benefit, applied inflexibly and perceived as an unwelcome cost to business (Litchfield et al., 2016).
Research shows that flexible work arrangements generally have the effect of reducing the amount of physical contact and interaction between co-workers, between flexibility users and their supervisors, as well as with clients and the rest of the organization (Bartel, Wrzeniewski & Wiesenfeld, 2012; Kossek et al., 2015). It is for this reason that individuals in flexible work arrangements may feel isolated and distant from the social life of the firm. The important effects of this kind of separation were illustrated in a recent study of employees in two large high-tech firms. The results showed that greater physical distance between flexibility users and other organization members reduced the amount that individuals working flexibly felt respected, and in turn made them feel less like full members of the organization (Bartel et al., 2012).
In addition to tensions that may emerge regarding who is granted access to flexible work programs, non-flexibility users may feel that their own jobs and relationships worsen because their colleagues are working flexibly (Kossek et al., 2015). Although workplace flexibility is desired by many for the possibilities it offers to better juggle our busy home and work lives, it can become a trap and create new problems for individuals, colleagues, and firms.
Employees are attracted to jobs offering flexibility in time because of the expanded availability to meet work and non-work obligations. Employees are better able to focus on job tasks without worrying about how to manage both work and non-work demands that overlap. Employers also frequently benefit from flexibility in time policies with increased availability of employees for clients. Organizations can support globalization efforts by becoming more 24/7 and accessible to customer needs around the world and across time zones (Bartel et al., 2012; Kossek et al., 2015). Work-life balance is an essential cornerstone in the lives of employees and forms a close tie between employees and employers.
One of the primary reasons employees seek flex place policies is because they allow employees to work and/or live away from the central work site. For example, teleworking permits employees to regularly avoid lengthy commutes to and from work and supports working globally. Employers can increase their talent pool by offering flex place policies that allow for retaining capable individuals who otherwise would not be able to work at the organization. Workplace flexibility policies allow employees to control different aspects of their jobs (i.e., when, where, how). These differences are meaningful when designing workplace flexibility policies to be used as productivity tools across different types of business demands (Attia, Duquenne & Le-Lann, 2014; Kossek et al., 2015).
In terms of work from home opportunities, the higher the qualifications a position requires, the more likely that job could also be performed from home. The options for working from home also vary considerably from one economic sector to another. There tends to be more opportunities to work from home in occupations in the service sector in particular, financial services, business services or in public administration and far fewer opportunities in trade, transportation industry, and in the provision of consumer services (Brenke, 2016).
The use of non-traditional settings show various efficiencies that help reduce employee absenteeism and staff turnover, and increase occupant productivity and satisfaction, thus increasing the perceived health and wellbeing of their occupants (Al Horr et al., 2016).
Non-traditional work settings may represent a great alternative to traditional physical workspaces and can provide both employers and their employees’ efficient results and great prospects in terms of productivity and wellbeing. The main strategy used in the last few decades has been to offer unusual benefits (e.g., child care, amenities, and employee assistance programs) and unconventional work arrangements (e.g., telecommuting, flexible schedules, virtual teams, work-life balance, and compressed workweek) to help employees achieve their dream lifestyles and quality of life (Wadsworth & Facer, 2016). The outcomes that work–family practices address are those that help employees meet their family obligations and reduce employees’ conflicts between work and home (Liu & Wang, 2011). Various organizations are realizing that these alternative work settings are making a difference in terms of innovative work styles, creative spaces, and location flexibility. Furthermore, providing an unexpected work environment creates a physical and cultural transformation that boosts productivity and company morale (Blok et al, 2012).
Telework has been suggested as a means to reduce unnecessary work-related travel, including the daily commute. Telework occurs when information communication technologies are applied to enable work be accomplished at a distance from the location where results are needed. However, despite its promising nature and early optimist predictions, telework has largely failed to capture management and workers' attention and imagination (Hynes, 2016). Telework has also started to resolve some contemporary environmental concerns, such as resource efficiency and climate change, environmental, societal, and economic challenges.
