Work-life policies in Great Britain: What works, where and how?

Transcription

1 EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS RESEARCH SERIES NO. 77 Work-life policies in Great Britain: What works, where and how? WERS 2004 GRANTS FUND JULY 2007

2 EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS RESEARCH SERIES NO. 77 Work-life policies in Great Britain: What works, where and how? BY SADIA NADEEM AND HILARY METCALF, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH

3 About EMAR Employment Market Analysis and Research (EMAR) is a multi-disciplinary team of economists, social researchers and statisticians based in the Employment Relations Directorate of the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform. Our role is to provide the evidence base for good policy making in employment relations, labour market and equality and discrimination at work. We do this through: Conducting periodic socio-economic benchmark surveys Commissioning external research reports Conducting in-house research and analysis Assessing the regulatory impact of new employment laws Monitoring and evaluating the impact of government policies We publicly disseminate the results of this research through BERR s Employment Relations Research Series and other publications. For further details of EMAR's work please see our web pages at: About this publication The project manager for this report was Carmen Alpin, Principal Research Officer in the Employment Market Analysis and Research branch. Published in July 2007 by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform. URN 07/826 ISBN Crown Copyright 2007 This BERR publication can be ordered at: Click the Browse by subject button, then select Employment Relations Research. Alternatively, call the BERR Publications Orderline on ( ) and ask for URN 07/826, or them at: publications@berr.gov.uk Postal enquiries should be addressed to: Employment Market Analysis and Research Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform Bay Victoria Street London SW1H 0ET UNITED KINGDOM enquiries should be addressed to: emar@berr.gov.uk ii

4 Foreword The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) leads work to create the conditions for business success through competitive and flexible markets that create value for businesses, consumers and employees. It drives regulatory reform, and works across Government and with the regions to raise levels of UK productivity. It is also be responsible for promoting choice and quality for consumers through competition policy and for ensuring an improved quality of life for employees. As part of that work the Employment Market Analysis and Research branch (EMAR) of the Department manages a research programme to inform policy making and promote better regulation on employment relations, labour market, and equality and discrimination at work issues. This is one of 14 reports commissioned by BERR under the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004 Grants Fund. The Fund is a Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform initiative to develop the evidence base in areas of policy interest, raise awareness of this survey and encourage advanced data analysis based on the WERS 2004 datasets. A call for proposals was made in November Proposals were selected for their contribution to the evidence base and relevance to government policy. The Fund is administered by the EMAR branch and the Skills Unit. More details on the WERS 2004 Grants Fund can be found here: This report provides a comprehensive picture of work-life policies in Britain and their effect on job satisfaction, organisational commitment and stress. It examines a wide range of policies (e.g. reduced working-time, home working, childcare and additional leave) and explores provision as reported by management and as reported by employees. We hope you find it of interest. Electronic copies of this and other reports in our Employment Relations Research Series can be downloaded from the BERR website, and printed copies ordered online, by phone or by . A complete list of our research series can be found at the back of this report. Please contact us at emar@berr.gov.uk if you wish to be added to our publication mailing list, or would like to receive regular updates on EMAR s research, new publications and forthcoming events. Grant Fitzner Director, Employment Market Analysis and Research iii

5 Acknowledgements We would like to thank the WERS Information and Advice Service, particularly John Forth, Simon Kirby and Lucy Stokes for their guidance in analysing the survey. We would also like to thank BERR s project team, particularly Carmen Alpin, for her guidance and support. We acknowledge the Department of Trade and Industry, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Services and the Policy Studies Institute as the initiators of WERS We also wish to record our gratitude for all the managers and employees who participated in the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey, and thank the ESRC Data Archives at the University of Essex for making the data available. The authors remain solely responsible for the interpretation of the data and for any errors. iv

6 Contents Foreword... iii Acknowledgements... iv Contents... v List of tables... vii Executive summary... 1 Introduction... 5 Introduction... 5 The background and design of the study... 5 The layout of the report... 6 Methodology... 8 The Workplace Employment Relations Survey... 8 Data Analysis... 9 Workplace characteristics and work-life policies Introduction Work-life options offered by establishments Characteristics of workplaces offering various individual work-life policies19 Workplaces that offer a few or a comprehensive range of policies Summary Employees knowledge of work-life policies Introduction Work-life options perceived to be available by employees Perceived availability of full-time flexible working options Perceived availability and knowledge of reduced time working options Perceived availability and knowledge of childcare and leave options Summary Differences between employee and employer beliefs on provision Introduction Characteristics of workplaces in which differences exist between employees and employers perceptions Characteristics of employees where differences exist between employees and employers perceptions Summary The impact of work-life policies on employee attitudes v

