By expanding the way we look at “flexibility,” we can

begin to see these programs as providing strategic

benefits to the organization.

The Role of Workplace

Flexibility in ManagingDiversity
DOUGLAS ‘I’. HALL VICTORIA A. PARKER

t’s already a familiar refrain in recent man-
I agement literature: The workforce of the
future will include more people of color, more
women, more new immigrants, more special-
needs employees-in short, more diversity
than the current norm. It follows, then, that
the companies that can attract, retain, moti-
vate, and engage the most talented within
these groups will be most likely to succeed,
while those that do not may not even survive.
Yet current corporate attempts to address
the specific needs of these new workers tend
to consist merely of isolated programs (la-
beled work/family, managing diversity, etc.)
managed at relatively low organizational lev-
els and rarely connected to larger strategic ini-
tiatives. Hence, the benefits of these programs
to organizations go largely unrecognized,
while the benefits to individuals may be over-
stated.
We believe it makes more sense to con-
sider these programs as multiple aspects of a
single, overarching goal: to increase corporate
flexibility. While such an approach challenges
fundamental assumptions about the structure
of work, organization design, and the nature
of supervision, it also offers a powerful way to
address the new, varied needs of both em-
ployees and employers.
The last few years have generated a vast
amount of descriptive research and prescrip-
tive directives for organizational action regard-
ing the management of diversity and work/life
concerns, but the need still exists for a concep-
tual framework that integrates theory and
practice. In this article, we will take up this task
by articulating a definition of flexibility and an
argument as to why the broader corporate ap-
proach that we propose is useful. We will then
analyze selected data from a recent flexibility
survey in order to derive a set of implications
for practice and research. Finally, we will re-
visit our initial definition of flexibility to assess
how well it suits the issues we’ve addressed.

This paper is based on a survey to appear in Philip Mirvis (ed.), Building a Competitive Work Force (New
York: Wiley, 1993, in press). We would like to acknowledge the support of the Human Resources Policy
Institute and the Executive Development Roundtable Cindy Newson at Boston University. We also
gratqtidly acknowledge Marcy Gary, Sharon Lobel, Kathy &am, Phil Mirvis, Chuck Worfe, Stephanie
Pryor, Rajeev Sawhney, and Dana Zackinfor their help in various phasesof this project.

Douglas T. (Tim) Hall is a professor of organi-
zational behavior and faculty director for the
masters programs in the School of Manage-
ment at Boston University. He is also director
of the school’s Executive Development
Roundtable, a corporate-sponsored research
center. He served previously as acting dean
and as associate dean for faculty development.
He is also a core faculty member of the Human
Resources Policy Institute at the university. He
received his B.S. degree from the School of En-
gineering at Yale University and his M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees from the Sloan School of Man-
agement at MIT. He has held faculty positions
at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and
at Yale, York, Michigan State, and Northwest-
ern universities. At Northwestern, he held the
Earl Dean Howard Chair in Organizational Be-
havior and served as department chairman.
Professor Hall is the author of Careers in Or-
ganizations and the co-author of Organizational
Climates and Careers, The Two-Career Couple,
Experiences in Management and Organization-
al Behavior, Human Resource Management:
Strategy, Design, and Implementation, Career
Development in Organizations, and The Hand-
book of Career Theory. He is a recipient of the
American Psychological Association’s James
McKeen Cattell Award (now called the Ghiselli
Award) for research design. He has served as
consultant to such organizations as Sears,
AT&T, American Hospital Supply, General Elec-
tric, Borg-Warner, Price Waterhouse, Ford Mo-
tor Company, and The World Bank.
6
FLEXIBILITY: PROMOTING
PSYCHOLOGICAL AVAILABILITY
Workplace flexibility, by which we mean at-
tention to the “whole” of the employee’s life
(including work/life issues and issues of dif-
ference) and investigation into creative ways
of enhancing the fit between people and their
work roles, is a key to corporate competitive-
ness and survival. More specifically, it is a crit-
ical organizational ability that enables em-
ployers to help employees express, rather
than suppress, the identities (such as women,
Asian-Americans, etc.) and roles (such as care-
takers for ill parents, community volunteers,
partners, etc.) they have outside of work.
