Med anledning av dagens utvecklade kommunikationsteknik har stora förändringar skett i arbetslivet. Det flexibla arbetet är ett fenomen som förändrat arbetslivet och som innebär att medarbetare i större utsträckning kan kontrollera var och när arbetet utförs. Forskning visar att flexibelt arbete tenderar etableras mer kontinuerligt i arbetslivet vilket kommer påverka de sociala relationerna och därmed också experimentera medarbetares hälsa och lärande. Syftet med studien var därför att belysa hur medarbetare på olika organisatoriska nivåer uppfattar att sociala relationer påverkar deras hälsa och lärande på arbetsplatsen. Studien har tagit ett teoretiskt avstamp i hälsoteorin KASAM och Världshälsoorganisationens modell “Healthy workplace” samt den pedagogiska teorin sociokulturellt lärande. För att svara på syftet har tio intervjuer genomförts med medarbetare på ett aktivt företag i byggbranschen. Den insamlade datan analyserades genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys som resulterade i två kategorier innehållande sammanlagt nio underkategorier. Resultatet visade att sociala relationer i arbetslivet har en direkt påverkan på medarbetares hälsa och lärande. Sociala relationer i arbetet visade sig bland annat generera ökad trivsel, arbetsglädje och meningsfullhet och på så sätt påverka medarbetarnas hälsa. Vidare beskrevs vikten av dialog och diskussion för att kunna utveckla lärandet. Resultatet går i linje med mycket av den tidigare forskning som finns på ämnet och en slutsats som dragits är att sociala relationer i arbetet är en avgörande faktor för medarbetares hälsa och lärande. Då flexibelt arbete visat sig hämma de sociala relationerna går det också att dra slutsatsen att tillväxten av fenomenet tenderar påverka medarbetare negativt ur ett hälso- och lärandeperspektiv. / Due to today's advanced communications technology, major changes have taken place at work. Flexible working is a phenomenon that means that employees can to a greater extent control where and when the work is performed. Research shows that flexible working is increasing which will influence social relationships at work and in turn the effects on employees' health and learning. The aim of the study was to illustrate how employees at different organizational levels perceive that social relationships affect their health and learning in the workplace. The theoretical approach for this study is grounded in the health theory KASAM, the model of the World Health Organization “Healthy workplace” and the pedagogical theory of sociocultural learning. Ten employees were interviewed within the construction industry. The collected data was analyzed through a qualitative content analysis. The result showed that social relationships in working life have a direct impact on employees' health and learning. Social relationships at work were found to generate greater job satisfaction, well-being and meaningfulness and thus affect employees' health. Furthermore, the importance of dialogue and discussion was described in order to develop learning. The result is in line with much of the previous research on the subject and one conclusion is that social relationships at work are a decisive factor for employee health and learning. Since flexible work has proven to inhibit social relationships, it can also be determined that the growth of the phenomenon tends to negatively affect employees’ health and learning.

The aim of thesis is a proposal how to improve a work-life balance at the city council and identify the most common problems the company and people are dealing with. The main highlighted benefit are factual results of research – data from real respondents – employees working hours and the analysis of the real benefits for the company which are used as a base for the real proposal of the implementation.

AtkinsonThis study explores Work Life Balance (WLB) in two Palestinian organisations. It argues that the nature and content of WLB policies and the reasons for their adoption in many Arabic organisations differ from those in Western organisations. Additionally, research is under-developed concerning the role of line managers in interpreting access to WLB practices, and to what extent such WLB practices are accessed and utilised by individuals. Based on a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews with 49 employees and managers, this study shows that WLB policies involve, particularly for female employees, mainly family support, and financial, social, and religious benefits. These reflect cultural and religious characteristics of an Arab, Islamic country. In addition to identifying the role of government, and the needs of a female workforce, this study develops a new theoretical framework explaining the role of religious and cultural variables, as well as international networking of the organisations, as factors underlying adoption of WLB policies. Line managers often used Wasta, being the political and religious origin of individuals as criteria in granting benefits to individuals. WLB practices are useful for women, but males made less use of these practices, preferring strong ‘breadwinner Arabic cultural norms. A valuable contribution in understanding the extension of WLB policies in Arabic settings is offered, as well as cultural, social and religious reasons for their implementation. The study presents a theoretical model of the adoption and application of WLB policies which can be used in further crosscultural research.

