Flexible Work Arrangements: Are we Allowed to Dream?

By Laurence Buenerd // Coordinator and Copywriter

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, indicated 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 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, insurance, 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.

1 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

For others, the more trivial issues of childcare or transportation can be avoided with adapted schedules or telework. In any case, the people in these situations may find it slightly less difficult to work something out with their employer or future employer.

WORKING FROM HOME HAS ITS DISADVANTAGES

In general, everyone appreciates flexibility. Telework, for one, has gained many followers. While working from home, an employee can feed the cat and walk the dog during the day, throw in a load of laundry and maybe even take a nap as a health break.

The amount of time and money saved in commuting from home to work varies from person to person, but few people regret being able to spend a little more time in bed or to take the kids to school. This time saved can also be turned into work time, a gain or loss, depending on the situation.

However, while the majority of Canadians want to retain this flexibility, many are concerned about the impact that telework may have on their careers. An Angus Reid survey for Cisco Canada conducted in October 20215 revealed that 46% of those surveyed were concerned about the impact of telework on their career advancement. Among the youngest respondents in the 18 to 34 age bracket, 56% of respondents were concerned about the impact of telework on their career.

Many employees also complained over the past two years about their workload, as the fine line between work life and home life grew thinner as the period of confinement grew longer. Zoom meetings with young participants off-screen have become so commonplace that no one pays attention to them anymore. It is more often women who find themselves being penalized by this situation: how to reconcile a work day with childcare? Many of them had no choice but to do both, all while swallowing their feelings of guilt. Or they simply quit. In the U.S., millions of workers quit their jobs in 2021, with a peak of 4.3 million in the month of August.6

ADAPTING TELEWORK

Telework has not always been a popular choice for employers either: over the past decade, several large North American companies, such as Aetna, Best Buy, Bank of America, Yahoo, AT&T and Reddit, have experimented with telework. These experiments have been largely unsuccessful. The employees working off-site felt undervalued and marginalized. Their creativity and innovation was also affected.7

However, there are positive and lasting elements that will likely survive the great upheaval of telework. There is the discovery, for example, that an office worker's professional activity is no longer defined by his or her place of work, or by his or her schedule. And that the productivity of these employees is not dependent on their physical presence in the office.

It also seems possible to mitigate some of the disadvantages of telework. For example, the American company Zillow has introduced the "One Zoom, All Zoom" rule. According to this rule, when one meeting participant is teleworking, all participants must meet on a video conferencing platform, even if they are all present in the same location. The alternative to this rule would be to institute on-site office days dedicated to meetings and collaborative projects.

Canadian universities began the fall 2021 term with an expanded range of teaching methods: online, face-to-face, both simultaneously (one cohort of students in the classroom and another online during the course), both alternating (with mandatory attendance for some courses or workshops), online and off-synchronized (for those who cannot attend either online or face-to-face, such as international students with significant time differences). Of course, while the goal is to meet the diverse needs of their students, there is no perfect, universal teaching method. But for these venerable institutions, the effort invested in offering several alternatives is already a big step.

If we use a bit of imagination, the ideal job and employer would look something like this: a work week divided between days at home and days at the office dedicated mostly to meetings, exchanges and collaborative projects; employers who are willing to accommodate the schedules of parents and those with special needs; a focus on results rather than hours worked; greater autonomy for those who want it; and a better professional life-home life balance.

FLEXIBILITY GOES FAR BEYOND TELEWORK, AND THE COMFORT IT AFFORDS SOME WORKERS SHOULD NOT ECLIPSE THE FACT THAT FOR OTHERS IT IS VITAL.

5 CBC News, October 28, 2021, Most Canadians want to keep flexible workplace, but many worry remote work will hinder career: survey, consulted n February 18 at the URL: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ british-columbia/work-from-home-flexibility-job-security-1.6228026 6 Wyatte Grantham-Philips (October 13, 2021), Record-breaking 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in August, new data show, USA Today, consulted on February 12 at the URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/ money/2021/10/13/americans-quit-jobs-in-record-numbers/8433917002 7 David Streitfeld (June 29, 2020), The Long, Unhappy History of Working From Home, New-York Times, consulted on February 5, 2021 at the URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/technology/workingfrom-home-failure.html

TESTING THE FOUR-DAY WEEK

In this respect, Spain is launching a 50 million euro pilot project in 2022 to experiment with a four-day week without wage cuts. Two hundred companies and their employees will take part in the project. At the end of the project, the results will be compared with those of companies that have retained the classic five-day work week8. Several studies in recent years have shown the increased productivity of those who work four days rather than five9. About 30 companies in the United Kingdom will also be experimenting with the four-day week starting in June 2022, according to the founder of the 4 Day Week Global coalition, Andrew Barnes10, after successful experiments were conducted in New Zealand, the United States and several European countries. The four-day week, unlike telework, can be applied to many different sectors of activity.

So none of this may be feasible for the Canadian workforce in the medium term, but we all know by now that the evolution of work arrangements as we know them is not only possible, it is also probable. ■

8 Marie-Hélène Ballestero (Octobre 11, 2021), En Espagne, la semaine de quatre jours va être testée à grande échelle, Radio France, consulted on March 17, 2022 à l’URL: https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/ en-direct-du-monde/en-espagne-la-semaine-de-quatre-jours-va-etre-testee-a-grande-echelle_4785735.html 9 Roxane Léouzon (July 9, 2021), Semaine de quatre jours: le projet efficace mené par l’Islande, Le Devoir, consulted on March 5, 2022 at the URL: https://www.ledevoir.com/monde/europe/616968/travail-lecons-de-productivite-en-provenance-d-islande 10 Sian Elvin (March 17, 2022), Dozens of UK firms are about to trial four-day working weeks with no loss in pay, Metro, consulted on March 17, 2022 at the URL: https://metro.co.uk/2022/03/17/four-day-workingweek-30-more-uk-companies-commit-to-trial-16295344