CURRENT TRENDS IN TALENT MANAGEMENT

Continuous Learning and Development: Personalized learning in alignment with an employee’s

chosen career path allows individuals to take charge of their educational experiences while
working toward their next career milestone. This level of employee development customization
fosters a more engaged and motivated workforce that’s motivated to achieve.
A critical element of making personalized learning journeys possible is upskilling and reskilling
initiatives. The rapid advancement of technology and evolving job landscapes require a
proactive approach to acquiring new skills. Upskilling, the process of enhancing existing skills,
and reskilling, the acquisition of entirely new skills, are paramount in ensuring talent remains
competitive and adaptable.
Engaging Employee Experiences: One of the most important elements of a company’s success
relies solely on the employee experience. Recognizing that satisfied and engaged
employees contribute to overall success, businesses are adopting a holistic approach — from
onboarding to daily operations and professional development.
Another is by designing strategic approaches to enhance employee satisfaction. By applying
empathetic problem-solving and iterative processes, organizations tailor experiences to meet
the unique needs of their workforce, fostering increased engagement and motivation.
In addition, investing in the overall health and success of individual employees — whether
through perks or career development opportunities — businesses actively shift their core values
and beliefs, attracting and retaining top talent while contributing to a more vibrant and resilient
organizational ecosystem.
Strategic Succession Planning: Succession planning stands as a linchpin in unlocking the latent
potential within an organization's workforce, offering a strategic roadmap for sustainable
growth. By meticulously identifying and nurturing internal talent, leaders can mitigate the
uncertainties associated with external hires, ensuring a seamless transition when key positions
need to be filled.
This proactive approach not only minimizes the disruption that often accompanies leadership
changes but also aligns the chosen successors with the organization's culture and values.
Succession planning transcends the traditional model of talent acquisition, fostering a culture of
continuous development and empowerment.
Through targeted training, mentorship programs, and skill enhancement initiatives, leaders can
mold a pipeline of qualified individuals ready to step into critical roles, safeguarding the
company's stability and fortifying its foundation for future success. In this way, succession
planning becomes a strategic imperative, harmonizing organizational goals with individual
career trajectories and solidifying a cohesive and resilient workforce.
Agile Performance Management Processes: Organisations are shifting to a culture of constant
improvement and continuous feedback loops to foster transparency.
At the same time, agile goal-setting strategies are being implemented to empower teams to
adapt swiftly to shifting priorities. By recognizing that goals are fluid and responsive to industry
changes, organizations can adopt flexible frameworks that allow for necessary adjustments.
However, individuals and new systems need some help when providing support to shift and
tackle new goals or priorities. A technology-driven approach not only simplifies administrative
processes, but also positions organizations to proactively drive change, keeping their workforce
adaptable, engaged, and ready for the challenges of the future.
Data Driven Decision-Making: Real-time data and analytics are the main differentiating factors
between businesses doing well and organizations that are thriving. Analytics provides valuable
insights into workforce performance, enabling organizations to make informed, data-driven
decisions that extend beyond identifying successors and filling critical roles.
Real-time data allows for swift adaptation to changing circumstances, facilitating agile talent
management strategies. By harnessing AI-driven HR tools, organizations can identify trends,
forecast future talent needs, and optimize their human resources to align with broader business
goals.
In a landscape where talent is a critical asset, the ability to leverage analytics and real-time data
empowers companies to stay ahead of the curve, ensuring that talent management decisions
are not only strategic but also responsive to the evolving needs of the organization and the
market.
Employee Well-Being and Mental Health: Companies are stepping up their game, realizing that
a healthy workforce is a happy and productive one. From yoga classes to mindfulness sessions,
employers are investing in programs that go beyond the conventional to address the holistic
well-being of their employees. It's not just a trend; it's a recognition that to thrive in the
workplace, our mental health needs a seat at the table. There is a profound impact work has on
our mental health. It's not just about getting the job done; it's about recognizing the toll it takes
on our minds and emotions.
Talent Acquisition and Talent Management Alignment: A successful talent acquisition strategy
should be informed by the current state of a workforce ie. from what skills are available to skills
gaps and potential successors in different departments.
By aligning efforts to focus on hiring not only best-fit candidates but also the right talent that
will fill critical skill gaps or become a mentor for employees not yet ready to step into their next
identified role, talent acquisition teams can be strategic about hiring efforts.
Leveraging AI is one of the best ways to boost efficiencies in the TA process by analyzing
datasets to identify candidates whose skills and experiences precisely match the organization’s
requirements. This approach ensures both TA and TM teams are working together, effectively
facilitating a seamless integration of talent into the broader talent management framework.
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Initiatives: A great work environment should be welcoming
and comfortable — especially for companies with in-person employees either on a full time or
hybrid work schedule. One major factor of creating a comfortable work environment lies in its
diversity and inclusion. But creating a diverse workforce doesn’t happen overnight and it
doesn’t happen by accident.
It requires a diligent initiative that is executed with talent management and talent acquisition
alignment using AI-driven tools to remove unconscious bias, allowing an objective hiring
approach to emerge that overrides any subjective elements.
By promoting diversity through AI recruiting, organizations can not only meet ethical standards
but also enhance their adaptability and innovation. Inclusive hiring can then be followed up
with employee resource groups (ERGs) and other resources that cultivate a welcoming
environment for all employees. For example, Recruitment chatbots can help engage candidates
and provide more details about job postings, while Natural Language Processing (NLP) helps
users compose job postings, offers tips to make postings more attractive to candidates and
improves chatbot response accuracy.
Employer Branding: A strong employer brand is essential for attracting top talent. Talent
management professionals collaborate with marketing teams to showcase the organization’s
values, mission, and unique culture, resonating with candidates and reinforcing employee
loyalty.
Remote Work and Hybrid Models: The pandemic accelerated the adoption of remote work,
presenting new challenges for talent management. Organizations are now focusing on
managing virtual teams, maintaining collaboration, and ensuring employee well-being by
implementing hybrid work models that combine remote and in-office work.
Leadership Development: Effective leadership is crucial for organizational success. Talent
management trends prioritize identifying and nurturing future leaders through development
programs emphasizing emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and adaptability.