Abstract Due to the implementation of shortening working-hour, a lot of enterprises chose to respond to the coming of the ¡§84 working-hour policy¡¨ by reducing salary and freezing personnel matters. Since the medical treatment industry different from other industries considering the fact that the medical treatment industry is a non-profitable institute and also a manpower and cost-intensive industry. This research aims to learn, as far as the shortening working-hour is concerned, whether or not exercising manpower for the medical treatment industry is more difficult than that in other industries. The cognition and viewpoints of the medical treatment industry towards shortening working-hour, and what types of working-hour strategies, educational training strategies, operation cost strategies, and management strategies, should be applied in terms of hospital management. This research aims to study the understanding of the medical treatment industry concerning the shortening of working-hour and their corresponding strategies. 540 copies of questionnaire were dispensed and 133 copies were collected and analyzed through SPSS. The followings are the findings of this research: 1. The understanding of hospitals on shortening working-hour: On the one hand, 56.4% agreed with the implementation of shortening working-hour policy because it helps to moderate the unemployment. On the other hand, over 50% disagreed with the above statement on half of the other entries. The results suggested that hospitals were generally not satisfied by the implementation of the said policy. 2. Hospitals¡¦ strategies corresponding to the shortening working-hour policy: ¡]1¡^57.1% (the highest percentage) choose not to complement when having job vacancy as their working-hour strategy. ¡]2¡^69.9% applied educational training in improving their employees¡¦ to understand on time and cost-reducing as their educational strategy; 64.7% focused to train their employees to have multiple specialties; 54.1% choose to enhance the training on information and computer application, and operating skills. ¡]3¡^75.6% choose to reduce the manpower and expenses under the existing scope as the operation cost strategy; 56.5% choose to enhance the internal information passing and increase the efficiency. ¡]4¡^83.5% choose to improve the manpower exercising as the management strategy; 66.9% choose to simplify the working procedures; 55.6% choose to improve the communications between employer and employees and the collaboration; 54.9% focused on the implementation of the merit system to improve the working efficiency 3. The current situation of hospitals after the implementation of shortening working-hour policy: Over half of the hospitals conform to the Labor Law on daily normal working hour and weekly normal working hour. However, few changes have been made on the ways of employment. For example, although 66.9% hired part-time works, most of them were under 10 part-time workers. Furthermore, as far as contract taking and outsourcing are concerned, the percentage has not exceeded 50%. Nonetheless, as far as educational training is concerned, 51.9% choose to have partial public-holiday and partial private-holiday which suggested that hospitals expected their employees to adopt the partial private-holiday way to improve their professional ability when they have more leisure time after the working hour has been shortened Keywords: shortening working-hour, flexible working hour, working-hour strategy, educational training strategy, operation cost strategy, management strategy

Šiame darbe suformuluotos turizmo sektoriaus ir lankstaus darbo laiko sąsajos, išanalizuoti ir susisteminti įvairių Lietuvos ir užsienio autorių teoriniai ir praktiniai darbo laiko, turizmo kaip paslaugų verslo aspektai bei atlikta palyginamoji Lietuvos ir Norvegijos turizmo sektoriaus įmonių darbuotojų požiūrio į lankstų darbo laiką analizė. Išsamiai analizuojamos atskiros lankstaus darbo laiko formos dažniausiai taikomos turizmo paslaugas teikiančiose įmonėse, atskleidžiami svarbiausi darbuotojų poreikiai šiuolaikinėje kompanijoje bei pateikiamos priemonės lankstaus darbo laiko įgyvendinimui turizmo įmonėse, suformuluojamas tai atitinkantis modelis. Darbo objektas – Lietuvos ir Norvegijos turizmo įmonių darbuotojų požiūris į lankstų darbo laiką. Darbo tikslas – palyginti Lietuvos ir Norvegijos turizmo įmonių darbuotojų požiūrį į lankstų darbo laiką. Darbo uždaviniai: 1. Išanalizuoti lankstaus darbo laiko formų taikymą turizmo sektoriaus įmonėse teoriniu aspektu. 2. Aprašyti pagrindines priemones, kurių turėtų imtis turizmo sektoriaus įmonės siekiant įvesti lankstų darbo laiką. 3. Palyginti Lietuvos ir Norvegijos turizmo įmonių darbuotojų požiūrį į lankstų darbo laiką. 4. Sudaryti lankstaus darbo laiko taikymo turizmo sektoriaus įmonėse modelį. Darbą sudaro trys dalys. Pirmoje dalyje pateikiamos turizmo kaip paslaugų sektoriaus sąsajos su lanksčiomis darbo laiko formomis bei žmogiškųjų resursų skatinimo esmė, kaip pagrindinis darbuotojų motyvavimo veiksnys siekiant... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This paper formulates the link between the tourism sector and flexible hours, analyses and systematizes theoretical as well as practical aspects of working hours and tourism as a service business provided by various Lithuanian and foreign authors, and carries out different types of flexible working hours in Lithuanian and Norwegian tourism enterprises. The papaer also gives a detailed analysis of different types of flexible working patterns which are the most common in tourism enterprises, reveals the most important needs of employees in contemporary enterprises, presents the means to implement flexible working hours in tourism enterprises, and, on basis, formulates a suitable model. Paper object. Employees attitudes toward flexible working hours in Lithuanian and Norwegian tourism enterprises. Aim of the paper. To compare employees attitude towards flexible working hours in Lithuanian and Norwegian tourism enterprises. Paper objectives: 1. To provide the theoretical analysis of the implementation of various types of flexible working patterns in tourism enterprises. 2. To describe the factors which are essential in the implementation of flexible working hours in the tourism sector companies. 3. To compare the employees attitudes towards flexible working hours in Lithuanian and Norwegian tourism enterprises. 4. To formulate the model of the implementation of flexible working hours in tourism enterprises. This paper consist of three parts. The first part presents the link... [to full text]

