that will help in enhancing the personal wellbeing of a individual. The positive association also highlighted the impact of the performance that helped in highlighting what the employees shall do in the way that will help them in repaying with improved motivation levels and drive. Thus, the work-time flexibility also helped in reducing the sui table stress and pressure (Cingano et al. 2010). This provided an abundant evidence of the individuals who tried to adapt the working arrangement over the time in terms of meeting both the job demands and their own satisfaction level by understanding the evolving demands of the organization along with the suitable understanding of their own importance in the organization. With reference to the Sysdoc group, it is thus very much evident from the facts that is provided that giving workforce flexibility provides the employment in contributing more to the company by enhancing their own performance (Cingano et al. 2010). Since the employees have been suitable associated in enjoying the freedom, there are many factors that uplifted the present position of the market and have contributed significantly to better understanding of their employees in terms of serving the organization with respect to the satisfying the aims and objectives of the company. Thus, employees who have worked for the same employer with more than 12 months can request for flexible working hours if they are a parent, a carer under the under the Carer Recognition Act 2010, have certain disability, are 55 or older in age, are experiencing domestic violence or family problems. Employees undergoing the said problems can request for flexible working hours in writing, after the said is requested a meeting is held to discuss the changes asked for and the decision needs to be given within the period of 3 months including appeals. The employers are obliged to consider the request on reasonable grounds and are allowed to reject the same only if the business suffers detriment due to the acceptance of the request for flexible working hours. On the other hand, the employees may also get negatively associated with using the work flexibility time that has been given to them. The employees may utilize the work time in doing some other thing that will hamper the productivity of the company and thus may engage themselves in doing things for which they are not specifically assigned by the company to do (Eichhorst, Feil and Marx 2010). They may use it illegally by giving proxy and they might get involved with themselves in something for which they are not allowed to do. Conclusion and Recommendation The changes adopted by the company The Sysdoc Group relating to flexible working have evidently increased its business, profits and efficiency. The principle which is set by the said company of delivering client excellence by having balance in ones self is an excellent principle to achieve high level of productivity and efficiency from the employees of the company. However, despite providing flexible working to the employees, it is the duty of the employer to keep a certain level of control over their employees. For example, if an employee is allowed work from home, the employers should set targets and deadlines for the employee to meet at the end of the working hour. Another effort by the employer can be to keep in touch with all the employees who demand work from home and to constantly update them on any new developments to make the employee work efficiently. In my opinion the key principle of succeed in achieving high efficiency by introducing flexible working is to develop the fl exible working policy after consulting with the employees and after understanding their needs and requirements. 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