EMPLOYEE RETENTION/ATTRITION
Retaining valuable employees is a top priority for every organization, but it’s especially critical in
sectors that face severe worker shortages, such as construction, education, healthcare, and
transportation. Leaders must take steps to improve employee retention to stay competitive—
and, ultimately, to stay in business.
Employee retention refers to an organization’s ability to hold on to its people and reduce
turnover. Employers can improve their retention numbers in several ways, including by offering
competitive compensation and benefits, creating a positive workplace culture, giving workers
some flexibility with where and when they work, formally recognizing high achievers, and
promoting work-life balance.
Too many employers only pay lip service to the idea that their people are their greatest asset.
But the most astute employers nurture their people and make employee retention one of the
company’s metrics and values. Retaining skilled employees is key to every organization’s ability
to execute efficiently, innovate, and maintain a competitive advantage. A company with high
employee retention spends less time and money finding and training new hires and hangs on to
valuable institutional knowledge—both of which can help the business succeed.
Retaining employees and keeping staff turnover low requires a strong focus on employee
engagement and fulfillment.

Significance of Employee Retention

Employee retention plays a large role in the success and sustainability of every organization.
Companies with high employee turnover risk financial instability because the cost of recruiting,
onboarding, and training new hires can be considerable. So too are the opportunity costs of
losing business because of understaffing.
Employee morale can also suffer when people see their colleagues leave, especially if they’re
forced to take on extra work as a result. Poor morale saps productivity.
The loss of institutional knowledge and continuity can slow down a business at the most critical
times. It’s during moments of crisis or emerging opportunity that experienced team members
shine brightest, seeing what needs to be done and knowing when and how to take the right
actions. Companies with poor retention risk losing the valuable insights and proven skills those
veteran employees bring.
High turnover rates can also damage a company's reputation. Customers may perceive the
steady stream of new faces as a sign of instability, which can erode brand loyalty and negatively
impact sales. By retaining top-performing and highly skilled employees, companies stand a
better chance of maintaining or improving productivity, efficiency, and innovation.

Determinants of Employee Stays

First, within the company, there is the issue of job satisfaction. Second, there is the “company
environment” and the degree of comfort an individual employee feels within it. An employee’s
inertia is strengthened or weakened by the degree of compatibility between his own work ethic
and the values for which the company stands. The employee’s ethic derives from his own values
and the actual conditions he encounters on the job. The company’s values derive from societal
norms, formal decisions by the board of directors, and the policies and procedures of the
managing group. A widening gap between these two vantages weakens inertia; a narrowing gap
strengthens it.