The implications of introducing shift work and flexible working hours into the UK clothing industry were examined, with special reference to the effects on personnel, plant utilisation and garment costs. A total of 37 garment manufacturing establishments, within 17 companies, were visited; 91 managers (for production and economic data)and 1018 supervisors and operatives, 87% female and 13% male, (for social data) were consulted. The main points arising from the survey are:- 1 . Social (i) The average age and length of service of respondents were respectively 30.4 and 7.1 for women and 40 and 13.9 for men. Nearly three fifths were married and over half of the women had children, most of them at school or pre-school stage. (ii) Over four fifths were committed to some kind of housework; 3 to 5 hours between 17.00 and 24.00 hours were usually spent on this task but about 9% spent more than 5 hours on it. (iii) Over half would be very much bothered by the inability to carry on their individual and/or group social activities. About two thirds would also be concerned by a change in the period of and time for sleep and meal times. Nearly two fifths used public transport for the journey to work. (iv) Only 15% had worked on multiple shifts previous to their present employment and 16% left their previous job because of being on shifts or unsuitable hours. About one fifth worked currently part-time and only 13% wanted to change their existing working system so that they might gain extra convenience and leisure in their working life. (v) The unsolicited personal choice of working systems were mainly shifts (13%), flexible working hours (14%) and part-time day work (30%); working only in school hours appeared to attract the choice of about 40% of the women. (vi) From the points above, it seemed that a high proportion of married female workers, mostly with dependent children and committed to housework, would probably react against shift work. The availability of part-time work together with the normal day work habit acquired would also affect the employees' attitudes towards the acceptance of even flexible working hours. 2. Production (i) The main problems involved with introducing shift work were considered to be sharing of equipment, bonus and piece rate payment and responsibility for quality failures. Dislike of sharing machines by operatives was considered to be a severe problem in sewing section and the extent of this dislike seemed higher in traditional rather than non traditional clothing areas; the operatives' age and length of service appeared to affect their attitudes. The smaller the period of time for each job then the less the problem of sharing payment and responsibility could become. (ii) Introduction of flexible working hours could create the difficulties of shortage and/or excess of supply of work within the production flow with interdependent operations; the extent of the problem could vary with the amount of work in progress and the period of time spent by each operative on the garment and/or its parts. Economic (i) Garment cost elements are material, labour, variable and fixed overheads (survey averages 50.6%, 24.9%, 8% and 16.5%), of which labour and variable overheads would be affected by introducing multiple shifts and only fixed overheads by flexible working hours. There should be a decrease in variable overheads per garment because of sharing a fixed amount of cost between shifts, an increase in labour cost due to shift premium and an increase in fixed overheads because of longer opening hours of the plant on flexible working hours. (ii) The capital employed on plant and machinery, C, could often be divided by the number of shifts so that this could help to increase profitability by a factor of 2 or 3. (iii) General formulae were established, using the most relevant variables, for calculating the profitability and profitability ratios of different working schemes. Generally, if the number of shifts are increased then the profitability of the plant could be very greatly increased. This was well illustrated from the calculated profitability ratios of about 2 and 3 respectively, when industrial survey values were used, for 2 and 3 shift systems replacing a single shift system. Profitability of flexible working hours would, theoretically, be less than that of single shift, but there might be some economic gains, such as reduced rates of labour turnover and absenteeism (which are currently high in the garment industry), arising from the introduction of flexible working hours.