Based on research by our colleague William
Kahn covering psychological engagement at
work, we argue that flexibility can encourage
higher levels of engagement in the activities
and relationships that make up a job-and, as
a result, can produce better work perfor-
mance. Further, we argue that recognizing
transitions and conflicts between employees’
work and their personal lives-and helping
them manage these conflicts-actually in-
creases their psychological availability for
work.
To be sure, large differences exist between
what helps some employees become fully en-
gaged and what helps others. For some, the
answer is full-time work with on-site child
care; for others, working from a home office
two days a week.
Introducing more flexibility into the
workplace has been found to result in higher
morale, less absenteeism, improved produc-
tivity, and reduced turnover. For example,
consider Corning Inc., a company that has
adopted an integrated approach to work/life
and diversity concerns. In 1986, Corning was
losing women professionals at twice the rate
of white males, at an annual cost of $3.5 to $4
million. The changes it has since made, de-
tailed in the box on page 8, have reduced this
turnover rate and decreased the company’s
cost of recruiting and training replacements.
In addition to cutting costs, the inclusion
of views and efforts from a diverse employee
population has the potential organizational
benefit of enhancing creativity and coopera-
tion among work groups.
Some argue that the sluggish economy
and high unemployment rates of the early
1990s have reduced the impact of Workforce
2000’s projected trends and, hence, lowered
the need to think about increased flexibility.
We see the effects of the recession in exactly
the opposite light: While a larger labor pool
may ease competition among firms for new
workers, companies that do not foresee the
competitive advantage of managing their hu-
man resources more strategically risk being
lulled by a false sense of security. Less com-
placent firms are taking advantage of the re- Victoria A. Parker is an advanced doctoral
cession by hiring the very best of the new candidate in the department of organization-
workforce entrants and managing them in al behavior at the Boston University School
ways that value and capitalize on their differ- of Management. She received her A.B. de-
ences. These proactive firms are building and gree from Brown University and an Ed.M.
retaining their “bench strength,” and will be at from the Harvard Graduate School of Educa-
least two steps ahead in the competition for tion. Before pursuing her graduate eduation,
human resources when the economy Parker worked in both commercial banking
improves. and higher education administration. She
has taught in the undergraduate manage-
ment program at Boston University since
The Effect on Old Assumptions 1989. Her research interests include work
The concept of workplace flexibility, however, and home linkages, adult and career devel-
calls into question some basic assumptions un- opment, and gender relations in organiza-
derlying the design and management of U.S. tions. Her publications include “Expanding
organizations. While few managers still sub- the Domain of Family and Work Issues,”
scribe to Frederick Taylor’s principles of scien- (with D.T. Hall) in Work, Families, and Orga-
tific management, the influence of his ideas- nizations (Jossey-Bass, 1992) and “Women
with their basic orientation toward making Mentoring Women: Creating Conditions for
human work fit mechanical requirements for Connection,” (with K.E. Kram) in Business
efficiency and accuracy-is still felt. In Images Horizons (March/April 1993).
of Organization (Sage, 1986), Gareth Morgan
observes that the legacy of Taylor’s approach
is the tendency of organizations to separate
employees’ hands from their brains. Our pen-
chant for fitting human skills to a mechanical-
ly conceived organization ensures that em-
ployee creativity and intelligence will be lost.
While recent changes in job design, new
teamwork programs, and other workplace ini-
tiatives have begun to eliminate the
hands/brain dichotomy, a similar split still pre-
vails: the brain/person dichotomy. In the ab-
sence of flexibility, organizations implicitly tell
employees to bring to work only the parts of
themselves necessary to do the job. It is implied
 that the rest-those qualities that make some
employees different from the majority-can
and should be left at the door. Members of The
Conference Boards Work and Family Council
report that recent calls for increased flexibility
have met with such management responses as,
“We should just look for more ‘uncomplicated
people’ to hire,” and “The company can’t solve
all these problems, so why start?”