Outside the company, one must consider an employee’s perceived job opportunities in other
institutions. An employee’s perceptions of his outside job opportunities are influenced by real
changes in the job market and by self-imposed restrictions and personal criteria. Some
employees refuse to consider work in other locations because “I like the schools” or “I like my
neighborhood.” These reasons not only strengthen inertia to stay with their present
organization, but also strengthen inertia to stay with any organization within the same school
district or neighborhood. However, if schools lose their appeal because of drug problems or
neighborhoods become run down or polluted, the inertia to stay in the area is weakened, and,
consequently, outside job opportunities become relatively more attractive.

In addition, outside the company, there are nonwork factors that directly affect inertia, such as
financial responsibilities, family ties, friendships, and community relations. Some workers told
us, for example, that they would never leave their companies because they were born and
reared in their present locale. Others said they stayed because they had children in local
schools, could not afford to quit, or had good friends at work. Many of these employees also
reported low job satisfaction and yet they stay.

Other Viable Reasons

Competitive Compensation and Benefits: Fair and competitive compensation packages,
including salary, bonuses, and benefits, play a crucial role in employee retention. When
employees feel adequately rewarded for their contributions, they are less likely to seek
opportunities elsewhere. They are also less likely to take the bait from recruiters proactively
reaching out to talent.
Growth and Development Opportunities: Employees find value in having opportunities for
career growth and professional development. Companies that invest in their employees' growth
through training programs, mentorship, and advancement opportunities create a conducive
environment for employee retention.
Workplace recognition: Recognizing and appreciating employees' efforts and achievements can
significantly influence satisfaction and loyalty.
Providing regular feedback, rewards, and recognition programs are all strategies to help workers
feel seen in the workplace. These types of efforts can create a more positive work environment
and promote greater employee retention.
Work-life balance: Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is a priority for most employees.
Companies that offer flexible work arrangements, promote work-life balance initiatives, and
prioritize employee well-being are more likely to retain their workforce.
Meaningful and challenging work: Employees are more likely to stay with a company when
they are engaged in challenging and meaningful work that aligns with their skills and interests.
When employees find their work fulfilling, they are motivated to stay and contribute to the
organization's success.
Job security: In a time when mass layoffs may be in the news, employees especially value job
security and stability. Companies that provide a stable work environment, demonstrate financial
stability, and offer long-term career prospects tend to retain their employees.
Commitment to Transparency: When employees feel that they can trust their company's
leadership and have access to open and honest communication, they are more likely to stay
committed to the organization. This makes establishing trust and fostering transparent
communication significant for improving employee retention.
Strong Company Values and Culture: Employees tend to prefer working for an organization that
is aligned with their own values. Additionally, organizations that have a strong, positive culture
and promote inclusivity, diversity, and ethical practices tend to better retain their employees.
Supportive Leadership: Effective leadership and supportive management are vital in retaining
employees. When employees feel heard, valued, and supported by their supervisors, they are
more likely to remain loyal to the company. When they feel disconnected from leadership and
the direction of the company, they are less engaged and more likely to seek new opportunities.
Supportive Colleagues: Positive relationships with colleagues and a supportive team
environment contribute to employee satisfaction and retention. Companies that focus on
encouraging collaboration and teamwork create a sense of belonging that encourages
employees to stay longer and engage more with their work.

Key Causes of Employee Attrition

Employee attrition refers to the departure of workers from a company due to events such as
resignation and retirement. High employee attrition means a company has poor employee
retention. Exit interviews are a valuable way to understand why employees are leaving.
Departing employees will likely cite one or more of the following reasons:
• Insufficient pay and/or benefits
• Poor work-life balance
• Lack of career growth or opportunities
• Inadequate recognition or rewards
• Better job opportunities elsewhere
• Monotonous, unchallenging work
• Fear about the company’s strategy or financial health
• Burnout
• Ineffective management

Labour Turn-Over Costs

Costing turnover is complex and will need to be tailored to the organisation, but costs may
include:
• The management and administration of voluntary resignations: The processing of the
resignation including responding to the letter, notification of payroll, exit interviewing.
• Recruitment of Replacements: Job analysis, review and preparation of job description and
person specification, advertising costs, corresponding with applicants.
• Selection of replacements: Shortlisting, administration of the selection process, management
and administration time spent in applying the selection methods.
• Administration associated with starting employees: The letter of appointment, drawing up
the contract of employment, preparation of new starter pack.
• Induction of new employees: The costs of central, departmental and job-specific induction.
• Training of new Employees: On-the-job and Off-the-job training, mentoring, appraisal, review,
monitoring required until the new employee reaches acceptable performance standards.
• Cover for the job while positions are unfilled: The costs of temporary employees, the
administration of the acquisition of temporary workers, the management of the temporary
workers.