This exploratory study examined the perceptions and realities of work life balance among medical doctors in Nigerian Public Hospitals. The study aimed to investigate the coping strategies adopted by medical doctors to manage work life balance and finally to examine the gender differences in the lived experiences of male and female medical doctors in Nigeria. The literature revealed that conceptualising work life balance models or employee flexibility in an African work setting is problematic when juxtaposed with primordial African cultural values where work and life are an indissoluble existential unit. The transition from an agrarian economy to new capitalist workplaces in many African countries is still relatively new. This study fills the gap by unveiling the implications this narrative has for understanding contemporary WLB. Forty-one semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted for this study. It involved male and female doctors from public hospitals across three geopolitical zones of Nigeria. The sample of doctors interviewed were specifically resident doctors with a wide range of specialties. Thematic method of data analysis was adopted to provide major themes which were used to discuss the findings of the research investigations. The findings reveal that work in the Nigerian medical sector is notoriously intense as it underscores challenges of long working hours, intense work demand and staff shortage. The findings further suggest women must tread a ‘delicate balance’ between subordination to male authority, domestic responsibilities and ambition/achievement in a professional career. This study makes two key contributions to knowledge. Firstly, the study contributes to existing literature on work-life balance in the Nigerian context, elaborating the situation with work-life balance initiatives and how medical doctors in Nigeria manage to cope with the shortcomings of the organisations. Secondly, the findings fostered a useful extension of the work-family border theory. The border theory explains how individuals navigate between life domains and boundary management. However, the theory has provided little information on the factors that affect how employees manage and negotiate between the domains. This led to the development of the work spiritual life balance model.

Background: Today ’s organizations receive increasing pressure from society and workers to maintain good work life balance. Flexible working arrangement is one of the HRM policies to improve employee’s work performance, job satisfaction and retention. Prior discussion still does not find the clear result on the positive effect of FWAs. Due to the administrative burdens, many organizations, especially SMEs are still hesitant to introduce such policies. In this study, the authors examine the effects on FWAs on employee’s improved engagement. The study will take a form of replicative study, and focus is on leader endorsement and feeling of respect in relation to leader prototypicality. Moreover, different circumstances of informal FWA based on size of the organization is explored. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to make contribution to create a cumulative knowledge on FWA studies by testing the generalization of a prior study. The result of this study will ultimately have an implication for how organizations may benefit from allowing their employees to have access to FWAs. Methodology:In this study, the authors use statistical approach to test the effect of FWA on employee’s improved feelings and the leader endorsement in relation to leader prototypicality. The research approach, measures, method and model are designed to be exactly same as Koivisto and Rice, (2016) however one change in research context is made, which is number of employees in the company. Conclusion: The result of the study shows that FWA allowance may not have significant influence on subordinates’ feeling of respect and leader endorsement. This implies the difficulty for leaders to use FWA as a tool to influence employee commitment on shared goal. Moreover, difference between prior finding indicates that FWA study may need to be separated for different size of the company. / <p></p><p></p>

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om nyttjandet av flexibel arbetstid predicerar inrearbetsmotivation. En webbaserad enkätundersökning innehållande 28 frågor skickades ut till152 tjänstemän i en offentlig organisation, totalt deltog 80 respondenter i undersökningen. Föratt mäta inre arbetsmotivation användes Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction at Work (BPNS-W) skalan som mäter autonomi, kompetens och samhörighet och är baserad på self-determination theory (SDT). Resultatet visade att nyttjandet av flexibel arbetstid signifikant predicerar dimensionerna autonomi, kompetens och samhörighet som leder till inrearbetsmotivation. Studiens slutsats vara att nyttjandet av flexibel arbetstid kan predicera inrearbetsmotivation i viss grad. / The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the use of flexible working hourspredicts intrinsic work motivation. A web-based survey containing 28 questions was sent to152 officials in a public organization, a total of 80 respondents participated in the survey. Tomeasure intrinsic work motivation, the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction at Work(BPNS-W) scale was used. It contains measures of autonomy, competence and relatednessand is based on self-determination theory (SDT). The results showed that the use of flexibleworking hours significantly predicts the dimensions of autonomy, competence and relatednessthat lead to intrinsic work motivation. The conclusion of the study was that the use of flexibleworking hours can predict intrinsic work motivation to some extent.

The population is ageing globally due to improved health care, better medication, and good socio-economic progress, therefore leading to the population ageing globally. A decrease in fertility has as well led to a new age structure of fewer younger populations to an older population. The continuous decrease in the potential support ratio is an indication that the ageing population will negatively affect the labour market. Therefore, leaving organisations with limited access to a competent and experienced workforce. The purpose of this study is to develop insight into the approaches to age management practices and how it is applied in Swedish organisations. It will address the potential for organisations to create an enabling environment for older workers. This is a qualitative study. Data collection was done through a process of semi-structured interviews of five personnel from organisations in different parts of Sweden to develop a further understanding of age management in Swedish organisations. The collected data was then compared with previous literature theories, analysed, and discussed. The findings did not show any distinction in the older workforce in the Swedish organisation since Sweden as a country does not differentiate or give special attention to a particular age group but rather treats all persons equal; therefore, engagement of the workforce is basically dependent on the competence and capabilities, and not age. But nonetheless, the older workforce is a considerable part of the age group and therefore is covered.