7 Introduction The impact of individual option provision on employee outcomes The relationship between the number of policies available and employee outcomes Summary References Annex A: Derived variables Calculating the HR and communication index Computing educational qualification Dividing the occupational groups into high and low status Calculating employee outcomes Annex B: Workplace and employee characteristics Annex C: Regression outputs BERR Employment Relations Research Series vi

8 List of tables 1 Provision of flexible working options 17 2 Employee groups to whom reduced time and flexitime options are not available 3 Percentage of establishments offering childcare and leave options 4 Perceived availability of flexible working arrangements 30 5 Perceived availability of childcare and leave options 31 6 Regression results to understand the impact of availability of individual work-life options on employee outcomes 7 Regression results to understand the impact of availability of work-life options on employee outcomes A1 Calculating the HR index 53 A2 Combined qualification levels 55 A3 Calculating employee outcome variables B1 Workplace characteristics 57-9 B2 Employee characteristics 60-1 C1 Predictors of flexible working time options 62-4 C2 Predictors of childcare and leave options 65-7 C3 Predictors of low/medium/high provision of work-life policies 68-9 C4 Predictors of full-time flexible working time options 70-2 C5 Predictors of reduced time flexible working time options 73-5 C6 Predictors of childcare and leave 76-8 C7 C8 C9 Differences in management and employees knowledge of availability of reduced time working and flexitime The impact of availability of individual work-life options on organisational commitment, job satisfaction and work-stress The impact of availability of multiple work-life options on employee outcomes vii

9 Executive summary This report examines work-life policies in Britain and their effect on job satisfaction, organisational commitment and stress, using the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey and earlier studies. There are differences in the provision and perceived availability of worklife policies on the basis of industry, workplace and employee characteristics. Larger and public sector workplaces are more likely to offer a variety of work-life policies; workplaces with overall low provision are significantly more likely to be in the private sector. Substantial gaps appear to exist between managerial and employee knowledge of the availability of work-life options. Women, older workers, single employees, the better educated and those with young children were more likely to have accurate knowledge than their counterparts. Employee-reported availability of work-life options is associated with greater organisational commitment and job satisfaction, and less work stress. Having more policies available resulted in a stronger relationship. Management attitudes to work-life balance also mattered. A strong relationship was found between employee perceptions that managers understood their responsibilities outside of work and organisational commitment, job satisfaction and work-stress. Aims and objectives The paper aims to provide a comprehensive picture of work-life policies in Britain and their effect on job satisfaction, organisational commitment and stress. It examines a wide range of types of policies (e.g. reduced working-time, home working, childcare and additional leave) and looks at provision as reported by management and as reported by employees. Background There has been a rapid growth in the provision of work-life policies in the UK over the last two decades, encouraged by government policy and legislative changes. This has been reflected in enhanced coverage of work-life policies in the Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 (WERS 2004), providing a greater opportunity to understand the role of work-life policies in the workplace. Workplace characteristics and work-life policies The extent and type of work-life policies varied with workplace characteristics, especially by workplace size, sector and human resource management policies. Provision of many of the options was also associated with positive managerial attitudes towards work-life balance, whilst the provision of reduced time options was greater in workplaces with a high proportion of female employees. 1

