Section 2 Case Study

Matching corporate and individual flexibility needs

Flexible work patterns provide a means for employers to match their labour needs with their
production and service needs. But evidence increasingly points to health and safety problems
arising for employees employed under flexible arrangements. Temporary labour hire and
casual workers, for example, have a greater risk of being injured at work, while those in
insecure employment (e.g. permanent employees at risk of retrenchment) suffer poorer health
outcomes than those with secure employment. Indeed, a longitudinal study of over 7,000
Australians, by Butterworth and colleagues, found that those employed in jobs defined as
having poor psychosocial working conditions (which included job insecurity, as well as high
job demands and complexity, low job control and unfair pay) suffered poorer mental health
than those unemployed; and those who moved from unemployment into the poorest quality
jobs suffered a subsequent decline in mental health.

These findings caution us that when it comes to health outcomes, not all jobs are better than
none. Indeed, some are worse. Focusing upon the narrower aspect of hours of work, a 2012
study of Australian workers by Denniss and Baker found that while around half of the
workforce worked the hours they preferred, 21 percent desired more hours and 26 percent
fewer working hours. More than half of the 1495 survey respondents reported that the current
working arrangements had an impact on their health. Those who would like to work more
hours reported anxiety, stress and loss of sleep associated with their financial circumstances,
while those working too many hours reported similar outcomes but derived from their
working hours interfering with family commitments. Remarkably, around 20 percent or 2.2
million workers said they had little idea when they would finish their days work on a daily
basis and 40 percent of those uncertain about their working hours reported increased stress
and anxiety levels compared to one in four of those with predictable working hours.

Respondents working hours were more likely to result from rostering or availability of work
among lower paid workers and be attributed to organizational culture or personal preference
among higher paid workers. Importantly those who reported satisfaction with the
predictability and totality of their working hours, coupled with employment security, were
more likely to report the absence of adverse health effects. They were also more likely to
report their organization had a stronger than average commitment to a culture supportive of
work-life balance.
Notwithstanding the adverse health outcomes experienced by a significant minority of survey
respondents, and that around 50 percent of respondents would like to change their working
hours, most (nearly 80 percent) reported they would feel comfortable discussing their
working hours and work-life balance issues with their managers.

What explains this gap between the ability to discuss yet not change dissatisfying working
hours? The researchers could only speculate on why: perhaps, they suggest, the organization
as a whole was viewed as unresponsive to change.