As the world of work changes in response to forces like globalization, technological advances and competition, more and more workplaces are experimenting with new work arrangements. The goal may be to better equip a company to deal with the new business climate through increased flexibility or productivity. It might be primarily to improve the quality of working life for people struggling to cope with conflicting responsibilities. Sometimes these arrangements are seen as a way to create or protect jobs, or to hold on to skilled, experienced workers.

While changes in work arrangements and working time are of increasing interest to both business and labour (and to academics, governments, and individual Canadians), most of the evidence is anecdotal.

This report looks at several Canadian workplaces where labour and management have tailored their own working arrangements to reflect their own needs, environments, challenges and goals. In each case, the study looks at the impact of these new arrangements on employment, stress, costs, and productivity. A number of common principles and elements emerge when the individual cases are examined comparatively. These elements may prove useful to other workplaces as they consider introducing new work arrangements.

The report adds significantly to the body of data available for analysis of the impacts, costs and benefits of alternative approaches to work arrangements and working time. It establishes an important link between the changes occurring in the labour market and business environment, and specific attempts to control change in the workplace. It sketches the elements of a framework for developing successful new work arrangements in the workplace. It also highlights gaps in the current knowledge base, and identifies areas where more research is needed in order to understand the longer term implications of these arrangements.

The project has been directed by a joint labour-business Task Force of the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre - CLMPC (now the Canadian Labour and Business Centre). Its impetus came from the earlier work of the Advisory Group on Working Time and the Distribution of Work ( December 1994; report prepared for the Minister of Human Resources Development Canada), which recommended that CLMPC spearhead further discussion of the issues from a joint business-labour perspective. The CLMPC Board determined that further work in this area was consistent with its own planned work program, and undertook to do research to add to the information base on this subject. Much of the data was compiled for the CLMPC Task Force by the Centre for International Statistics using previously-unpublished microdata from the 1995 Statistics Canada Survey of Work Arrangements. CLMPC's project was financially supported by HRDC.

The business environment and the labour market are changing rapidly. Even the public sector is reshaping itself in the face of shifting fiscal and political realities. Changes in the workplace, including new approaches to work arrangements and working time, must be seen as part of a broader and dramatic process of change sweeping through the economy.

Changing business environment

Companies that want to ensure their long term viability need the flexibility to respond to changing market and technological circumstances. Flexibility is an underlying goal for most organizations interested in new work arrangements. New communication and information technologies and innovative process technologies demand greater flexibility in scheduling work in non-standard hours. Technology has also altered the very nature of the employer-employee relationship.

Customer expectations are changing as well. To stay competitive, organizations must be able to meet customer demands for quality services and products using new technologies such as the Internet and new strategies such as "niche" production in a globalized marketplace.

In a business context, changes in work arrangements are usually looked at in terms of their costs, and whether they will contribute to the overall efficiency and productivity of the operation.

Changes in the labour market

In the 1980s and 1990s the labour market has undergone significant evolution, including in the number and types of jobs available, and the nature of work itself. Persistent high levels of unemployment and shrinking real incomes have contributed to a widely shared sense of personal economic insecurity amongst many Canadians.

As a proportion of total employment, part time work has risen from 13 percent in 1977 to 18.9 percent in 1996. Women (28.2 percent) and younger workers aged 15 to 24 years (45 percent) are especially engaged in part time jobs. Although many workers choose to work part time for a variety of reasons, more and more people are accepting part time work because they cannot find full time jobs. Temporary work, which often involves fewer benefits and lower pay as well as lessened job security; multiple jobs; and self-employment have also increased in recent years.

The distribution of working hours has become more polarized. The proportion of people working a traditional 35-40 hour work week declined from 65 percent in 1976 to 54 percent in 1995. More people are working longer (over 40 hours a week), and more people are working less (fewer than 35 hours a week). Some observers see a redistribution of working hours as a way to address unemployment and job creation concerns.

Canadian workers are experiencing greater stress as a result of competing demands on their time, particularly family-work responsibilities. This is especially the case for women who spend an average 17 years caring for a dependent child and a further 18 years caring for an elderly parent. Other time pressures affect people, pursuing education and skills upgrading, or workers who have to absorb extra duties after a downsizing.

The traditional notion of an exchange between employer and employee - job and economic security in return for loyalty and productivity - is being eroded as a result of the changing work environment and its resulting stresses.

These trends in the business environment and labour market imply significant challenges for companies, workers and governments. Social divisions between those with "good" jobs and those in contingent jobs may emerge, and government's ability to manage these divisions will be limited. Initiatives affecting the distribution of work and new work arrangements are important for social as well as business reasons. In the workplace, they represent a means by which individuals can exercise some control over their jobs and their lives.

Labour concerns center around:

Business interest in new work arrangements stems from a need for:

Analyzing unpublished data from the 1995 Statistics Canada Survey of Work Arrangements, and other sources, an interesting picture of new work arrangements across the economy emerged.

Flexible work schedules (flextime) are followed by about 25 percent of the workforce, although it is most predominant amongst professionals and white collar workers. Flextime is designed so that starting and finishing times are varied around a set of core hours, although the number of hours worked remains constant. It is seen as helping individuals to manage competing time pressures of work, family, career and social interests. It is associated with lower stress levels and improved employee morale.