10 Larger workplaces were more likely to offer each individual work-life option (other than flexitime) as well as to offer a greater range of options. Public sector workplaces were more likely to offer a greater variety of work-life policies. The type of provision offered varied by industry, although there was little difference in the overall level of provision. The workforce profile influenced the type of provision, but not the overall level of provision. Reduced time options were more common when women formed a high percentage of the workforce; financial help with childcare was more common when the percentage of female managers was higher; while the chances of offering job share was higher in workplaces with a higher proportion of professional women. A higher education profile of the workforce resulted in higher changes of flexitime and homeworking, options which are considered suitable for use in high status jobs. The more comprehensive the human resource management policies were generally, the more likely were establishments to offer work-life policies and to offer a wider range of policies. Positive managerial attitudes towards work-life balance and employees perceptions of managerial understanding were both associated with high provision. Employees knowledge of work-life policies Employees perceptions of the availability (to them) of work-life practices varied with employees characteristics. For every type of provision, except homeworking (where there was no difference by gender), women were more likely to believe that the option was available to them. Younger employees (those under 22) were less likely to believe that home working was available to them, but were more likely to perceive that all other flexible working options were available to them. Single employees and those with a shorter length of service were less likely to believe work-life options were available to them. The sophistication of management-employee communication systems did not appear to affect whether employees thought they knew about availability. However, employees who reported that their managers kept them informed about the way the organisation was being run were more likely to say that they knew about the availability of almost all the work-life options. Some work-life options stood out because the characteristics of employees who perceived them to be available were different than the others. Home working was more likely to be perceived available by the higher educated, by managers at higher levels, and by higher level sub-groups within occupational groups. There was no difference for employees with and without children. Flexitime was also more likely to be perceived available by the higher educated and by managers at higher levels than by most lower level groups. Reduced time options were more likely to be perceived to be available by women, by those with young children, by the higher educated and, to some extent, by employees in lower status occupational groups. 2

11 Differences between employees and employers beliefs on provision of worklife arrangements Differences between managers and employees beliefs about the availability of work-life policies may affect take up. Differences in belief was examined for flexitime and reduced working time in establishments where the manager reported the practice was available to all staff. Both workplace and personal characteristics were found to influence knowledge. Overall, there were more gaps in the perceived and actual availability for reduced time working than flexitime. The gap in knowledge was wider in: the private sector; where there was a smaller proportion of women in the workforce; lesser job security; basic HR; industries outside Public administration; and, for flexitime only, establishments which were part of a larger organisation in the UK, (as opposed to those which were single, independent establishments or sole UK establishments of a foreign organisation). Workplace size was not associated with the gap in knowledge. Women, older workers, single employees and those with young children were more likely to have accurate knowledge than their counterparts. Ethnic minority employees were more likely to indicate that they did not know whether an option was available. Employees with shorter length of service were more likely to be ill-informed. Regarding the status of employees, the chances of a gap in knowledge were greater for the lower educated. Occupational group influenced the gap. Overall, employees in Skilled trade occupations and Plant and machine operatives were the most illinformed about the availability of flexitime and reduced time working. The sophistication of the management-employee communication systems did not appear to affect the gap. However, employees who felt that managers kept them informed about the way the organisation was being run were better informed. Impact of work-life arrangements on employees Employees perceived availability of work-life options was associated with greater organisational commitment and job satisfaction, and less work stress. This association was found in the analysis of individual option provision, where various flexible working options were associated with desirable employee outcomes. No relationship was found between these employee outcomes and perceived availability of leave options. A positive association was also found between the number of policies perceived available by employees and employee outcomes. Having more policies available resulted in a stronger relationship. The relationship between workplace provision of work-life policies and employee outcomes is not conclusive. Analysing the relationship between provision of individual options and employee outcomes, some individual options were found to have a positive relationship with organisational commitment and job satisfaction. On the other hand, analysing whether workplaces offering a large number of policies were associated with these employee outcomes, it was found that higher provision was associated with lower organisational commitment and job satisfaction and higher work-stress. As management-reported provision did not include coverage of policies in the workplace, it is possible that limited coverage has negative repercussions. 3

12 About this project This research was carried out as part of the Department of Trade and Industry s employment relations research programme, and was funded under the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004 Grants Fund. Further details on the Fund can be found here: The research reported in this report is based on secondary analysis of the 2004 WERS. It contains four linked surveys, of which two were used in this research. The first was the cross-section survey of managers, in which data were collected using face-to-face interviews with 2,295 managers responsible for employment relations. The second was the survey of employees, in which over 22,000 questionnaires were returned by employees. About the authors Sadia Nadeem has recently moved from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), London, to join the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES), Islamabad, Pakistan as an Associate Professor in Management Sciences. Hilary Metcalf is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. About WERS 2004 The Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS 2004) is a nationally representative survey of British workplaces employing five or more employees and covering all sectors of the economy except agriculture, fishing, mining and quarrying. More information on the survey can be found here: The survey was jointly sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), the Economic and Social Research Council and the Policy Studies Institute. It follows in the acclaimed footsteps of earlier surveys conducted in 1980, 1984, 1990 and For further information please refer to the main published outputs from WERS 2004: the first findings booklet (Kersley et al, 2005), a report on small and medium-sized enterprises (Forth et al, 2006), and the 400-page sourcebook of detailed findings (Kersley et al, 2006). The sourcebook is published by Routledge, while the first two reports are available free BERR: Please quote the URN when ordering. The data from WERS 2004 is now available to users through the UK Data Archive (study number: 5294): 4