Employee Retention and Employee Experience

The employee experience is the cumulative result of the daily interactions employees have
within an organization’s culture and work environment. It encompasses the entire employee
lifecycle, from recruitment through onboarding, training, professional development,
performance evaluations, promotions, exiting, and even their experience as an alum.
The employee experience is shaped by a wide range of factors, including first impressions during
onboarding and training, employee-manager relationships and communications, benefits such
as paid time off and healthcare, and career development opportunities, including promotions,
salary increases, and new assignments. Employee retention is closely related to the employee
experience. Quality workers are more likely to leave their jobs if their day-to-day experiences
with colleagues and management don’t match their expectations.

Benefits of Employee Retention

There are several of the benefits organizations stand to reap from keeping their most talented
and skilled people.
• Better Process Efficiency: Employees that have been with an organization for a long time
know how things work and how to get things done.
• Higher Employee Productivity: Long-time employees are usually more efficient and make
fewer mistakes than newer ones, who typically need time to get acclimated to the company
and its work processes.
• Higher Morale: When employees stay on the job for some time, they tend to feel a sense of
belonging, which can contribute to higher morale. High employee turnover rates, however,
can demoralize the people who remain, as they see their colleagues leave and often have to
cover for them.
• Lower Costs: The hard costs of employee turnover, including recruitment and training, vary
by employer, industry, and position. Estimates of the cost to replace a person put the
general range at one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary. That doesn’t take into
account the costs of lower productivity (due to lower employee morale, higher burnout, and
lost institutional knowledge) and lost business due to staff shortages and damage to the
employer’s reputation.
• A Better Experience for your Customers: People gravitate toward businesses they view as
stable and approachable, ones with which they’re able to develop a consistent relationship.
Companies with low employee turnover rates tend to have high engagement rates.
• Greater profitability: Recent research also shows that businesses with highly engaged
employees and low turnover rates are 23% more profitable than those with employees who
aren’t engaged.

Availability of Suitable Employees

Labour market conditions will determine the availability of suitable potential applicants.
Knowledge of the prevailing labour market conditions, for the range of staff employed within
the organisation, will determine the extent to which high turnover is a problem for the
organisation.
Recruiting in short labour markets create a problem but lowering selection criteria without
putting in place support for new recruits such as training, mentoring, coaching or shadowing
may only serve to exacerbate the problem. Recruiting inappropriate people by overselling the
job, appointing a candidate without the ability or potential to do the job or providing
inadequate induction or support to learn the job to a level where successful performance is
achieved can contribute to increased labour turnover because new employees will leave the
organisation, and potentially compound the problem by impacting adversely on the reputation
of the organisation as an employer.