It is clear that telework allows employees and their tasks to be shared across settings away from a central place of business or physical organizational location. In 2010, the total number of people who worked from home or another remote location for an entire day at least once a month has declined, probably due to the higher unemployment. However, while the total number of teleworkers has decreased, the percentage of people whom telework more than once per month has increased. Both private industry and the federal government have encouraged these alternative workplace changes, many of which have been observed to be beneficial to the economy, to the environment, and to the quality of family life (Robertson & Vink, 2012).
Many different aspects of non-traditional settings have been explored. Blok et al. (2012) examined the impact of time and location of work flexibility on employee behavior and business outcomes. The results demonstrated that habituation to the flexible work environment was only achieved at over 50% in the 6 month period. Also, most employees spent more of the time working at the office building than the flexible location. This is interesting as the results were not as positive as expected in terms of business objectives, interactions, and change in behavior.
Other researchers explored telework and flexible work schedules on the performance of teams in new product development projects. The findings showed that telework has a positive effect on new product development performance through enabling knowledge sharing, cross-functional cooperation and inter-organizational involvement. This helped improve the speed and quality of product development, provided that face-to-face contact is not completely replaced by virtual contact (Coenen & Kok, 2014, Attia et al., 2014).
Brenke (2016) found a few other important characteristics of telecommuting. Telecommuters work long hours and overtime is often not remunerated. Also, working from home is not linked to household composition and that lower job satisfaction among employees wanting to work from home but unable to do so. Employees who are also able to work from home tend to show higher levels of job satisfaction and dissatisfied staff tends to change jobs relatively frequently. The study also shows that working from home is primarily the domain of qualified and rather flexible employees. The motives for working from home are not—or not only—to better reconcile work and family life. There must therefore be another reason for this, which can only be a desire for more autonomy in organizing the working day.
Places of work have been completely transformed by innovations in mobile work tools and ever-present access to Internet data (Honan, 2015). Working from remote locations affect the purpose of the office building, making it less important for the performance of individual work tasks, and more important for work activities such as collaboration, face- to-face meetings and knowledge sharing (Blok et al., 2012).
It is still unknown how non-traditional workspaces will affect perceived wellbeing and productivity levels and how they differ from traditional settings but it is clear that among other important statements, work-family enrichment boosts workers’ job engagement whereas work-family conflict decreases their level of job engagement and increases their level of job strain (Germeys & De Gieter, 2017). It is thus important that organizations allow employees to balance their work and family lives in order to decrease job strain and enhance job engagement (Babic, Stinglhamber, Bertrand & Hansez, 2017, Germeys & De Gieter, 2017).
Flexible work schedules and arrangements are an effective means of achieving work life balance. Flexi-time, working from home, part time, job sharing, and teleworking have been depicted as effective strategic approaches of achieving work life balance (Cram & Marabelli, 2017; Khallash & Kruse, 2012).
The design of workspaces to support virtual and telecommuters is evolving. Organizations are still transitioning to this new paradigm and are still wrestling with the implications of how to define and rethink company space. As more workers become mobile, it is even more critical to have office spaces where they can meet and reconnect when they are in the office. Today, there are a variety of alternative work styles that organizations can use to address the changing nature of work (Robertson & Vink, 2012).
Undoubtedly, a cultural change must precede or accompany any new way of working or telecommuting program. Furthermore, management must align the rewards and recognition system so that employees will adopt the new way of working without being concerned about undesirable consequences of working away from the traditional office setting (Robertson & Vink, 2012).
Productivity
The performance of employees is one of the most important factors that affects the success of institutions (Cram & Marabelli, 2017). Throughout centuries, thinkers and philosophers have tried to identify and explain what motivates people to perform activities (Maslow, 1946; Vernon & Bedford, 1926). Diverse factors such as the level of investment in capital goods, the development of new technologies, larger innovation processes, or a complex blend of institutional and human factors, determine productivity (Berumen et al., 2016, Trimi, 2017).
Despite the known importance and challenges in measuring knowledge work productivity, there are surprisingly few studies on the topic (Laihonen et al., 2012). The factors affecting productivity are commonly classified into inputs, processes (transformation of inputs into outputs) and outputs. Quantity of outputs is rarely specifically mentioned in the literature despite its obvious role in many knowledge work contexts. Qualities of employees, innovation capability and learning as well as outcomes perceived by customers are considered more important.
