Abstract
Flexible work accommodations provided by employers purport to help individuals struggling to manage work and family demands. The underlying model for change is accommodation-helping individuals accommodate their work demands with no changes in the structure of work or cultural expectations of ideal workers. The purpose of this article is to derive a Work Redesign Model and compare it with the Accommodation Model. This article centers around two change initiatives-Predictability, Teaming and Open Communication and Results Only Work Environment-that alter the structure and culture of work in ways that enable better work and better lives.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 111-134 |
| Number of pages | 24 |
| Journal | Work and Occupations |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Kelly’s research was supported through the Work, Family and Health Network ( www.WorkFamilyHealthNetwork.org ), a cooperative agreement of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grants U01HD051217 , U01HD051218 , U01HD051256 , and U01HD051276 ), National Institute on Aging (Grant U01AG027669 ), and Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Grants U01OH008788 and U01HD059773 ). Kelly gratefully acknowledges support from the Minnesota Population Center ( 5R24HD041023 ) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as well. Perlow’s research was conducted at the Boston Consulting Group. The original project was done with no financial support between 2004 and 2007. However, after the success of the four experiments, the focus of the research included in our article, the company decided to expand the initiative during 2008. Perlow was paid as a consultant during the early period of this expansion. Subsequently, the project that was ignited by Perlow’s original experiments has continued to grow and between 2009 and 2012 Perlow continued to study the expansion of these experiments, but solely as a researcher with no financial interest. The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of these institutes and offices.
Keywords
- accommodation
- flexibility
- organizational change
- work redesign