Irja KANDOLIN, Mikko HARMA, and Minna TOIVANEN Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland

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1 J. Human Ergol., 30: 35-40, 2001 FLEXIBLE WORKING HOURS AND WELL-BEING IN FINLAND Irja KANDOLIN, Mikko HARMA, and Minna TOIVANEN Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland Flexibility of working hours became more prevalent in the 1990s in Finland. According to a representative survey on Finnish wage and salary earners (n=1790) at the beginning of 2000, a great majority of male (76%) and female (65%) employees regularly worked overtime and/or had irregular working hours every month. These employees were flexible in meeting the needs of their companies/employers. Individual flexibility of working hours was far less common, only one third of male and female employees were able to regulate their working hours. A better balance between company-controlled and individual flexibility would, however, improve the well-being of employees. Employees working overtime without being allowed to regulate their working hours felt more symptoms of distress and had more conflicts in combining workplace and family roles than those who could individually determine their working hours flexibly. An investment in individually determined flexibility, for example by means of participatory planning, would improve the well-being of employees, and thus also improve the productivity of the organization. Introduction Working time patterns have become more diversified and flexible. The factors behind the current change in working times are related to increased globalization, competition and fluctuations in demand, all of which cause firms to organize their working hours more effectively. In Finland, the diversity and flexibility of working hours have followed economic fluctuations. Following an extended period of rapid economic growth and an almost full employment, the Finnish economy sank into a depression in the early 1990s. In , the Finnish GDP sank by 12% and the unemployment rate rose from 3.5% in 1990 to 18.0% in From 1994 onwards, the economy has seen constant recovery: between 1994 and 1998, the real GDP increased by 23%, whereas employment increased by 10%. Thus, by the end of the 1990s, Finns produced a much larger GDP with fewer employees than in the early 1990s. (JULKUNEN and NATTI, 1999.) Overtime work and shift work - the traditional working-time patterns - were found to be the most significant means of flexibility, also in advanced industrial workplaces, in Finland of the 1990s (LIIKANEN, 1997). Shift work and long work shifts and overtime are, however, often associated with a lowered level of mental well-being, with symptoms such as fatigue and distress. Flexible work hours are thus often introduced to match the needs of companies for longer operating and service times; working hours are often company-controlled. However, working hours can also meet the changing needs of employees; work hours can be individually flexible. Employees have different needs for time and working hours during their lives. In families with small children, the needs of parents are often different from those of younger and ageing employees. Because both women (80%) and men (90%) with children in Finland participate in the labour market full-time (more than 35 hours per week), a pattern of shared parenthood prevails in the society (SAULI, 1998). Individually flexible working time arrangements have been found to improve the mental and social well-being of employees; for example, facilitating the reconciliation of work and family life (KANDOLIN and HUIDA,1996). In studying the associations of flexible working hours with the mental and social well-being of employees, it is important to differentiate between company-controlled and individual flexibility. A balance between the needs of the company and those of employees has proved to be a characteristic

