Flexibility and Work-Life Balance – Opportunities and Threats

Abstract

Purpose: Flexibility of organizational behaviour of employees is most often treated as a homogeneous category, without taking into account diff erences in its form and scope. However, it should be noted that various forms of fl exibility have various consequences. The purpose of this article is to describe the opportunities and threats of fl exible behaviour in the perspective of the organization and for the work-life balance of employees.Methodology/Approach: The paper presents a deductive model of analysis based on in-depth literature studies in management, psychology and sociology. Findings, implications/limitations:The fi rst part of the paper outlines the implications of fl exibility in general terms identifying them as potential opportunities and threats in the perspective of employees and organizations. Particular attention has been paid to the challenges of contamination of the spheres of life and the resulting confl icts. The second part of the paper discusses the implications of the indicated types of fl exibility of organizational behaviour of employees. Such variation in description seems to be particularly important from the point of view of the analysis of the consequences, since it allows the identifi ed eff ects to be assigned to specifi c categories and thus to be accurately identifi ed.

Work–Life Enrichment and Interference Among Swedish Workers: Trends From 2016 Until the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Studies from before the pandemic show that remote work begets flexibility and autonomy and is suggested to be beneficial in reducing interference between work and private life (Hayman, 2009 ; Januszkiewicz, 2019 ). On the other side, studies from before the pandemic also show that remote work means that employees are in continuous connection to work through mobile phones or laptops, leading to more interference (Van der Lippe and Lippényi, 2020 ).…”