13 1 Introduction Introduction Since the late 20 th century, work-life balance has been a part of discussions on work and working lives in western industrialised societies. However, the availability of good work-life balance practices remain patchy and their take-up limited (Stevens et al., 2004; Woodlands et al., 2003). An important influence on take-up is awareness amongst employees of the provision. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive picture of the provision and effects of work-life policies in Great Britain using the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 2004 (WERS 2004). The key questions addressed are: the key characteristics of organisations providing work-life policies; which employees perceive work-life policies to be available; characteristics of organisations in which differences exist between employee s and employer s perceptions of availability and its impact on employee outcomes; the direct and indirect impact of perceived availability on employee outcomes (organisational commitment, job satisfaction and work-related stress); the role of communication systems in the latter. The background and design of the study The UK government s commitment to improving work-life balance of individuals is reflected through a series of legislative changes over the last two decades (DTI, 2007). However, legislation alone is not enough to provide change and organisations vary significantly in their provision of policies. Hence, government and nongovernment agencies have invested significantly to understand benefits of work-life policies and to provide best practice and implementation guidance. This study was carried out as a part of BERR s commitment to improve understanding of the provision of work-life policies, and to enhance the use of WERS The study utilises the Management questionnaire and the Employee questionnaire of WERS Growth in work-life policies WERS 2004 provides a more extensive coverage of work-life policies than its predecessor WERS 1998; this can be seen as a reflection of a growing interest in work-life policies in the UK. WERS 1998 was the first large scale representative employer survey in Britain which included questions on work-life policies. Other surveys carried out over the recent years which provide information on the provision, perceived availability and use of work-life policies include the two Work-life baseline studies (Hogarth et al, 2001; Stevens et al., 2004; Woodland et al, 2003). The evidence points towards an overall increase in the provision, perceived availability and use of policies. The growth in availability and use of policies is largely attributed to legislative and policy development. Some recent past developments include: 5

14 Parental leave was introduced by the Employment Relations Act 1999 which gives working parents the right to take unpaid leave of up to 13 weeks for each child born after December The coverage was later extended. Special paid leave for time off in emergencies was also introduced by the Employment Relations Act 1999 which gives working parents the right to take time off to deal with emergencies involving people who depend on them. Maternity leave and statutory maternity pay has been increased, with further increases under consideration. The Part-time working directive 2000 was introduced to ensure that part-time workers receive no less favourable treatment than full-time workers. The right to request flexible working for parents of young children and disabled youth became effective from April At the time of the WERS 2004 survey, this was the legislative framework under which workplaces/organisations were operating. However, additional consultation was on its way and the Work and Families Act 2006 has resulted in: increases in maternity and adoptive pay; extension of the right to request flexible working (to carers of adults); Additional Paternity Leave (up to 26 weeks of leave, some of which could be paid if the mother returns to work). These changes become effective from April 2007 and are presented as the first step towards delivery of some of the measures set out in the Government response to the consultation, Work and Families: Choice and Flexibility (DTI, 2007). Alongside legislative changes, supportive mechanisms such as the Work-life Challenge Fund also provide support for organisations to introduce and expand the use of flexible working and leave policies. Other forms of flexible working, such as agency work, also allow individuals to fit work around domestic or other responsibilities such as caring for children or relatives. The layout of the report The report aims to improve the understanding of provision and perceived availability of work-life policies in Britain using the WERS 2004 Management questionnaire and Employee survey. It is divided into six chapters. After the Introduction, Chapter 2 provides details of the methodology. Chapter 3 examines workplace characteristics to understand which employers are likely to provide work-life policies. Initially each policy is analysed individually to understand which types of workplaces are likely to provide each option. This is followed by additional analysis, where the focus is to understand characteristics of workplaces where provision remains low despite legislative and policy pressures. In Chapter 4, the focus is on the employees perceptions of provision. Keeping various workplace characteristics in perspective, the report analyses which employees perceive options to be available, to be not available, and which employees are likely to indicate their lack of knowledge regarding availability of each option. After analysing the reported provision by management and the perceived availability by the employees in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 respectively, in Chapter 5 the focus is on characteristics of workplaces and employees in which gap exists in the 6