2 36 I. KANDOLIN et al. of well-functioning working time arrangements in organizations (KNAUTH, 1998). It is important, therefore, to study the interaction of these two kinds of flexibility strategies. This study was supported by the SALTSA project Flexible working hours, health and well being in the European Union. (COSTA et al., 2001). Methods Flexible working hours and their association with well-being were analyzed using a recent nationwide survey conducted by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, known as Work and Health in Finland in The survey covered a representative sample of wage and salary earners aged years (n=1790). The response rate was 57%. The concept of working time flexibility has two aspects, company-controlled and individual. Company-controlled flexibility was measured by the amount of overtime work, weekend work and nightshift work done regularly, at least once a month. Individual flexibility reflects the possibility of employees to control their working hours (arrangements such as flexitime and working time bank) (1=not at all - 5=very much). In the present study the concept of well-being also has two aspects, mental and social. Mental well-being was measured by the amount of stress felt by people, i.e. situations where they felt tense, restless, nervous, or anxious, or were unable to sleep because of a constantly troubled mind (1=not at all - 5=very much). Social well-being refers to how well employees are able to combine their work and family roles, i.e., how often they feel that they have to neglect their family life because of work (1=never - 5=very often). The association of company-controlled and individual flexibility with well-being was analyzed using multiple regression analysis (OLS). Other relevant aspects of work and work organization (e.g., time pressure, autonomy, social support from superiors and co-workers) as well as the individual background (e.g., age, family situation, socio-economic status) were kept constant. Results At the beginning of 2000, the average total working hours were 41.0 per week among men and 37.8 among women. Men worked, accordingly, 3.2 hours more per week than women did. A large majority of Finnish employees work according to some system of company-controlled flexible working hours, e.g., overtime work, weekend and/or nightshift work (Table 1). Overtime work was the most commonly used form of flexibility, 57% of men and 42% of women regularly worked overtime every month, and every tenth worked overtime without any form of separate compensation. Overtime work was more common in the private sector than in the public sector (p<0.01) and more common in large organisations compared with smaller ones (p<0.001). Overtime work among men and women correlated with a higher socio-economic status (r=0.24, p<0.001) as well as with high time pressure (r=0.21, p<0.001). Nightshift work was done regularly every month by 21% of men and by 11% of women, and weekend work by 30% of the employees. Nightshift work correlated with weekend work (r=0.29, p<0.001). These irregular working time arrangements were equally common in the private and public sectors, and, contrary to overtime work, nightshift work was more common among bluecollar workers than among white-collar employees (men r=0.23, p<0.001, women r=0.12, p<0.01). When all the three forms of company-controlled flexibility of working hours were taken together, almost three employees of four had some flexibility in their working hours (Table 1). Finnish employees are flexible in meeting the needs of their companies and employers more often than in meeting their own personal needs, as individual flexibility of working hours was found to be far less common than company-controlled flexibility. Only 39% of men and 28% of women could regulate their daily working hours (e.g., flexitime, time banking).

3 Table 1. Company-controlled and individual flexibility among Finnish men and women in 2000, % and p (Chi-Square test). 37 The company-controlled flexibility of working hours, especially overtime work had negative association with the social and mental well-being of employees. Feelings of the neglect of family because of work were more common among those working overtime (men r=0.27, women r=0.19, both p<0.001). One third of men and women with a spouse and/or children with no overtime work often experienced conflicts in combining work and family roles, whereas more than 60% of those working overtime without compensation experienced this kind of conflict (Fig. 1). Overtime work also correlated with a higher level of stress (men r=0.11, women r=0.15, p<0.001). Fig. 1. Neglecting home matters (sometimes/often) and mental stress (to some extent/much) of male and female employees according to overtime work: no overtime, overtime with compensation, and overtime without compensation, %. Individual flexibility seemed to alleviate the unfavourable association with company-introduced flexibility on the social and mental well-being of employees (Fig. 2). For example, among those who worked overtime without compensation, both male and female employees with individually flexible working hours experienced less conflicts in combining work and family roles than without

4 38 I. KANDOLIN et al. individual flexibility. A similar positive correlation was noted between individual flexibility and a lower level of distress. Fig. 2. The impact of individually flexible working hours on neglecting home matters and mental stress among male and female employees working overtime without compensation, %. The positive association of individually flexible working hours with well-being was also evident after control for other important aspects of work and of work organization. Because overtime work strongly correlates with high time pressure, the analyses were computed separately for employees with low and high time pressure in their work. Company-controlled flexibility had no major association with well-being among those men and women with low time pressure in their jobs. However, among employees who often or constantly experienced time pressure in their work, the association of individual flexibility with well-being was evident (Table 2). Overtime work was associated with distress among those male and female employees who did not have individual flexibility in their working hours, but overtime work was not associated with significantly higher levels of distress among those who could regulate their own working hours. This trend was evident both in the supportive and non-supportive work climate, among younger and older employees, among those with or without family responsibilities and also among blue-collar as well as white-collar employees (Table 2). A similar positive trend of individual flexibility was evident on social well-being among male employees. The regression analysis of social well-being showed that men working overtime without individual flexibility felt more often that they had to neglect their families because of work (beta=0.26, p<0.001) than men who could regulate their working hours (beta=0.16, p<0.002). Among women, the reconciliation of work and family life was not dependent on the amount of overtime work but rather on the amount of weekend work. The unfavourable association of weekend work with social well-being was, however, evident both among those with and those without individual flexibility (beta=0.16 and 0.19, p<0.002).

