What’s the best way to promote Flexible Work? An Experiment.
With Mustafa Biber AND Nicole Russell Pascual at Exeter University, Generously supported by the ECONomic and Social Research council
The pandemic has set gender equality back in the workplace. Women were more likely to lose their jobs as a result of the pandemic than men, and have had to decrease their working hours while spending more time on childcare. The shift to flexible work could allow people to better balance work and home life, and thereby move us forward again. But this will only happen if flexible working models work for everyone, including parents and those caring for friends or family members.
Now that restrictions have eased, organisations are considering whether to keep some, all, or none of the flexible working conditions that have been put into place over the past year. But it’s not just what they offer – the way they talk about flexible working will also influence uptake and employer attractiveness, often in ways that are hard to predict. That’s why experimental research is vital to designing an inclusive future of work.
Our Experiment
Flexible working arrangements come in many forms, and as such, mentions of ‘flexible’ working might be interpreted differently by applicants. To better understand how companies should describe their flexible working policies to reduce gender inequality, we tested four different ways of framing flexible working policies in job adverts. This involved showing 404 participants one of four versions of a fictitious job advert, in which the only difference between them was the way flexible working was described. We compared two commonly used flexible arrangements (flexible hours and flexible location) to a control condition where flexible working was merely mentioned and it was up to the reader to decide what it might mean. We also tested a version where flexible working was clearly described as the norm at the company, highlighting that the majority of employees worked flexibly in some way.
Understanding what ‘hybrid working’ really means is especially important for people with caring responsibilities. Can you work from home and be there to help a disabled relative throughout the day? Can you work flexible hours and spend more time with the kids while they’re awake and make it up later in the evening? If caregivers feel more supported by an employer, we would expect them to feel more comfortable to ask to work flexibly and tell their employer about their caregiving responsibilities. In our experiment, those were our measures. We tested the impact of our job descriptions on the disclosure of caregiver identity as well as how comfortable people would be asking for a flexible work pattern.
Our Findings
To our surprise, we found no differences overall in disclosure of caregiving or comfort asking to work flexibly regardless of what type of flexible work was described. We thought that flexible hours would be preferable for caregivers, but our study did not back this up. The seemingly big organisational choice over what kind of flexible work you offer made no meaningful difference. Maybe organisations shouldn’t be so worried about their Flex Working policy after all?!
However, when we dug a little deeper we found that the flexible working social norm had some interesting positive effects. For example, presenting flexible working as the norm makes those for whom being a caregiver is a bigger part of their life – those with strong caregiver social identity - more comfortable disclosing that they have caring responsibilities.
In addition - and this is particularly telling - people who did not have caring responsibilities were more comfortable asking to work flexibly when flexible working was presented as the norm.
The reason we think this is so interesting is that so many of the questions we see employers ask are about what their flexible or hybrid offering should be. And yet the social norm - a ‘non-rational’ feature of communication - is an enabler of flexibility for both caregivers and non-caregivers. This is genuinely inclusive – while we were hoping to find out what worked best for caregivers we found something that benefited carers and non-carers alike.
Our findings suggest that the impact of whatever policies companies set will be influenced (or even overridden) by what people do internally. Informal rules and social norms will be set very quickly from this point onwards, and companies should be cognizant of that as they are reviewing their hybrid future. It presents a key role for leaders – whose behaviour is more visible - and internal communications teams – who can promote the behaviour of colleagues across the organisation.
What’s Next?
We know that what companies choose to do about hybrid will shape how their staff feel, work, and perform. But this impact will not be restricted to the policy you set. We want to continue our work to find out how companies can design a future of work that works for everyone, and our first step is to take this research into real-world organisational settings.
“We want to continue our work to find out how companies can design a future of work that works for everyone, and our first step is to take this research into real-world organisational settings. ”
In the case of this experiment, we are looking for a partner that wants to take a robust scientific approach to inclusive recruitment in a hybrid setting. We are interested in exploring whether our findings hold in real-world settings, what other ‘non-rational’ description choices impact on who wants to join your company, and what the impact of different options is on specific underrepresented groups. If you would like to support or explore these questions with us, we look forward to hearing from you!
Thanks again to Mustafa Biber, Nicole Russell Pascual and the Economic and Social Research Council. This work is part of a larger research programme on Inclusive Hybrid Work, culminating in a report launch in October 2021 in partnership with Nationwide Building Society and TSB. If you would like to receive a copy, please sign up below. If you’d like to explore a research partnership, get in touch at: hello@morethannow.co.uk