Employee Retention Strategies

Refine Hiring and On-Boarding Processes: It’s important for employers to make a great first
impression. Needlessly lengthy and complicated interview processes are likely to cause job
candidates, especially the most in-demand ones, to go to nimbler competitors. Once employees
are hired, set them up for success by teaching them not only about the job and internal
processes but also about the company and how they fit in. Introduce them to colleagues. Take
them out to lunch. Assign them a mentor. Show them that the company culture is a nurturing,
engaging one.
Offer Competitive Pay and Benefits: Employers need to continuously benchmark what they’re
paying their people (including bonuses) against the going market and industry salaries for their
positions and adjust them accordingly.
Add Workplace Perks: Offering employees perks can help create a positive, energizing
workplace, one where people will want to stay for the long term. Popular perks include flexible
work schedules, the ability to work from home or from different locations, free food or
beverages at company offices, subsidized onsite or nearby daycare for children, after-hours
team sports leagues and social events, the opportunity to travel to live conferences or
workshops, tuition reimbursement or subsidies, and opportunities to do community service on
company time.
Improve Wellness Offerings: The pandemic challenged many organizations to offer new or
extended physical and mental health programs to support their employees’ well-being—for
example, stress management and nutrition programs, reimbursement for onsite or offsite
fitness or yoga classes, and onsite vaccinations.
Regular and Transparent Communication: The shift to remote and hybrid work hasn’t reduced
the importance of strong workplace communications, even if it has changed the channels we
use to communicate. Regardless of whether your workers are onsite, remote, or hybrid, they
should feel they can come to you at any time with ideas, questions, and concerns. And
organizations with remote and hybrid workers must make sure their workers still have
opportunities for engaging conversations and face-to-face interactions online.
Solicit Continuous Feedback and Provide Support: Every organization needs to gauge how
engaged its employees are and whether they’re invested in its success. Yearly surveys provide
some insights into workplace challenges that might cause employees to leave, but pulse surveys
are a better alternative. These surveys are conducted more frequently, tend to focus on a
particular topic, and can be used to drive timely changes. Pulse surveys also convey to
employees that the organization is interested in and responding to their input on an ongoing
basis and isn’t just going through the motions once a year.
Schedule Frequent Performance Check-Ins: Similar to the continuous feedback loop described
above, managers should schedule more-frequent performance discussions with their reports.
Frequent one-on-one meetings are an opportunity to talk with your people about their
professional goals.
Offer Training and Development: As part of helping their reports identify areas for professional
growth, managers should help them identify related training and development courses,
workshops, and other programs. Training and development programs not only help employers
retain their key people, but they also bring new and enhanced skills into the organization.
Weed Out Bad Managers: The cliché that “people don’t quit jobs, they quit managers” holds
truer than ever. Look for higher-than-average employee attrition in each department and figure
out whether poor managers are to blame. If they are, give them the training and support they
need to improve or replace them.
Recognize and Reward Top Performers: Everyone wants to feel appreciated for the excellent
work they do. At a minimum, take time to thank employees who go above and beyond. And by
formally recognizing and rewarding truly outstanding work with bonuses, promotions, awards,
and/or special perks or privileges you’ll not only increase the chance those employees will stay
with the organization, but you’ll also showcase a model for others to follow.
FLEXIBILITY AT WORK
Flexibility at work can be defined as: the ability of the organisation to adapt the size,
composition, responsiveness and cost of the people inputs required to achieve organisational
objectives.

The changing political, economic, social and global contexts of organisations have become
catalysts for stimulating changes in the way in which work is organised. One adaptive response
to these influences can be identified in trends in the changing patterns of work.
Dynamic working environments require more organic responses and the pursuit of flexibility at
work, in all its forms, can be viewed as another functional adaptation by the organisation to
these external environmental influences.
Other stimulants to wider organisation flexibility are;
• The pursuit of competitive advantage through organisational differentiation on people
performance, hence the concept of the lean organisation.
• A shift from masses production to flexible specialization in production processes.
• Demographic and Social changes, such as a changing age profile in European employment,
increasing female participation in the labour market, concern with work–life balance and
lifestyle changes including an increased expectation of a 24/7 society.
• Globalisation and its impact on how organisations define their market and source their
workforce.
• The deregulation of labour markets and the reassertion of the right to manage by managers
to include managing employee flexibility.
• Changes in technology, particularly e-based and m-based technologies.
• The search for economic efficiency and the satisfaction of shareholder financial demands.
Increasing number of service sector jobs and escalating customer aspirations and power.