There is increasing evidence, however,
that these kinds of attitudes are no longer pro-
ductive. As Charles Handy eloquently argues
in The Age of Unreason (Harvard Business
School Press, 1989), we live in a time of discon-
tinuous change, meaning that change occurs
not just rapidly, but also in large leaps that
shake up accepted ways of working. Conse-
quently, markets, products, and organization-
al structures are becoming increasingly di-
verse. Flexibility is already being incorporated
into organizational design via the increased
use of temporary project teams and commit-
tees, and into human resources systems via
such structures as cafeteria benefit plans, mul-
tiple career tracks, worklife balance programs,
and managing diversity programs. Thus, while
management resistance may be prevalent, in
many cases work is becoming less mechanistic,
requiring less conformity to a single model.
Employees and organizations are necessarily
becoming more responsive to changes in both
their external and their internal organizational
environments, and organizations are starting
to benefit from the contributions of a wide
range of employees who bring different skills
and world views to their work.
The concept of workplace flexibility, with
its focus on individual differences, also dis-
putes another long-established organization-
al notion: that equal treatment or benefits
means identical treatment or benefits. The fact
is, identical treatment can actually result in
unequal outcomes in certain situations,
specifically because it ignores individual dif-
ferences. (For example, it’s unequal to evaluate
women managers based on behavioral style
expectations developed by and for men.) Fur-
ther, keeping the focus of change efforts on
work/family issues, as opposed to flexibility
issues, may actually exacerbate tensions over

8
equity, as employees without children or
partners perceive their options as more limit-
ed. The adoption of work/family programs
may reflect a shift from the prevailing belief
that employees should have no major non-
work commitments to the belief that there is
only one such valid commitment: family.
But equity in the context of flexibility
means providing members of different groups
with different mechanisms through which
they can bring their whole selves to work and
perform to their full potential. The adoption of
a flexibility perspective recognizes that em-
ployees have a variety of commitments. Man-
agers who get stuck on this issue of equity
may really be indicating their resistance to
flexibility, since they confront issues of equity
daily in making decisions about salaries, rais-
Keeping the focus of change
issues, as opposed
exacerbate tensions over equity,
without children or partners
options as limited.
es, bonuses, promotions, and so on.
Other basic assumptions must be
rethought as an organization considers
adopting a more flexible perspective. For ex-
ample, structural characteristics, such as a 40-
hour (plus) workweek and the need for work
to occur at a worksite within a manager’s
view, can also be questioned. Informal (and
formal) guidelines regarding appropriate
communication and behavioral styles for
managers must also be reconsidered.
Shifting to a Flexible Orientation
Organizational change theory suggests that
the pressures on organizations to change may
be internal, external, or a combination of the
two. External pressures to become more flex-
ible include competition for highly trained
employees who demand flexibility, changes
in workforce demographics, and the need for
good public relations. Internal pressures in-
clude the costs of lost productivity, absen-
teeism, and turnover, and the emergence of
change champions who win decision makers
over one by one.
Dana Friedman and Ellen Galinsky have
suggested that in responding to work/family
concerns, organizations evolve through three
stages, an argument that can be applied to our
broader view of workplace flexibility. In the
first stage, one or a few champions take the
lead in getting the organization to implement
a tentative, programmatic response almost ex-
on workflamily
to flexibility, may
as employees
perceive their
elusively aimed at specific groups (e.g., wom-
en with children or racial minorities). Over
time, an integrated appvoack may evolve, in
which a broader spectrum of human resource
needs are addressed. Top-level commitment
develops, and policies change as well as pro-
grams. Finally, a few organizations make it to
the third stage: culture change and the main-
streaming of work/family issues. At this point,
change permeates not only the organization’s
formal policies and procedures, but also its in-
formal norms and culture. This third stage is
analogous to the type of flexible organization
we envision.
Friedman’s and Galinsky’s model indi-
cates that innovative content (flexibility) is
9
most often delivered in traditional forms (via
programs and coordinators). This leads us to
wonder how much of this innovative content
will really make its way into the mainstreams
of organizations. The current situation re-
garding flexibility resembles that involving
early Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)
efforts, which led to the conclusion that
broad-based culture changes were needed if
managers were to get beyond merely con-
forming to the letter of the policy, and begin
implementing (and believing in) its spirit. The
traditional forms in which flexibility has been
implemented may in fact limit its pervasive-
ness and staying power.