In traditional work settings, previous research has demonstrated that productivity was higher when employees did not work on a pre-allocated desk but on different workspaces of their choice (Jeyasingham, 2016; Kim et al., 2016). There is also research that studied the relationship between employees’ productivity and the physical workplace. Researchers have placed special emphasis on the effects of environment characteristics (air quality, noise, views, greenery, décor, location, etc.) and building features (Al Horr et al., 2016; Morrison & Macky, 2017). Many research studies and literature reviews have not only demonstrated that physical workplace settings have an impact on productivity, but also that it can impact employees’ wellbeing and health (Al Horr et al., 2016, Kamarulzaman et al., 2011, Yousefizadeh & Ghoddusifar, 2016).
Berumen et al. (2016) tested a tool that would manage labor productivity (Extrinsic Motivation Index) and that would serve leaders, human resources personnel, and managers in different organizations. The findings of this research revealed that because there were differences in the levels of commitment and motivation of its participants, productivity could be affected regardless of the employee work setting.
When employees are feeling uncomfortable with their physical environment in working area, they tend to feel tired and stress easily which will affect the performance and productivity of their work. Thus, human response towards their surrounding comfort will lead to their production level at the end of the day (Chua et al., 2016).
Pohling, Buruck, Jungbauer and Leiter (2016) showed that the influence of some, but not all, areas of work life (workload, control, reward, and values) on both acts of presenteeism and health-related lost productivity was mediated by health indicators (well-being and musculoskeletal complaints). Moreover, the authors found a relationship between health-related lost productivity and acts of presenteeism. High-risk, work-related factors lead to poor health, which in turn acts as a determinant of both acts of presenteeism and health-related lost productivity.
Furthermore, Greenaway et al. (2016) conveyed that identity-related meaning of spaces has an impact on wellbeing and performance. The spaces we use and live in affect our psychological functioning and cognition. The main premise of this study was that workers experience productivity and positivity in spaces that match their identity but they would experience negative outcomes in spaces that go against their identity. These serve as another example of the importance of physical space in employee psychological performance as well as in their work productivity. In organizational contexts, identification with an organization, department, or team tends to promote positive organizational outcomes in the form of job satisfaction, wellbeing, and productivity. Workspaces that provide opportunities for the realization of important work identities are typically found to promote positive organizational outcomes; such as enhanced performance.
Similarly, Yousefizadeh and Ghoddusifar (2016) focused their research on the importance of architectural space and design in increasing productivity in the workplace. Their findings suggested that there are elements of innovative space that are essential to employee development and a creative atmosphere for teams in every organization. These elements are flowers and plants, windows, furniture, view, amount of light, inspiring colors, and safety among others. Additionally, their research review suggested that all these physical characteristics of the environment of a workplace have an effect on employees. The researchers have also found that formal offices are not a good choice when it comes to work productivity. It is better for employees to have freedom in making decisions on their office spaces so that it can provide convenience, satisfaction, and a sense of ownership.
Another perspective on productivity was introduced by Whiteoak and Mohamed (2016) who had investigated productivity as it relates to perceived safety and employee engagement in the workplace. Their study explored the use of ‘Systems Thinking’, a way of understanding systems holistically and in real-life situations, in understanding and improving safety in construction sites and other technical contexts. The study revealed that if worker perceptions of safety can be improved at least minimally, then productivity and employee engagement in construction workers could also improve.
Even considering non-traditional settings, flexible working time has a positive impact on employee’s productivity (Dutcher, 2012; Kim et al., 2016). Likewise, the provision of flexible time by the organizations has been associated to work satisfaction and organizational dedication for women and for all workers with family responsibilities (Dizaho et al., 2017). The provision and advancement in technology is also changing the pattern of work and forcing organization to execute strategies in adapting to technological change, however the idea and strategy of teleworking can be effective in achieving employees’ satisfaction, productivity and reduce turnover rates.
Despite the importance of telecommuting as an alternative work method, current economic literature has not deeply investigated how working outside the office affects productivity (Kim et al., 2016). Part of the reason for this is likely due to the practical difficulties in finding good measures for productivity, which are necessary for such analysis. Additionally, separating environmental factors from other factors relevant to productivity may be just as imposing a task (Dutcher, 2012). All in all, while productivity in the market sector is well matched by wage rate, home productivity is not directly observed (Fang & Zhu, 2017).