NOTE: There are two dimensions to flexibility at work; Pursuit of employee flexibility at work by
employers in order to maximise productivity and to secure economic efficiency and, second,
The enhancement of flexible working opportunities to promote employee work-life balance.
A. Employer’s Perspective:
Functional Flexibility: This relates to the employer’s ability to deploy people in response to
work priorities and demands. It can be either horizontal or vertical. Horizontal implies a
reduction in demarcation between activities and tasks at the same level while vertical functional
flexibility involves the acceptance and performance of tasks and activities by employ ees at
either a lower or a higher job level. Functional flexibility is closely associated with skills flexibility
(in order that employees are capable of performing the required tasks), with attitudinal
flexibility and the redesign of work processes, equipment and layout. Reward systems need to
be compatible with functional flexibility objectives so that task demarcations are not
perpetuated or reinforced. Working practices which incorporate elements of functional
flexibility include teamworking, empowerment, multi-skilling, re-skilling and project working.
Numerical Flexibility: This is the scope to expand or contract labour supply through altering the
number of people employed in proportion to product or service demand. It relies on the quick
and easy engagement and release of people through rapid recruitment responses and the use
of fixed, short-term or temporary contracts. Numerical flexibility also involves the increased use
of agency staff and the subcontracting of work. It requires an acceptance by management that
using employee redundancy is a legitimate human resource practice.
Temporal Flexibility: This is concerned with restructuring working hours to increase
organisational responsiveness to work demands. It has the aim of maximising productive time
and minimising unproductive time and may be formal or informal. Formal temporal flexibility
can be achieved through the use of annual hours arrangements and through zero- or core-hours
contracts. Flexitime arrangements constitute temporal flexibility, but in this case they are
primarily responsive to employee, rather than employer, needs. Informal temporal flexibility
includes employee discretion to adapt working hours to work demands and also the growing
expectation that employees should work ‘beyond contract’ when necessary (the concept of
elastic working hours).
Financial Flexibility: This increases the ability of the organisation to control employment
expenditure. It is pursued in a number of ways. First, through the use of local market rates to
determine the commercial worth and the reward package of employees to ensure value for
money in employing staff. Second, through the use of individual pay arrangements instead of
collectively regulated and uniform pay levels. For example, performance-related pay and profit-
related pay. Third, through shifting from national or central bargaining to local bargaining
arrangements to intensify the linkage between employment costs and local affordability. Fourth,
through the use of non-consolidated bonus pay and non-pensionable payments to avoid those
payments which relentlessly and permanently increase the pay bill.
Skills Flexibility: This incorporates not only skills development and acquisition, but also
employee receptiveness to the updating and extension of the skills necessary to reduce job
demarcation and promote employee versatility. Skills flexibility may be vertical or horizontal
through a deepening or a widening of the employee’s skill base. Skills flexibility can be
promoted through the use of competencies, which emphasise what people actually have to do,
and to what level or standard.
Attitudinal Flexibility: This infers a specific focus on the encouragement of flexible employee
attitudes characterised by a receptiveness to learning new skills, a willingness to engage in
functional flexibility and a responsiveness to changes in working practices or management
approaches. Flexible attitudes and behaviour can be recognised, rewarded and reinforced
through integrated human resource practices and the management of corporate values.
Learning Flexibility: This has links to the concept of the learning organisation, broadly defined
as an organisation which continuously transforms itself through the ability of its members to
learn. The development of learning flexibility by employees includes a willingness to trans fer
learning from the familiar and comfortable ways of working to include embracing new ways of
getting things done. Learning Flexibility is associated with contemporary HRD philosophies,
quality management and Investor in People standards.
Structural Flexibility: As an objective, this is a response to concern that organisational hierarchy
may reinforce job specialisation and restrictive working practices and consequently inhibit
flexible working and organisational responsiveness. Teamworking, matrix organisations, project
working, lateral job moves, delayering, empowerment and process re-engineering offer
opportunities for increasing flexibility through fluidity of organisation structure.
Distance Flexibility: This is achieved through better use of technology. Work may be undertaken
in locations remote to the work organisation through teleworking and the exploitation of
electronic mail, mobile technology and videoconferencing – effectively making the location of
the worker irrelevant.

Typical Flexible Firm

According to Atkinson (1980), developed a model of the flexible firm which is still valuable in
bringing together different forms and dimensions of flexibility and in providing a framework for
understanding and analysing alternative ways to achieve flexibility and of identifying some of
the implications of the flexible workforce. The flexible firm concept broadly divides the
workforce into three core groups, in the context of the labour market. These are; Primary,
Secondary and Tertiary.

Primary Group: This group is ascribed core status and tends to comprise full-time, permanent,
career employees. It will normally include knowledge workers, managers and other professional
and technical staff. This group can be considered critical to organisational success through the
possession of the essential skills and knowledge which differentiate the organisation in
competitive environments. Primary workers are insulated, or offered some protection, against
market fluctuations in demand for their labour. This group of employees will normally be well
rewarded and relatively secure and tend to have access to development and career
opportunities in order to secure their long-term commitment to the organisation.
Secondary Group: These people are ascribed first peripheral status and have a skills and
knowledge profile which is general rather than specific to the core business of the organisation.
Secondary employees are important, but not critical, to organisational success, as their skills
and knowledge will normally be readily available in the external labour market. Examples
include administrative, secretarial, sales, production and supervisory staff. This secondary group
of employees can be employed on permanent contracts, but with a lower level of job security
than core employees, or on longer-term fixed or temporary contractual arrangements. Patterns
of work tend to be non-standard, and this group contributes to numerical flexibility through
being subject to release and reengagement as required. They effectively buffer the core against
insecurity. Employees in the secondary group tend to have jobs rather than careers.
Tertiary Group: These people are ascribed second peripheral or external status and consist of
‘beck and call’ or ‘as and when’ workers, exemplified by casual, zero-hours or core-hours
contracts of employment. This tertiary group also includes labour provided through contracts
for services and the subcontracting of work to other organisations or to self-employed
individuals. Workers supplied through agencies can also be part of this group. Tertiary workers
provide dynamic forms of numerical and financial flexibility. Examples of tertiary work include
catering, cleaning, maintenance and assembly work. Tertiary employment arrangements are
characterised by minimal job security, a relatively restricted reward package and worker
disposability. People in this group can be said to have work rather than jobs or careers. In stark
contrast it is possible to recognise also in this tertiary group those elite portfolio workers who
possess skills for which there is high demand, who provide work on a paid-for-results or a
consultancy basis, and where the correspondingly high rewards compensate for any lack of
employment security or regularity.