15 information available from the two sides. The analysis includes explaining the relationship between HR practices and communication techniques, and the gap in knowledge. Chapter 6, the final chapter, looks at the impact of perceived availability of work-life policies on employee outcomes. Three outcomes are derived from the Employee questionnaire: organisational commitment, job satisfaction, and work-stress. More information on statistical techniques and computation of variables is attached in the annexes. A large majority of the statistical analyses are also included as annexes. 7

16 2 Methodology The Workplace Employment Relations Survey The focus of this research project was to provide a comprehensive picture of the provision and perceived availability of work-life policies in Great Britain using WERS WERS is a series of surveys which provide information on the state of employment in British workplaces. WERS 2004 is fifth in the series and, like its predecessors, provides a nationally representative account of the state of employment in Britain. Its coverage is approx. 700,000 workplaces and 22.5 million employees (Kersley et al., 2006). WERS 2004 uses four key instruments to gather information; a Management questionnaire, an Employee questionnaire, a Panel Survey and a Financial Questionnaire. The former two are used for the analysis in this report. In the Management questionnaire, 2,295 workplaces with 5 or more employees took part. The response rate was 64 per cent. The Employee questionnaires were distributed in 76 per cent of workplaces, and were returned by 22,451 employees, representing a response rate of 61 percent. Fieldwork was carried out between February 2004 and April Further details of the coverage and sampling of WERS 2004 is available in the report on its first findings and the sourcebook (Kersley et al., 2005, 2006). Coverage of topics in WERS 2004 The aim of WERS survey is to provide a comprehensive picture of the state of employment. A wide variety of topics are covered including: recruitment, training and organisation of work; consultation and communication; payment and appraisal systems; equal opportunities and work-life balance; establishment flexibility and performance; employee skills, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and stress. Information is also available on a variety of establishment and organisational characteristics as well as employee characteristics (for details see Kersley et al., 2006). Regarding work-life policies, the Management questionnaire provides data on the provision of various work-life options such as flexitime, home working, compressed work week, changing shift patterns, changing from full-time to part-time and vice versa, job sharing, term time working. Information is also available for various leave and childcare options, such as: provision of fully paid maternity leave and paternity leave; providing financial help with childcare or nursery vouchers; offering a special paid leave for time off in emergencies; and provision of a special paid leave for care of older adults. Generally, basic information is available on which of these options is provided by the workplaces. For flexitime and reducing working time, information is also available on the coverage of these policies. 8

17 In the Employee questionnaire, information is available on the same work-life options as covered by the Management questionnaire. The employee responses provide data on perceived availability or knowledge of work-life options. Limited information is also available from selected attitude statements on work-life policies in the Management and Employee questionnaires. It is important to note that, for most work-life balance policies, the Management questionnaire identified whether a policy existed, not its coverage. (the exceptions are for flexitime and reduced working-time, as noted above.) The Employee questionnaire identified whether a work-life balance policy covered the respondent employee. Therefore, management and employee responses may differ where policies do not cover the whole workforce. Data Analysis The report addresses questions in four key areas. The data used, the analyses and the statistical techniques applied vary between these areas, which are discussed in this section. Workplace characteristics influencing policy provision (Chapter 3) Building on the previous research into take-up of work-life practices (to be discussed in Chapter 3), one of the key questions to be answered is which workplaces offer work-life policies. The WERS Management questionnaire provides information on a variety of work-life options. The question is approached in two different ways: to understand the factors affecting the provision of each option and then to understand which workplaces offer a more comprehensive range of policies. Logistic and multinomial logistic regression is used to analyse the data. Results are presented in Tables C1, C2 and C3 in Annex C. For individual option provision, the dependent variable is dichotomous, which takes the value of one if an option is available and zero if it is not available. Logistic regression is used for the analyses. This analysis assumes that the decision to provide each observed dependent variable is independent of the other options which are provided. The list of dependent variables used is: Home working Flexitime Compressed work weeks Changing shift patterns Full-time to part-time Part-time to full-time Job sharing Term time working Maternity leave with full pay (for at least part of the leave period) Paternity leave Nursery linked with workplace or financial help with childcare A special paid leave for time off in emergencies 9