Lastly, in recent decades the outcomes used to evaluate worker effectiveness have expanded beyond task performance to include additional considerations, such as counterproductive workplace behavior. Counterproductive workplace behaviors are voluntary acts intended to harm the organization or its employees, and involve theft, lateness, interpersonal abuse, and sabotage (O’Neill, Hambley & Bercovich, 2014). A new form of counter productivity is becoming more popular with the rapid increase in the accessibility of the Internet in work environments. This has led to a form of deviant work behavior known as cyberslacking occurs when employees use the Internet for non-work purposes when they are on company time (O’Neill et al., 2014). The results of this research conveys that employees who are high on procrastination, boredom and impulsiveness will likely find the Internet to be a welcome distraction when they feel urges to put off work.
Overall, it is the responsibility of the organization to design spaces and programs that can increase productivity. Human resources management practices are able to increase employees’ knowledge, skills and abilities, empower them to act, and motivate them to enact expected behaviors; they can also improve organizational performance by building organizational social structure that can help employees understand behaviors that the management expects and rewards. Through these joint processes, human resources management practices can enhance employees’ productivity and job satisfaction, thereby reducing overall turnover and improving organizational performance (Liu & Wang, 2011).
Wellbeing
Wellbeing has moved center stage in recent years as those concerned with the development of a meaningful and sustainable society have become increasingly dissatisfied with purely financial measures of progress (Bertram & Rehdanz, 2015; Hoeven & Zoonen, 2015; Martin et al., 2014; Van Diermen & Beltman, 2016). Personal wellbeing can be thought of as life satisfaction based on an individual’s perception of their health, happiness and sense of purpose. Some organizations have responded to changing trends that arose from technology advances and globalization and have sought to mitigate the potential harm to mental as well as physical health from bad work, in favor of wellbeing development. Rather fewer have sought to promote good health as a way of engaging the workforce and promoting higher productivity. Nevertheless, some have embraced the notion of wellbeing as an enabler for sustained commercial success and as a measure of their wider impact on society (Litchfield et al., 2016).
Much of our health is driven by lifestyle changes and interventions that can turn the situation around are generally low key and inexpensive. Work can be a contributory factor and the role of the employer in addressing excess sedentary employment or psychological pressures is obvious. However, the workplace is also an effective venue for more general health promotion, especially when targeting hard to reach groups like men, and group interventions tend to have better outcomes than those delivered individually (Litchfield et al., 2016). Organizations in which staff exhibits higher than average levels of happiness report stronger financial performance and higher levels of customer satisfaction. Happy workers are more open, more motivated to invest time and effort, and are prepared to overcome obstacles when pursuing their career goals. Thus, it is in an organization’s interest to create and maintain work environments that contribute to employee happiness (Byrne & Canato, 2017).
As the workplace has transformed, growing attention has been paid to employees’ wellbeing, and firms have begun helping employees manage their non-work roles by implementing work–family practices (Liu & Wang, 2011; Martin et al., 2016). These policies have increased employees’ job satisfaction and reduced turnover intention, increased affective commitment, and motivated employees to work more efficiently (Hoeven & Zoonen, 2015; Liu & Wang, 2011).
Job demands consist of physical, social or organizational aspects of a job that require sustained physical and/or mental effort (Hoeven & Zoonen, 2015). Experiencing the flexibility to adjust different life responsibilities in a balanced manner helps employees achieve work goals and accommodate job demands. Work/life balance is the ‘overall level of contentment resulting from an assessment of one’s degree of success at meeting work and family role demands’. Schedule flexibility and reduced work-family conflict foster employee wellbeing.
There is a growing concern across a number of disciplines that wellbeing is ‘a collateral casualty of modernity’ in modern consumer societies (Hoeven & Zoonen, 2015). Growing influences of social perspectives in health promotion represent a paradigmatic shift towards an integrative understanding of the determinants of health and wellbeing that extend beyond the individual to include their environment. These shifts have led to increasing health promotion by encompassing planning and architecture in different work settings (Gilchrist et al., 2015).