Flexibility from Employees’ Perspective

The employee seeks flexibility at work not just from enhancement to the work itself but also
from the range of options available to get the work done.
Flexible working is more productive, staff are more loyal, there is less absenteeism, and
employers feel that they can attract and retain them at a time and a place that suits their
lifestyle’.
Alex Reeve of Microsoft who contends that ‘work is a thing that you do, not a place you go to’.
Thompson (Henley Management School) says that ‘Conventional working rewards inefficiency.
Results based working rewards productivity.’
PATTERNS OF WORK
Patterns of work have always been subject to change but the pace of change is now more rapid
than ever. The driving force for this change comes from both organisations who want to change
the way their employees’ work is organised to better suit their business needs and from
individuals who want to achieve a better balance between work and home life.
Temporary Work: A Temporary employment contract is for a limited time and the expectation
of both the employer and the employee is that the employment will cease. Temporary contracts
have been common in organisations to cover specific requirements such as maternity leave or
long-term sick absence, but the increase in use is largely attributable to the need to match
staffing to workload demand to achieve numerical and financial flexibility. Temporary working
among graduates has increased and there is evidence that a substantial number of temporary
workers have a university degree. The popular image of temporary work being concentrated in
the unskilled and unqualified population is therefore not entirely accurate.

There are challenges on both sides of the contract. Employers may perceive tem porary
workers as less reliable and characterised by high labour turnover. This may not be surprising, as
reliability and stability can be correlated with employee commitment and it is more difficult for
an employee to commit to an organisation where the organisational commitment is temporary.
Workers accept temporary work for a number of reasons. The choice may be between
temporary work or no work or it may offer an entry point to the organisation with the potential
to become a permanent employee.

Part-Time Work: A part-time worker is anyone contracted to work less than the normal full-time
hours. The use of part-time staff has benefits for the employer. It enables the organisation to
have workers available for busy periods and to avoid paying staff when the demand for work is
slack. This is very evident in the retail sector where an increase in out-of-town shopping, the
introduction of Sunday trading and longer opening hours each day has significantly increased
the total staffing hours in each week and produced more slack periods overall. The managerial
response to fluctuating, but predictable, work demands is to staff the stores with workers on a
variety of part-time contracts appropriate to the staffing need. There are some disadvantages to
the employer. The use of more part-time staff increases the total number of workers employed,
pushing up training, administrative and recruitment costs. Managerial challenges are presented
in relation to staffing continuity, holiday arrangements, and communicating with, managing and
motivating employees who come to work at different times. In order to raise the perceived
status of part-time workers they are sometimes referred to as key-time workers.

The employer is obliged to provide pro-rated equality for pay and benefits, promotion and
training opportunities, pensions and holiday entitlement and equal treatment in relation to
discipline, grievance, redeployment and redundancy selection.

