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Labour market changes
FLEXIBLE WORK ARRANGEMENTS:
Are we Allowed to Dream? By Laurence Buenerd
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Is Canadian society ready to be more flexible when it comes to work: schedules, timesheets vs. results, work sites, workfamily balance? When we talk about having flexibility in our work, we are talking about something that is still relatively undefined, because it concerns changing the way things are done in relation to the work site, the work schedule and the way in which these paid activities are carried out (in other words: where, when and how). This flexibility can mean relative freedom in a number of different aspects: work rhythms, work schedules, worklife balance, or the employer's focus on results rather than the location or quantity of work being done. The pandemic has accelerated attitude changes in regard to employment. Work sites and work schedules, for example, have become more flexible than ever before. The last two years have allowed organizations and individuals around the world to experiment with working conditions. However, as Emma Goldberg points out in her article A Two-Year, 50-MillionPerson Experiment in Changing How We Work1: “The office was never one size fits all. It was one size fits some, with the expectation that everybody else would squeeze in.” The mold definitely seems to have gotten bigger over the last two years.
WORKING AT THE OFFICE OR FROM HOME? In Canada, many employers, including the public service, have surveyed their employees over the past few months: work in the office, work at home, or a combination of the two? It would appear that an alternating work arrangement is preferable over working at home, with the least popular option being a return to work as it was before. According to a Statistics Canada survey conducted in early 2021, 32% of Canadian employees aged 15-69 did most of their work from home. Overall, 80% of these teleworkers, men and women in fairly similar proportions, indi cated that they would prefer to work at least half their hours (or more) at home once the pandemic is over. The remaining 20% said they would prefer to work most (11%) or all (9%) of their hours away from home2. Of course, we are talking about jobs that allow for these options, with waiters continuing to
Coordinator and Copywriter serve in bars and restaurants, nurses in health care facilities and truck drivers on the road. Businesses are also beginning to adapt to the new reality: in 2016, 13,000 Canadians were working from home for companies located in another province or territory. But when interviewed during the fourth quarter of 2021, Canadian employers projected that about 113,000 of their employees would telework exclusively from another province or territory over the next three months. While this number represents only a small portion of their total workforce (0.9%), it does highlight a shift to more flexible work arrangements. Companies such as Google, Microsoft, Citigroup and Walmart have announced over the past year their intention to offer their employees a hybrid work arrangement that allows them to work outside the office for part of their working week. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna is quoted as saying that he no longer cares whether office workers arrive at 5 or 11 a.m., or whether their workday ends at 3 or 9 p.m., as long as they are productive. Andi Owen, managing director of MillerKnoll, an American manufacturer of high-end office furniture and equipment, said she believed that companies would now listen more to what their employees had to say about their working environments than to what their management groups thought about the subject3. Statistics Canada says that approximately 40% of jobs in Canada can be done by teleworking. In general, more women than men in the 25 to 65 age group are in teleworkable positions, while younger men and women under 25 are less likely to be in these types of positions. There are also significant sectoral differences, with about 85% of jobs in finance, insu rance, professional, technical and scientific services being teleworkable, compared to 5.6% of jobs in accommodation and food services, 11% in construction, 19% in manufacturing and 22% in retail trade4. However, flexibility goes far beyond telework. And the comfort it affords some workers should not eclipse the fact that for others it is vital. People in particular situations, such as those with a temporary or chronic illness or disability, may need to adjust their schedules or reduce their working hours.
Emma Goldberg (March 12,2022), A Two-Year, 50-Million-Person Experiment in Changing How We Work, New-York Times, consulted March 12 at the URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/business/remote-work-office-life.html 2 N.d. (April 1st 2021), The impact of telework on workers' productivity and preferences, Statistics Canada, The Daily, consulted February 25 at the URL https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210401/ dq210401b-eng.htm 3 Ibid. 4 Tremblay, D-G. (November 10, 2021), La COVID-19 et les transformations du travail et de l’emploi, Revue Interventions économiques [Online], paragraph 5, consulted on February 3, 2022 at the URL: http://journals. openedition.org/interventionseconomiques/14785 1