We see this potential limiting effect as
one of the most compelling reasons for
grouping work/life and diversity programs
together under the rubric of workplace flexi-
bility, and for linking flexibility to organiza-
tional strategy and culture. To be sure, com-
panies that adopt this formulation run the
risk of marginalizing both topics, confusing
rights with cost/benefit analyses, and
sidestepping difficult ideological and emo-
tional issues. On the other hand, by adopting
the framework of flexibility, these companies
are able to gain the involvement of every
member of every group; examine important
moral, social, and economic criteria; and con-
sider the critical question of how to integrate
the “full” person and the organization. We
see flexibility as a formulation that helps
practitioners think about what they are-and
should be-doing to most effectively work
with the labor force of the year 2000. Finally,
the broader concept of flexibility offers com-
panies a way of thinking about potential
strategic benefits they stand to reap.
CURRENT PRACTICES IN
WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY
This view of flexibility and its implications
may have strategic utility, but how many cor-
porations are actually adopting such abroad-
based philosophy?
To answer this question, we can look at
data from a flexibility survey conducted by
10
Louis Harris & Associates and reported in
Philip Mirvis’ book, Building a Competitive
Work Force (Wiley, 1993, in press). This sur-
vey of 400 human resource executives from
the Conference Board member firms reveals
that flexible work arrangements have be-
come widespread in U.S. corporations. How-
ever, it does not show that this flexibility had
worked its way into the basic fabric or orga-
nizational structure of these firms. Below are
some of the specific findings.
Flexible Work Arrangements
According to the survey, unpaid childbirth
leave beyond the normal disability period has
become widely available for women (provid-
ed by 85 percent of firms), as has part-time
work for hourly or non-exempt staff (also 85
percent). Part-time work for managers and
professionals, however, is found in fewer
companies (53 percent), as is job sharing (47
percent). We believe that these percentages
are higher than they would have been five
years ago, which sounds like good news; the
bad news is that parental leave in this country
still lags far beyond what is available in most
European countries, and many part-time jobs
come without the benefits and job security of
analogous full-time positions.
Flexible work scheduling (flextime) is
also widespread (77 percent), as is unpaid
family leave to care for sick family members
(75 percent). Slightly more than half of the
companies (53 percent) reported equal
lengths of unpaid parenting leave for men
and women. Thus, while men are less likely
to use this option, it does seem generally
available to them.
Significantly fewer firms use such prac-
tices as flexplace, or the option of working at
home or in some place outside the company
office (29 percent); sabbaticals and career
breaks (24 percent); and phased retirement
(22 percent). It also appears that part-time
work for managers and professionals is not
likely to become universal, since 26 percent of
respondents said they did not foresee it in
their firms within five years. It is interesting
to note that this “ceiling level” percentage is
close to that predicted for job sharing in five
years (24 percent). It may be that the respon-
sibilities of certain positions will always re-
quire a full-time presence at the worksite,
and the issue here is more a matter of job and
task requirements than of organizational cul-
ture and flexibility.
Child- and Elder-Care Benefits
According to the survey, most firms actually
do very little to assist employees with family-
care responsibilities. The most popular form
of assistance is information, with more than
half (53 percent) of firms surveyed offering
child-care information assistance, and more
than one-quarter (28 percent) providing this
assistance for elder care. Pre-tax spending ac-
counts (53 percent) are another popular form
of child-care assistance.
More active forms of help are provided
by relatively few employers. For example,
while direct financial assistance (vouchers,
subsidies, or allowances) for child care has re-
ceived much attention, it is still relatively rare
for both off-site (16 percent) and on-site (10
percent) arrangements in corporate America.
Similarly, direct support (either financial or
social) for elder care is quite rare, with sup-
port groups for caregivers, long-term care in-
surance, and elder-care subsidies or al-
lowances offered by fewer than IO percent of
the firms surveyed.
Workforce Diversity
As would be expected, respondents reported
they expect to see significant increases in the
number of groups other than white men in
the nation’s workforce. Perhaps the most sur-
prising finding, however, is that roughly half
Altbougb flexible work
widespread, they have
into the basic fabric of organizational
the respondents said they expect the compo-
sition of their firm’s workforce to remain sta-
ble. Obviously, Workforce 2000 paints a very
different scenario.
Regarding specific managing diversity
activities, almost two-thirds of the firms said
they have training programs for managers,
and half said top management has issued a
statement on the business need for diversity.