Today, it is imperative for employees to balance the demands of their professional and private lives. The crucial impact of work–family issues on employee’s well-being has been recognized and responded with a variety of research in field of organizational behavior.
However, few studies examine the impact of how work–family practices affect productivity at firm level (Liu & Wang, 2011). Work-family issues are important research targets for understanding employees’ wellbeing. Indeed, many empirical studies have shown that employees perceiving an important work-family conflict are more likely to experience lower wellbeing at work (Babic et al., 2017). While work-family conflicts may thus predict employees’ job strain, the reverse causation can also be hypothesized. Being exposed to strain in a given domain (e.g., work) may lead to tension, irritability, fatigue, or preoccupation with problems. This negative state, by spilling over, may affect an individual’s ability to perform in another domain (Arulmani, 2015; Babic et al., 2017).
Well-being and performance are fundamental to work. But their relationship could be paradoxical. In some contexts wellbeing and performance could reciprocally embellish each other while in other work environments, they could be at war with each other (Arulmani, 2015). That is why, there are many programs designed to foster efforts of wellbeing and health in the workplace. The most popular programs are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Work at health Program and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthy Worksite Program (Lang, 2017).
Although linkages between workplace flexibility and work-related outcomes (such as job satisfaction, turnover intentions, etc.) have been studied extensively scholars have only begun to investigate the relationship between workplace flexibility policies and various health behaviors (Moen et al., 2013, Nielsen & Abildgaard, 2013). In their study on the evaluation of training packages to promote health and wellbeing, Gartshore, Briggs and Blake (2017) found that participants related better health and wellbeing to improved productivity, staff retention, patient care and teamwork.
Conversely, poor health and wellbeing was associated with reduced quality of patient care, unsafe practices and low morale. Benefits were seen to be for the employer, teams and individual health professionals. The authors also found that negative influences that hindered access to health and wellbeing services and engagement in healthy lifestyle behaviors included: missed breaks, shift work, limited time and heavy workload, unhealthy eating habits, dehydration and poor work–life balance. By providing employees greater control over when and where they work, it should facilitate employees’ opportunity to decrease harmful and increase positive health related behaviors. That is why, evidence on the relationship between flexibility and health behavior is inconsistent (Gilchrist et al., 2015; Nielsen & Abildgaard, 2013).
Sickness presenteeism is a phenomenon that is determined by multiple factors. A group of factors that we assume to play a special role in the occurrence of presenteeism are work-related factors. It has often been proposed that job demands are an important causal factor of presenteeism. For instance, presenteeism can result from understaffing or insufficient resources. It has also been found that employees tend to go to work regardless of health problems in particular when they experience high time pressure or fear due to job insecurity. Furthermore, we assume that the relationship between the areas of work life and presenteeism is mediated by both physical and mental health (Pohling et al., 2015).
People whose time is characterized by prolonged, uninterrupted sedentary behaviors are at higher risk for adverse health outcomes compared to those with lower sedentary time (Dutta et al., 2015). Nevertheless, there is evidence that breaking up prolonged sedentary time improves intermediate risk factors for metabolic disease. There is existing research related to pre-existing health conditions, such as sleep apnea, and its impact workplace wellbeing. Employees with existing health issues had taken more sick leave and showed lower productivity levels compared to participants without sleep apnea. Nevertheless, workplace accidents occurred at a similar rate for both groups (Jurado-Gámez, Guglielmi, Gude & Buela-Casal, 2015).
Additionally, poor employee health is associated with productivity loss. Efficient work environments can decrease turnover and absenteeism rates as well as increase productivity, perceived health, employee motivation, and organizational commitment (Chen et al., 2015). The results of their research show that absenteeism varied depending on the level of perceived health support. Furthermore, they found that those without any absences also felt the most supported and have the highest productivity levels in their work. They also observed that higher perceived workplace support for healthy living and physical activity was associated with lower presenteeism.
Puig-Ribera et al. (2015) explored the influence of sitting time and physical activity on mental wellbeing and productivity in office employees. The results conveyed that more physical activity was correlated to higher levels of mental health, work productivity and less sitting time at work as well as during the week and weekends. Physical activity is more likely to happen as part of a non-traditional work schedule.