18 A specific period of leave for carers of older adults The above list includes the full range of flexible working options in WERS Nursery linked with workplace or financial help with childcare were combined together because they serve the same purpose and very few establishments offer them. In addition, they are a single item in the Employee questionnaire. For leave options, the following choices are made: at the birth of a child, establishments offering paternity leave were selected; for time off in emergencies, we selected establishments which offer a special paid leave for this occasion. Another dependent variable divided organisations into those who offer a specific period of leave for carers of older adults and those who did not. To analyse which organisations offer a more comprehensive range of policies, a scale of 0-12 was formed by simply adding whether a workplace offered each of the individual option or not (changes in shifts was excluded from the scale because most of the findings for shift working were contradictory to patterns found in other options). This scale was then plotted and divided into three groups; 0-3 for low provision, 4-8 for medium provision and 9-12 for high provision. Multinomial logistic regression results, with medium provision as the base outcome, compare those with medium provision with those with low and high provision. Results are presented in Table C3. For the selection of independent variables, characteristics of workplaces which are likely to influence the provision of policies were identified on the basis of past research (to be discussed in Chapter 3). The variables which have been selected from WERS 2004 are named below and are described in Table B1 in Annex B: Single/multiple establishment organisation establishment age state of market establishment size (while the final models included size measured in six brackets, the same results were produced using the raw scores or a natural log of establishment size.) broad sector (private/public) SIC code degree of competition proportion of women in the workforce proportion of female managers proportion of female professionals educational profile of the workforce understanding labour understanding absenteeism job satisfaction targets internal labour market 10

19 job security management attitude towards work-life policies employees perceptions of managerial attitudes towards work-life policies HR index to measure basic or complex HR in the workplace (see Annex A for calculation of the HR index) The WERS dataset also contains additional information; some selected variables are used as controls and are also shown in Table B1. Since some of the workforce characteristics are derived from the Management questionnaire and others from the Employee survey, only those workplaces were selected for which Employee surveys were available. Cross-tabulations were run during the initial analysis to understand the data, but are not reported here. Also, the initial list of selected variables had additional covariates which were dropped because of collinearity or, in one instance, because of a large number of missing values. Examples of variables which were dropped included whether the organisation competed on the basis of price or on quality and the number of competitors an organisation had for its services or products. Other variables were collapsed e.g. the degree of competition initially had five dummies and has only two values in the final models. The variable which was dropped because of missing values provided information on whether the workplace was labour intensive, dividing organisations into those where 50 per cent or more of the sales was accounted for by wages, salaries and other labour costs. Characteristics of employees who perceive options to be available (Chapter 4) To examine which employees perceive particular types of flexible working options to be available to them, this reports carries out multivariate analysis. Exploratory crosstabulations were run during initial analyses which are not reported. Two options were considered for the multivariate analysis: logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression. Logistic regression required compressing the three responses (yes available, no not available and don t know) into two. As don t know would be influenced by interest in the practice, quality or organisational communication and its availability, any grouping appeared problematic. Therefore multinomial logistic regression, which allows for all three responses, was used. With multinomial logistic regression, along with comparing which employees perceive flexible working options to be available as opposed to those who do not, comparisons could also be made between those employees who perceive the options to be available and those who don t know the answer. The WERS Employee questionnaire provides information on a variety of work-life options. The work-life policies that were used as dependent variables are: Home working Flexitime Compressed work weeks Changing shift patterns Full-time to part-time Part-time to full-time 11

20 Job sharing Term time working Paternity leave Nursery linked with workplace or financial help with childcare Special paid leave for time off in emergencies All variables, except special paid leave for time off in emergencies, have three outputs (available, not available, don t know). Logistic regression was used for special paid leave for time off in emergencies as it is measured on a dichotomous scale (available, not available). Regarding the independent variables, there are two broad groups of characteristics that are likely to influence employees perceived availability of flexible working: its availability and knowledge of availability. Both are liable to be influenced by workplace characteristics, including structural characteristics and existing HR practices, information on which is available through matching employee data to the Management questionnaire. Knowledge of availability is also liable to be influenced by employee characteristics (both personal and work-related), as this will influence interest in availability and, perhaps, the extent of information that an individual has about their organisation s policies. Workplace characteristics which were selected from the Management questionnaire are: Workplace status Age of the establishment in years State of the market Size of the establishment measured in employee number Broad sector (private/public) Industrial sector (SIC code) Degree of competition in the market Proportion of women in the labour force Job security offered to all employees HR index: basic, medium or complex HR These were found to influence the provision of policies in the analysis of the Management questionnaire (Chapter 3). Employee characteristics which are used as independent variables are: Gender Age Marital status Childcare responsibilities including age of the youngest child 12

