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McGill/MSU study: Reduced-load work arrangements gaining acceptance

Published: 17 January 2006

Companies more and more accepting of reduced-load work option

Companies that respond creatively to the growing demand for reduced-load work arrangements are being rewarded in increased productivity, increased team effectiveness, talent retention and improved employee relations, according to researchers at McGill University and Michigan State University.

McGill Management professor Mary Dean Lee and MSU Labor Relations professor Ellen Ernst Kossek found that some managers are responding to changing employee needs with more creativity, flexibility and commitment than others, but that firms able to link reduced-load work to ongoing strategic change initiatives or effective talent management are more successful at incorporating this new way of working into the normal routines of running a dynamic business.

The findings, reported in the technical report Making Flexibility Work: What Managers Have Learned About Implementing Reduced-Load Work, are from the second phase of the major study Managing Professionals in New Work Forms, which involved interviews with 88 managers and executives in 20 US and Canadian companies representing six different business sectors. In each firm, Lee and Kossek interviewed senior executives, human resource managers and managers with experience managing professionals in reduced-load work.

Despite downsizing and layoffs in over half of participating firms followed over six years, reduced-load work arrangements increased in 60 percent of firms and gained greater acceptance in 70 percent of firms.

"I am very encouraged by the positive signs of progress noted in the research," said Lynn Wilson, Director of Leadership & Organizational Effectiveness at Ernst & Young. "In the past, managers and employees negotiated the arrangement strictly between themselves — and employees often felt incredible personal pressure to ensure success. Now our people often seek to involve their whole team, even including their clients, to plan and sustain working flexibly successfully."

Findings from the first phase of the study, which focused on the careers of individual professionals working on a reduced-load basis, were released last year in a report titled Crafting Lives that Work.

"For professional and managerial employees, the stigma of working reduced load has lessened, and the assumption that severe career tradeoffs are inevitable needs re-examination," said Lee. "Top leaders and well-placed senior managers who are committed to helping employees have a life outside work can make a huge impact on the culture of a firm."

Reduced-load work is defined as working less than full-time hours in a traditional full-time position for a commensurate reduction in pay. In recent years, more employers have established flexible work arrangements and informal practices to support talented individuals who want to work in different ways to accommodate shifting priorities in their personal and professional lives. It has been particularly advantageous to new mothers returning to the workplace.

"These arrangements allow talented professionals to challenge the corporate culture and allow for talented employees to have greater control over the amount of work they do and to be better able to take on higher involvement in family and non-work responsibilities while they maintain their career objectives," said Kossek.

This research was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.