Gilchrist et al. (2015) performed a study to determine if the workspace setting, views, and green spaces utilization would contribute to the employees’ wellbeing. The researchers found that having open spaces to work as well as views of green areas such as trees, grass, plants, and flowers were positively correlated to the wellbeing of employees. Spending more time outdoors in green space during the working day related to higher wellbeing.
There is a broad body of literature in psychology and medicine that analyzes the effects of nature in general and urban green space in particular on people's health and wellbeing (Bertram & Rehdanz, 2015; McDowell, 2010). General findings underline that contact with nature and urban green space can have various positive impacts on human health and wellbeing. Firstly, contact with nature has psychological benefits, health benefits, and can influence physical activity.
In regards to the relationship between non-traditional work settings wellbeing, previous research explored several situations. Non-traditional workplaces provide employees freedom with respect to ‘when they work (schedule flexibility), where they work (telecommuting), and via which communication medium (smart-phone, e-mail, videoconference) they work’. These changes in the organizational structure of work can alter work outcomes, including employee wellbeing (Eaves, Gyi & Gibb, 2016; Hoeven & Zoonen, 2015).
Less discussed is the potential for telecommuting to have a negative impact on employee health. Employees who work from home may adopt such health habits as overeating, eating less nutritious food, and smoking, because there are fewer social cues to limit these behaviors. Employees who work from home may also work more hours, because there is no set time to return at the end of the day. Thus, telecommuters may actually have less time to exercise or participate in other activities that maintain or improve their health (Eaves et al., 2016; Trimi, 2017; Woolnough, 2017).
Similarly, Anderson et al. (2014) established that determining the extent to which work location influences employee affective wellbeing can provide insight into telework through which organizations could impact employee well-being and business outcomes. They found that there are several aspects of the telework environment that may lead to increased frequency of positive events and therefore result in more positive emotions. The overall characteristics of the telework environment (increased autonomy, control, schedule flexibility, decreased interruptions, and increased ability to accomplish goals) suggest that teleworking should be associated with increased experiences of positive events (Martin, Karainika-Murray, Biron & Sanderson, 2014).
In addition, employees who work from home may be less aware of the ergonomics of their home office and other job safety concerns, which may lead to muscular pain or avoidable accidents. Telecommuters may also be at increased risk for social isolation and for having fewer relationships with coworkers. This reduced social connection may lead to an increased risk for depression and stress (Henke et al., 2016). Nevertheless, the authors found evidence that telecommuting might reduce health risks. Specifically, they found that prime-time telecommuters who work 8 hours per month or less were more likely than non-telecommuters to reduce their risk for depression over time. This not only represents a benefit to employees but employers would benefit too from haring a healthier, less stressed workforce as sickness, stress and attrition levels would fall (Woolnough, 2017).
Lastly, in recent decades the outcomes used to evaluate worker effectiveness have expanded beyond task performance to include additional considerations, such as counterproductive workplace behavior. Counterproductive workplace behaviors are voluntary acts intended to harm the organization or its employees, and involve theft, lateness, interpersonal abuse, and sabotage (O’neill, Hambley & Bercovich, 2014). The development of occupational health psychology, as an extension of traditional biomedical perspectives, has historically been dominated by an emphasis on the individual. Consequently, interventions designed to improve the psychosocial work environment in order to prevent employee mental ill health also typically consider interventions at a single level (Martin et al., 2014). The balance between individual and organizational needs must be maintained if wellbeing is not to suffer. There is a powerful link between job insecurity and low wellbeing and some developments in agile employment practice can carry risks in this regard (Lang, 2017; Litchfield et al., 2016).
All in all, there are clear benefits to individual workers from promoting wellbeing in the workplace, both in terms of the quality of the work itself and the provision of an environment that encourages healthy behaviors. There are many factors that influence productivity but worker wellbeing can certainly impact on economic output.
There has been a growing awareness that the business benefits from improving wellbeing can be much greater than just cost control (Litchfield et al., 2016). Taking an interest in employee health is a potent driver of workforce trust and improving levels of wellbeing has been shown to be associated with more sustained levels of engagement and performance (Macleod & Clarke, 2014).