21 Carers of disabled and elderly Suffering from illness, health problem or disability Ethnicity Educational qualifications (see Annex A for computation of educational qualifications) Standard Occupational Classification (divided into high and low status see Annex A for details) Length of service Communication index based on the Management questionnaire (see Annex A) Communication index, derived from the Employee questionnaire Details of the workplace characteristics are presented in Table B1 and of employee characteristics are presented in Table B2, both in Annex B. Details of any complex computations used to derive variables are presented in Annex A. Results of the regression analyses are presented in Tables C4, C5 and C6 in Annex C. Differences between employees and employers beliefs on provision (Chapter 5) The Management questionnaire provides information on whether an option is available to any employee in the workplace. The Employee questionnaire provides information on employees perception of availability of these work-life policies. Without information on coverage of the policy from the management, it is not feasible to compare the employer and employee data. This information is available for only two policies: flexitime and reduced time working. Therefore, to identify the factors which might lead to this mismatch of perception, analyses were conducted on the establishments where flexitime was reported by managers as available to all and on the establishments where reduced time working was reported by managers as available to all. Multinomial logistic regression was used (to compare employees not knowing whether the practice was available, as well as declaring it was or was not). The control and independent variables used are the same as used in Chapter 4, with details in Table B2. The results of multinomial regression are presented in Table C7 in Annex C. The relationship between work-life policies and employee attitudes (Chapter 6) The final question examines the impact of perceived availability of work-life policies on employee outcomes. There are a number of statements in the Employee questionnaire which provide information about employees attitudes and perceptions, such as organisational commitment, job satisfaction, work-life conflict and workrelated stress and happiness. Principal components analysis and factor analysis were used to combine attitudinal variables to reduce their number whilst maintaining the richness of information. These identified three factors which we have labelled as organisational commitment, job satisfaction and work-related stress. Details of the procedure and the statements are provided in Table A3 in Annex A. Regression outputs from the factor analysis are used in the subsequent analysis. Regression analysis is used to identify the effect of work-life policies on the identified attitudinal outcomes. The primary interest is in the relationship between availability of work-life policies and employee outcomes. As discussed earlier, WERS provides information on availability of work-life options from two perspectives: the 13

22 Management questionnaire which reports whether an option is provided in the workplace, but, for most policies, not its coverage; the Employee questionnaire which provides information on employees perception of availability, to themselves, of these work-life policies. To analyse the relationship between work-life initiatives and employee outcomes, the key work-life variables of interest are: availability of options in the establishment (Management questionnaire); employees perceived availability of work-life options to themselves; managerial responses to the statement that it is up to the individual to balance work and family life ; and employees response to the statement that management is understanding about employees having to meet responsibilities outside work. The analysis is carried out in two ways: analysing the impact of individual options and analysing the impact of an index of overall provision. The latter assumes that it would be more reasonable to analyse whether availability of the option of one s choice has an impact on the employee outcomes. In the absence of this information in WERS 2004, the analysis uses overall provision. This was done through the use of two summated indices, one for establishment provision and the other for employees perceived provision. For employees perceived provision, a summated index was generated from the eleven work-life options in the Employee questionnaire. Potentially, the large number of employees who had answered that they did not know if an option was available was thought to preclude creating an index, as we had assumed that this group would be heterogeneous (with very different reasons for not knowing and so very different influences on attitudinal outcomes). However, the nature of associations between those who perceived that options are not available and those who did not know whether the options were available with the outcome variables were not significantly different. Therefore, in the index, employees who perceive the option to be not available and those who do not know whether the option is available are grouped together. The highest calculated score was ten. A summated index of establishment provision has already been created which grouped workplaces into three groups: those with low provision of work-life policies; those with medium provision of work-life policies; those with high provision of worklife policies (see analysis for Chapter 3). The regression models for individual and overall policy provision use the same control and outcome variables. The workplace and employee characteristics that were used in the analyses of the relationship between employee characteristics and perceived provision (see analysis for Chapter 4) were used as controls. The full results of the regression analyses are presented in Table C8 and C9 in Annex C, and discussed in Chapter 6. Use of weights All regressions in the analysis are weighted. Use was made of the Guide to the analysis of the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998 (Forth and Kirby, 2000) and of the information provided by the WERS 2004 support service (NIESR, 2006). Both workplace weights and stratum from which the workplace was sampled were 14