Home-based work (telework or flexwork) allows employees to perform their work away from the centralized office, often at home but sometimes in satellite offices or in transit. It is used by about 10 percent of the work force, ranging from teachers and professional staff to textile workers and customer service operators. The specific work arrangements vary enormously. Issues surrounding home work include employment standards, health and safety concerns, and legal issues (e.g. are workers employees or contract workers?); workers give different reasons for choosing to work way from the office.

Compressed work weeks usually imply the same number of hours worked in fewer days per week, although this arrangement is sometimes applied to shift work. Ten percent of the work force follow compressed work weeks. The arrangement is often identified as contributing to higher levels of time stress, especially for workers trying to accommodate work and family responsibilities. They might be better suited to accommodating career and social interests. Nonetheless, some unions and companies continue to explore the option.

Reduced work weeks mean a fewer number of days or reduced number of hours worked per day. Unions in particular often see this option as a way to free up hours that can be used to create employment opportunities for the unemployed, reduce layoffs, etc. Employers argue that such arrangements add substantially to costs. In Canada, there are few examples of reduced work weeks, and many questions need to be answered concerning the costs and benefits of such arrangements.

Shift arrangements affect approximately one quarter of workers in Canada, and are a necessary part of continuous production processes. Shifts have been introduced to minimize layoffs or to create job opportunities. Shift work does not appear to have a correlation to time stress. Overtime is a key issue in changing shift arrangements.

Job sharing is an arrangement where two or more people agree to share a job at a pro-rated level of compensation. Since it implies a lower income and benefits level, few people practice this option - fewer than 2 percent of Canadian workers are job sharers. However, it can provide an individual with more time for family responsibilities or other interests and obligations.

Part time workers usually work fewer than thirty hours a week. It has increased steadily in recent years, with 19 percent of workers now holding part time jobs. Arrangements vary enormously. Employers like the flexibility such arrangements provide, and employees report lower stress levels. However, incomes are lower and employment/income security is often compromised.

Five workplaces, from different industrial settings and in different contexts of change, provided an important body of evidence related to new work arrangements in Canada. A comparative analysis of the data has drawn out a number of consistent elements concerning the features and factors involved in successfully developing work arrangements and new approaches to working time. ( For details on the individual cases, see the companion report, Case Studies in Alternative Working Arrangements and Changes in Working Time).

Notes:

CEP: Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada
CUPE: Canadian Union of Public Employees
IWA: Industrial Wood and Allied Workers
SNEAA: Syndicat national des employés de l'aluminium d'Arvida inc.

While the contexts of change varied, in all cases there was a recognition on the business side that operational activities had to be changed and new practices introduced. Concern on the labour side reflected the importance of jobs as well as the stress many employees were experiencing.

The two cases that address principally the question of job losses are Alcan-SNEAA and InterFor-IWA . At Alcan, an innovative work sharing program saw a voluntary hours bank established to hire back workers who had been laid off. Seventy percent of the workers participate, and more than 100 jobs have resulted. At the same time, changes in work organization and in trades classifications provided the company with more flexibility in production.

At InterFor, layoffs from a major restructuring were minimized by changing shift arrangements and by using some provincial government support to create jobs in forestry activity. Fewer than 40 layoffs are now anticipated, down from the initial projection of about 200 (out of a work force of 650). The restructuring has allowed the company to improve the efficiency of its operations and achieve more control over production quality.

The Royal Bank Financial Group, the Toronto Star, and the City of Winnipeg cases illustrate new work arrangements designed to address work-family issues and time pressures. In each case, the approach used reflected the specific culture and nature of the industry. The Royal Bank Financial Group, which is non-unionized, developed the new arrangements in consultation with its employees, while the other two examples were the result of collective bargaining.

Job sharing is used in all three cases; flextime in two cases; and home based work in one. All three made changes to part time work arrangements.

An important feature of all three cases is that the precise arrangements were worked out between the individual managers and employees, within the framework of the collective agreement (or, in the case of the Royal Bank Financial Group, company policy guidelines).

In all five cases, participants saw the development of new work arrangements as a vital part of a new relationship between labour and management. Both sides recognized, sometimes in retrospect, that as a result of the new arrangements, an improved relationship had evolved between the union (where it existed) and management.

The case studies highlighted a number of common elements of success. These elements are summarized as seven important principles that were part of the ongoing discussion between the labour and business members of the Task Force:

The evidence on new work arrangements from these case studies and from the Survey of Work Arrangements provides new information on how work is likely to be structured in the future. The research also identifies gaps where more work must be undertaken, especially in the following areas:

New work arrangements represent one area where individuals, unions and organizations can affect the distribution of work in response to changing labour markets and business environments. These arrangements are complements to other important factors that can shape the future of work, including education, training, general economic policies and the industrial relations climate.

This report argues that such arrangements can:

It is possible for both business and labour to achieve some of their objectives through discussions around new work arrangements.

The work of this Task Force has mapped out some common ground and a framework of principles for future research and discussion of the implications for labour and business of economy wide change.