Technology can be an enabler for different ways of working but it is mindsets that need to be updated if work is to be organized so as to realize the benefits to wellbeing while meeting business needs (Litchfield et al., 2016). Although there have been several calls for incorporating multiple levels of analysis in employee health and wellbeing research, studies examining the interplay between individual, workgroup, organizational and broader societal factors in relation to employee mental health outcomes remain an exception rather than the norm (Martin et al., 2014).
Summary
The ubiquitous nature and use of technology in contemporary societies continues to transform lives and work environments (Hynes, 2016). Places of work have been completely transformed in recent years from traditional offices to flex-desks and open office spaces to working from home, telecommuting, virtual work and agile work. This shift has occurred through the various innovations in new electronic tools and ever-present access to data over the Internet (Honan, 2015).
In efforts to improve employee recruitment and retention and enhance productivity and wellbeing, organizations have implemented policies and practices (e.g. flextime, telework to address employee work-life concerns). However, there is mixed evidence regarding their effectiveness (Friedman & Westring, 2015).
Evidently, there are areas of convergence and divergence as well as gaps in the literature that support the need for the study. Even though most of the existing literature on non-traditional workspaces supports this new work tendency, there are some areas on contention that have started to surface.
Firstly, the traditional way of working remains the dominant working practice regime in contemporary society (Hynes, 2016). There is little evidence to suggest this regime is under threat, with some indication the traditional way of working has even consolidated its dominant position over the recent past. Working at a central location has been deeply embedded since the beginning of the industrial revolution and remains unchallenged despite the fact many knowledge workers perform tasks and work in jobs where the resultant outputs are not necessarily needed at that particular location.
Secondly, there is feeling of isolation among teleworkers and practitioners adopt unique coping mechanisms and rarely complain about their working arrangements. This can be attributed to the practice's lack of legitimacy and a feeling that to work from home is somewhat the gift of employers. However, teleworkers frequently work longer hours without remuneration and feel obliged to be available to colleagues and management out-of-office hours (Hynes, 2016).
In addition, while the technology to work from home has been widely available for some time, there is continuing reluctance and apprehension on the part of many employers, and indeed employees, to embrace telework.
Lastly, the landscape of counterproductive workplace behavior is changing with the rapid integration of advanced communication technologies in the modern workforce. Specifically, employers are increasingly allowing employees to spend some work time at home, and to stay connected with the office through communication technologies. These telework arrangements bring about a new form of counterproductive workplace behaviors, namely, cyberslacking (O’neill et al., 2014).
On the other hand, many positive considerations of non-traditional work environments and new ways of working have surfaced by examining previous research. Al Horr et al. (2016), conveyed that the use of non-traditional settings demonstrate to be very efficient for many organizations as they help reduce employee absenteeism and staff turnover. In addition, they increase occupant productivity and satisfaction, thus increasing the perceived health and wellbeing of their occupants. Similarly, Blok et al. (2012) explain that new ways of working enable flexibility in the time and location of work as well as employee empowerment to enhance productivity growth.
The concepts of agile working, telecommuting, remote work, non-traditional settings, and new ways of working, were born from need and it is said to be about working more flexibly across time and space and about working ‘differently’ (Jeyasingham, 2016). Furthermore, these work settings helps us prepare for generational and societal changes where work will be presented with some challenges in regards to economic, social and demographic changes. Employees everywhere will find themselves in an age of transition driven by new technological opportunities (Khallash and Kruse, 2012). Optimistically, the future of work will bring about a place where everybody works in a high-tech world and where old work structures disappear.
Besides numerous research studies in productivity and some new ways of working, to date, no known research has explored differences in workplaces such as traditional and non-traditional and how this may impact productivity and perceived wellbeing (Kim et al, 2016). Evidently, there is need for further studies on telework and other non-traditional work environments to fully appreciate its impacts and consequences (Hynes, 2016).
The current study will fill this gap by examining this relationship through a quasi-experimental research project to further what is understood about the relationship between workplace settings and perceived wellbeing and productivity so as to provide data that may contribute to the development of a more robust theoretical framework.
The following chapter will discuss the research methodology and design that will be used in this research proposal.