The skill profile of the employees and the provision of flexible working hours in the workplace: a multilevel analysis across European countries

• Author: Mario Lucchini,Egidio Riva,Laura Dulk,Ariane Ollier‐Malaterre
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12207
• Date: 01 March 2018

The skill profile of the employees and the

provision of flexible working hours in the

workplace: a multilevel analysis across

European countries

Egidio Riva,*Mario Lucchini, Laura den Dulk and

Ariane Ollier-Malaterre

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the relationship between the skill profile of the employees (i.e.

the percentage of employees in highly skilled jobs) and the provision of flexible work-

ing hours in the workplace (i.e. the proportion of employees entitled to adapt, within

certain limits, the time when they begin or finish their daily work according to their

personal needs or wishes). Analyses draw on the 2009 European Company Survey,

conducted on a representative sample (N= 26,640) of European establishments in

29 countries. Multilevel mixed-effects linear regressions are used to study to what

extent both workplace-level and national-level variables affect this relationship. Find-

ings suggest a strong, positive and non-linear relationship between the variables under

scrutiny, which is moderated, at national level, by both unemployment and trade

union density rates.

1 INTRODUCTION

Flexible working hours (FWH), that is, the ability to modify the start and end times

of the workday, represent one of the practices that employees find the most useful in

their efforts to combine work and non-work demands (Bond et al., 2002; Riedmann

et al., 2006). FWH provide employees with a certain amount of discretion and control

(Altman and Golden, 2007; Lyness et al., 2012) and are beneficial to work–life bal-

ance, although findings are mixed (Allen et al., 2013; Lotte and Chung, 2016). Be-

sides, FWH generally come at a limited cost for employers and are also conducive

to workplace effectiveness (Berg et al., 2013; Kossek and Michel, 2011). Thus,

implementing this type of flexible work schedule may result in mutual gains, for both

employers and employees (De Menezes and Kelliher, 2011; Kerkhofs et al., 2008;

❒Egidio Riva, Department of Sociology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo Gemelli 1, 20123

Milan, Italy, Mario Lucchini, Department of Sociology and Social Research, Università degli Studi di

Milano Bicocca, Via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi 8, 20126 Milan, Italy, Laura den Dulk, Department of

Public Administration and Sociology, ESSB, Erasmus University Rotterdam, PO BOX 1738, 3000 DR

Rotterdam, The Netherlands and Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, School of Management –ESG, Université du

Québec à Montréal –UQAM, Case postale 8888, Succursale Centre-ville Montréal, QC H3C 3P8.

Correspondence should be addressed to Egidio Riva, Assistant Professor of Economic Sociology,

Department of Sociology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo Gemelli 1, 20123 Milan, Italy.

email: egidio.riva@unicatt.it

Industrial Relations Journal 49:2, 128–152

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Peters et al., 2009). Nonetheless, previous studies report a level of unmet demand for

FWH among employees and also indicate that FWH are unevenly distributed within

the workforce, across employees’demographic and socio-economic attributes and

across organisations, sectors and countries (Anttila et al., 2015; Golden, 2001; Sweet

et al., 2014).

The provision of FWH is generally more common in organisations and industries

with high amounts of highly skilled, qualified or experienced employees (HSE)

(Golden, 2001, 2008). In fact, flexible working arrangements are often part of high-

performance work systems used to attract, retain and engage core workers, in partic-

ular when the labour market is tight (e.g. Kelly et al., 2008; Sweet et al., 2014).

However, under the business case argument, there may be a limit in the availability

of FWH. In this regard, Altman and Golden (2007) contend that the actual level of

FWH observed in the workplace may be partly explained by relative costs and bene-

fits (see also Dex and Scheibl, 2001; Hammer et al., 2016). Within certain limits, any

gain in the number of employees entitled to FWH may be cost-effective and feasible.

After a certain threshold, enacting more FWH may negatively influence the cost-

competitiveness of the organisation, which may lead employers to resist more individ-

ual discretion over working time (Altman and Golden, 2007; Golden, 2011; Smeaton

et al., 2014). This argument, which rests upon the economic law of diminishing

returns, implies that any increase in the number of HSE may have progressively

smaller incremental effects on the provision of FWH at workplace level, possibly be-

cause of growing organisational problems such as the management and coordination

of different time schedules, especially in large organisations or organisations with

multiple sites (e.g. Kossek and Van Dyne, 2008). In pharmacology, this is termed

‘ceiling effect’. The effect of a drug is predictably dependent on its quantity or concen-

tration and eventually reaches a maximum level. After that level, increasing the dose

may not produce any further effect or even cause side effects. To our best knowledge,

empirical work on the ceiling effect of some attributes of the employees on the avail-

ability of FWH in the workplace is fairly scant. However, it is quite relevant to assess

if the provision of FWH has an upper limit at workplace level and also to investigate

which are the factors that may contribute to define it and, above all, to extend it (Alt-

man and Golden, 2007).

Furthermore, the relationship between the skill profile of the employees and the

availability of FWH in the workplace has been assessed only superficially in terms

of the broader national context. Economic, social and cultural factors at national

level may have an impact on employers’and employees’preferences, expectations

and relative bargaining power over the working schedule (Anttila et al., 2015; Berg

et al., 2004, 2014a; Tijdens, 2003). These factors also contribute to shape human

resource management policies and practices and create more or less favourable

conditions for workplace work–life initiatives (Kossek and Ollier-Malaterre, 2013;

Ollier-Malaterre et al., 2013). Therefore, the social, economic and institutional envi-

ronment in which organisations are embedded deserves more attention (Berg et al.,

2014; Kerkhofs et al., 2008).

Berg et al. (2004) maintain that cross-country differences in the ability of employees

to alter their work schedule might be explained by institutional dynamics, industrial

relations patterns and labour market conditions. While there has been abundant

research on the influence of government regulation, labour market dynamics and

welfare state regimes on flexible work scheduling (e.g. Den Dulk et al., 2012, 2013;

Fleckenstein and Seeleib-Kaiser, 2011; Gornick and Heron, 2006; Kassinis and

129The skill profile of the employees and flexitime

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd