Increasing employee commitment and job satisfaction with reduced work load arrangements
12/09/2022
4 min
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Employees increasingly want a better work-life balance and organizations wanting to retain talent have to meet this need. One way to achieve this is reduced load work arrangements. Professor Elise Marescaux explains how to make these work for both employees and employers.
Based on an interview with Professor Elise Marescaux on her paper “Exploring the effects of reduced load work arrangements (RLWAs): The role of individual autonomy and workplace level justice perceptions,” co-written with Professors Aykut Berber, Mine Afacan Findikli, Yasin Rofcanin, Farooq Mughal and Juani Swart, published in European Management Journal, April 28, 2022.
The Great Resignation is far from over. Recent research by PWC shows that globally 20 percent of workers were planning to leave their jobs in 2022. How can this flow be stemmed? For workers tempted to head for the exit, an important factor is job satisfaction, and an increasingly important aspect of this is a good work-life balance. To help achieve this, various practices exist, such as working from home and flexible hours.
The specificities of RLWAs
Professor Elise Marescaux and her colleagues sought to investigate the role of a relevant but under-explored type of flexible working, the Reduced Load Work Arrangement (RLWA). RLWAs are agreements made between the employee and employer that the employee will work fewer hours and handle a proportionately smaller workload. Salary, and sometimes benefits, will decrease accordingly too. RLWAs are usually informal and negotiated between employee and supervisor. Their overarching goal is to allow employees to continue to achieve success in their careers but with fewer conflicts with other life areas.
RLWAs are commonly used worldwide, and in the UK — the country of study – RLWAs are used by 35% of employees. Since 2014, employees in the UK have had the statutory right to request flexible working options. In the context of rising individualized HR among employees, “People are increasingly vocal about what they want and need to thrive and survive and be committed,” Professor Marescaux described. Understanding what they need, especially on work-life balance, is critical for firms in retaining talent.
Benefits of RLWAs
Through statistical analysis on data from the Work Employment Relations Survey (WERS) in the UK, Professor Marescaux and her colleagues pinpointed three major benefits of RLWAs. The first was that those with RLWAs felt more satisfied in their jobs. As Professor Marescaux explained, “This is important for the employee as they enjoy their jobs more and gain more fulfillment, but it also benefits the company as performance subsequently improves too.”
The second benefit identified by the researchers was affective commitment, i.e. the employee’s emotional attachment to the organization. This is very beneficial for the employer because past studies have documented increases in productivity, loyalty and company image when affective commitment is higher among employees. Equally, for the employee, feeling more committed and attached, and having a more positive state of mind about the company is likely to also raise the fulfillment they find at work.
A third identified benefit of RLWAs was a lower level of conflict between a person’s professional and personal life.
The main reason for these benefits was the employee feeling a greater level of control and/or autonomy as a result of having an RLWA. The researchers discovered that employees with RLWAs felt they had a voice in the shaping of their job, raising commitment and job satisfaction. This effect was more pronounced in companies where procedures and practices were generally not fairly implemented.
Communication to facilitate RLWAs
Despite these benefits, supervisors must remember that this type of arrangement is not suitable for everyone. For some, flexible working hours or a compressed working week might be preferable, particularly if lowering salary is not tenable. Communication is key in understanding what will work best for specific employees. Supervisors must help by explaining the options to employees, especially where there are no formal practices in place.
Effective communication between supervisors and the HR team is also necessary, especially if HR are unaware of employee needs. Working together, HR can help supervisors administer agreements. They can also develop policies that help support organizational needs. A very strong communication line is indispensable in achieving this.
Question marks do remain over the practical implications of RLWAs for other employees in the team who do not have them. “If one person has this arrangement, it can backfire by increasing the workload for everyone else. This will create frustration and resentment,” Professor Marescaux said. So it is important to think about how the RLWA can best be arranged. One solution might be hiring someone else to cover the shortfall. Involving the rest of the team in the decision making could also prevent these issues.
Applications
The researchers advise that organizations should consider using RLWAs with employees to help increase job satisfaction, raise employee commitment and lower conflict for employees between their personal and professional lives. To achieve this, good communication is needed between employee and supervisor and between supervisor and the HR function so that employee and organizational needs are well understood.
Methodology
The authors undertook statistical analysis on data from the nationally representative Work Employment Relations Survey (WERS) in the UK from 2011, using information captured on the numbers of those holding RLWAs. This was analyzed alongside data within the survey on job satisfaction, affective commitment, conflict between work and life and autonomy at work for those with RLWAs.