5 Table 2. The association of company-controlled flexibility with the level of mental stress among the employees with and without individual flexibility. Men and women with high time pressure in their jobs. Standardized regression coefficients. 39 * P<0.05, * * P<0.01, * * * P< =not at all - 5=very much Discussion Most working Finns no longer do traditional full-time, daytime work from Monday to Friday. Instead, company-controlled flexibility of working hours became more prevalent during the 1990s, and a large majority of both male (76%) and female (65%) employees worked overtime and/or had irregular working hours at the beginning of Overtime work and irregular working hours had unfavourable association with employees' well-being: those working overtime had feelings of distress more often and they also felt more often that they had to neglect their families because of work. Individual flexibility of working hours was less common; only one third of employees could regulate their working hours by means of flexitime or working time bank. A better balance between these two flexibility strategies is desirable because individual flexibility proved to alleviate the unfavourable association of company-controlled flexibility with employees' well-being. Not only individual flexibility but also reorganization of work, especially adequate staffing, is needed to reduce the high amount of company-controlled flexibility of working hours, especially that of overtime work, and thus to improve the well-being of employees. Participatory planning is a key issue of management strategies in healthy organizations, which aim at the competence, wellbeing and effectiveness of employees (LINDSTROM, 2001). When employees as a group participate in the planning of working time arrangements in the organization, the workplace climate often becomes more supportive, which is reflected in the well-being of employees and thus also in better productivity (HUUFITANEN and KANDOLIN,1999). References COSTA, G., AKERSTEDT, T., NACHREINER, F., BALTIERI, F., FOLKARD, S., FRINGS DRESEN, M., GADBOIS, C., GARTNER, J., GRZECH SUKALO, H., HARMA, M., KANDOLIN, I., SILVERIO, J. and SIMOES, A. (2001) Flexible work hours, health and well being in the European Union: preliminary data from a SALTSA project. Shiftwork International Newsletter, 18(1): 4.

6 40 I. KANDOLIN et al. HUUHTANEN, P. and KANDOLIN, I. (1999) Flexible employment policies and working conditions. National Report, Finland. Prepared for the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki. JULKUNEN, R. and NATTI, J. (1999) The Modernization of Working Times. Flexibility and Work sharing in Finland. University of Jyvaskyla. KANDOLIN, I. and HUIDA, O. (1996) Individual flexibility: an essential prerequisite in arranging shift schedules for midwives. Journal of Nursing Management, 4: KNAUTH, P. (1998) Innovative worktime arrangements. Scand. J. Work Environ. Health, 24(suppl 3): LIIKANEN, H. (1997) Strategic Survival Pacts? Working Time Arrangements in Four Enterprises in the Mid-1990s. Labour Policy Studies 170, Ministry of Labour, Helsinki (Strategisia selviytymissopimuksia? Tutkimus neljan yrityksen tyoaikajarjestelyista 1990-luvun puolivalissa) (in Finnish). LINDTSROM, K. (2001) Work Organizations: Health and Productivity Issues. In International Encyclopedia of Ergonomics and Human Factors, ed. Volume III ed. by Waldemar Karwowski. Taylor & Francis, London: SAULI, H. (1998) Labour market Participation in Different Households. European Labour market Study, Statistics Finland. Labour Market, 1998: 9.