23 used to set up the weights for the Management questionnaire analysis. The employee weight variable and the stratum variable were used to set up the weights for the Employee questionnaire. 15

24 3 Workplace characteristics and work-life policies Introduction This chapter focuses on characteristics of workplaces which offer work-life policies. It starts by providing summary statistics of provision of work-life policies from the Management questionnaire of WERS A brief comparison is made with WERS 1998 (DTI, 1999) and the Work-life baseline study (Woodlands et al, 2003) which indicates increase in the provision a small number of policies. Following a brief overview of past research which has identified a range of organisational characteristics affecting adoption of work-life policies, results of the WERS 2004 analysis are discussed. Details of the analysis have been discussed in Chapter 2 and statistical tables relevant to the findings from this chapter are attached as Tables C1, C2 and 3C in Annex C. Work-life options offered by establishments The work-life options offered by establishments can be roughly divided into two groups: flexible working arrangements; and childcare, eldercare and leave options. Availability of flexible working arrangements The Management questionnaire enquired about a number of flexible working arrangements, such as working from home, ability to reduce working hours, ability to increase working hours, job sharing schemes, flexitime arrangement, changing shift patterns, working compressed work weeks and term time working. The percentage of establishments which offer these to any employees is tabulated in Table 1. The most widely offered option was the ability to reduce working hours, available in 63 per cent of all establishments with five or more employees in Britain. This was followed by the ability to increase working time from part-time to full-time (51 per cent), the ability to change shift patterns (40 per cent), flexitime (35 per cent), job sharing (26 per cent), homeworking (25 per cent), term time working (14 per cent) and working compressed work weeks (11 per cent). Table 1 also presents work-life options for establishments with ten or more employees from WERS 2004 and compares them with the WERS 1998 data (where information was only collected for establishments with ten plus employees). Between 1998 and 2004 there was a significant increase in the provision of the option to decrease working hours. The provision of flexitime and home working also increased. It is also worth referring to the Second Work-life Baseline study (WLB2) (Woodlands et al., 2003). The WLB2 provides information on whether employees have worked in a particular way, not if the establishment provides the option. Thus, informal flexible working practices would be counted in the WLB2 study, while provision without use will not be counted. Comparison with WERS 2004 shows a 16

25 similar pattern of working arrangements, although it appears that policies for job sharing may be relatively more common than usage. Table 1. Provision of flexible working arrangements WERS 2004* WERS 2004** % workplaces with five or more employees % workplaces with ten or more employees WERS 1998*** % workplaces with ten or more employees WLB2**** % workplaces with five or more employees Full-time to part-time Part-time to full-time Changing shift patterns Flexitime Job sharing Home working Term time working Compressed work weeks No policy *Source: WERS 2004 Management questionnaire. Base: All workplaces with five or more employees. Figures are weighted percentages and based on responses from 2,292 managers. **Source: WERS 2004 Management questionnaire. Base: All workplaces with ten or more employees. Figures are weighted percentages and based on responses from 2,059 managers. ***Source: WERS 1998 Management questionnaire (DTI, 1999). Base: All workplaces with ten or more employees identified through the filter question (see DTI, 1999 for details). Figures are weighted percentages. ****Source: WLB2 (Woodlands et al, 2003). Base: All workplaces with ten or more employees. Figures are weighted and based on responses from 1,509 managers. In WERS, for most flexible working practices, questions simply ask whether an option was provided in the establishment or not. For two of the most widely offered practices (the option to reduce working hours and the option to work flexitime), information is also available about coverage (Table 2). This provides insight into variations in availability between employees. The option to reduce working time is available in 63 per cent establishments and of these, 80 per cent offer them to all employees. In the remaining 20 per cent establishments, the key groups which were not allowed to reduce working time were managerial employees, where 62 per cent of the above sub-sample did not allow managerial employees to reduce their working hours. Flexitime is available in 35 per cent of all establishments in Britain, and of these, half offer it to all employees. In the remaining 50 per cent of establishments (n= 422), the key group which was not allowed to work flexitime was managerial employees, where 30 per cent of the above sub-sample did not allow managerial employees to work flexitime. Thus, managerial employees are less likely to have the option of either working part-time or flexitime. For the latter, however, perhaps managerial employees have greater discretion over their time, rather than formal availability of flexitime. 17