Job Sharing: Job sharing is a specific form of part-time work where two people share a full-time
job. The tasks, duties and responsibilities of the job are divided in a way that meets the needs of
the two individuals and the organisation. The pay and benefits of the full-time job are shared.
The division can be:
Split days: One employee works mornings and the other works afternoons;
Split weeks: The two employees work one week on and one week off, with a changeover in the
middle of the week;
Alternate weeks: The two employees work whole weeks, one week on and one week off.
Advantages of a job share include: the opportunity for built-in cover for leave which provides
continuity of work; retaining trained and committed employees who wish to reduce their
working hours; also, two people can bring a wider range of skills, ideas and experience to the
job.
Disadvantages associated with job share include: increased training and administration costs
through some duplication in these areas; potential for conflict if there are different performance
standards between the job-holders;
Issues can occur if the job share is a management job where there may be increased difficulties
experienced by staff who may find it difficult to work for two managers with different
management styles and abilities; and it can be problematic to replace one member of the job
share duo if he or she leaves. Careful recruitment and selection of the two employees to look
for people who are compatible is important and also it can be beneficial to include the
remaining worker in the recruitment of a new employee if one of the job sharers leaves.
Effective communication between the job-sharing employees is essential and this can be
facilitated through a handover period or the logging of significant events. It is also essential to
match the two workers to ensure compatibility and complementary skills.

Annual Hours Working: Annual hours working involves specifying the contractual hours to be
worked as an annual rather than as a weekly figure and is a method of matching staffing to work
demands which fluctuate on an annual cycle. Advantages of annual hours working include:
increased employee and employer flexibility and the control of costs because employees work
longer hours at peak times and shorter hours when demand is low without adjustments in pay.

Employers need to take the nominal full-time hours per week and compute an annual
equivalent allowing for annual leave and bank holidays. A specific challenge of annual hours
contracts is complexity of management and administration, including, for example, sickness
absence payment calculations, training days allowance, the implications of unplanned leave and
the hours and pay of workers who leave or join the organisation part way through the
contractual year. A change from weekly hours to annual hours will have to be developed, agreed
and implemented sensitively as employees may be suspicious of managerial motives and feel
they will lose out. The productivity advantages of annual hours to the organisa tion may mean
that employees can be offered compensatory benefits; for example, an overall reduction in total
contractual hours or increased job security due to an increase in competitive advantage for the
organisation.

Remote Working: Variously referred to as teleworking or home working, the essence of remote
working is that a worker does not necessarily report to a corporate place of work on a daily
basis. Most frequently this involves working at home for some or all of the time. It can be
concretely defined as ‘people who work mainly in their own home or mainly in different
places using home as a base, who use both a telephone and a computer to carry out their
work at home’.

Growth in Working from home pattern has been precipitated by;

• Technology: Teleworking could not have developed without the ability to communicate with
the office base via computers and mobile phones. The spread of broadband and cheaper digital
technology means that this ability has increased and will continue to do so. And, of course, the
general population is becoming much more IT-literate.
• Cost Savings: Some employers introducing home working hope to be able to save on office
space and ‘hot desk’ employees on their visits to the office.
• Improving Productivity: There is some evidence that working from home improves
productivity, and reduces absence and labour turnover.
• Work–life Balance: By cutting travel, reducing stress and enabling people to work when it
suits them, it is argued that working from home is a means of harmonising work and family
commitments.
• Green Issues: Reducing travel should reduce pollution. With growing concern about global
warming, this is likely to be increasingly cited as a further reason. for introducing home working,
and will be used by organisations wanting to promote a green image.

Remote working may only be possible for certain types of job and successful home working will
depend on the worker having suitable facilities in terms of space and technology in the home.

The primary benefits that employers gain are increased organisational flexibility, a reduction in
office space costs and the recruitment and retention of workers who are unable or do not wish
to take up standard office employment because of either personal preference or personal
circumstances. The benefits for the worker are increased flexibility over working times and a
reduction in travel times and costs as well as the stress caused by commuting. It can therefore
be argued that remote working enhances the work–life balance but this must be countered by
the increased difficulties of separating home and work and the potential for physical and
psychological intrusion into home life.

NOTE: The pattern of work and the associated contractual arrangements are determined by
considering factors such as: Complexity of Administration and Relative Cost, Attractiveness of
The Work and The Contractual Arrangements to Quality Recruits, Surpluses or Shortages In
The Labour Market, The Degree Of Worker Commitment required for and associated with the
Type of Work, Organisational concerns for Equity and Fairness and acceptability to Employee
Representatives.

Conclusively, A flexible approach to working patterns may manifest itself in empowering

employees to exercise some discretion over when, where and how they work. It can be defined
as ‘the exercise of employee choice in relation to personal circumstances and work demands
but compatible with the achievement of business objectives’. The employer benefits are the
potential for improved employee effectiveness and performance and the recruitment and
retention of talented workers. This can be an element in being perceived as an employer of
choice through offering scope for individual talent to prosper and opportunities for work–life
balance.