Approximately one-third reported having
training programs for all employees, task
forces on diversity, and minority mentoring
programs. Diversity programs were most
likely to be found in companies that de-
scribed their approach to change as “cutting
edge.”
Respondents were asked how they
thought top management sees the impact of a
more diverse workforce on human resources
management. Half said top management sees
diversity as “just part of good management,”
while one-third said it is seen as a competitive
opportunity, and learning to capitalize on di-
versity will increase the firm’s productivity
and competitiveness. Another one-third said
it is seen as a major challenge, requiring new
programs and management styles. Much
smaller groups responded that it is an affir-
mative action issue (16 percent) or one with
no serious impact (15 percent).
The firms most likely to see diversity as
an organizational learning opportunity were
those with cutting-edge change philosophies.
Interestingly, this cutting-edge group was
also the least likely to see diversity as “just
part of good management.” The firms with a
“prudent” approach to change were most
likely to see diversity as “an affirmative action
issue” or one with “no serious impact.” These
findings represent a form of construct valida-
tion for this change philosophy measure, as
arrangements are
not worked their way
life.
11
well as support for the idea that tapping di-
versity is, in fact, a good competitive oppor-
tunity for firms that are able to recognize it as
such. (For examples of how some companies
are using diversity in strategic ways, see the
box above.)
As is the case with work/life programs, di-
versity programs and practices tend to be the
prime responsibility of the human resources
area, according to respondents. In the major-
ity of firms surveyed, managing diversity is
either a separate human resources function
(44 percent) or a general human resources as-
12
signment (11 percent). However, in cutting-
edge firms the pattern is noticeably different:
Responsibility is more likely to reside in train-
ing and development (14 percent, versus 8
percent of the overall population) or be man-
aged by a task force or some other function
(14 percent, versus 8 percent of the overall
population).
The Impact of Flexibility
The percentages reported above suggest
considerable variation in corporate practices
regarding workplace flexibility. What kinds
of firms are most likely to be flexible? The
survey results indicate the following charac-
teristics:
l They are large (with over $1 billion in
sales and more than 10,000 employees),
l They have a high percentage of women
in the workforce,
l They have a high percentage of
younger employees (under age 50),
l They are publicly owned,
l They have “cutting edge” or “ad-
vanced” management philosophies, and
l They have a high percentage of contin-
gent workers.
Respondents were also asked what they
saw as the sources of resistance to (or the rea-
sons that their company had not implement-
Reports of scheduling and supervikion probhs
may be grounded less in reality than in the
prevalent managerial assumptions
‘presence equals performance” and %ours
equal output. ”
ed) flexible work arrangements. Surprisingly,
only about one-fourth mentioned top- or
mid-management attitudes. Effects on cost
and quality were cited at about the same rate.
The major reason for nonimplementation
was the impact of these practices on work
scheduling and supervision (66 percent). Of
course, this response could mask resistance by
managers, since it may be more socially desir-
able for managers to report that they are not
personally opposed to such programs, rather
than affirm that they are. To the extent that
scheduling and supervision problems are real,
however, this finding is consistent with the
“ceiling effect” noted in the discussion on five-
year predictions for flexplace, sabbaticals, and
phased retirement. The prolonged periods of
absence that these practices entail could, in fact,
create supervision and scheduling difficulties.
Yet information technology is making
these difficulties less significant all the time.
Reports of scheduling and supervision prob-
lems may be grounded less in reality than in
prevalent managerial assumptions that “pres-
ence equal performance” and “hours equal
output.” To some extent, these assumptions
are an outgrowth of the old, mechanistic view
of work described earlier, and are extremely
resistant to change.
How did respondents perceive the im-
pact of flexible work arrangements? While
some researchers and practitioners argue that
flexible programs will make firms more com-
petitive in the labor market (this is the Work-
that
force 2000 argument), more than half the re-
spondents reported that these programs have
a minor impact on such activities as recruiting
qualified employees (53 percent), reducing
turnover (54 percent), reducing absenteeism
(56 percent), and increasing productivity (54
percent).
According to the survey, the greatest im-
pact of flexible work arrangements is their en-
hancement of a firm’s corporate image. Forty-
eight percent of respondents reported that
these programs have a major impact in this
area; the cutting-edge firms were most likely
to report positive corporate image effects (61
percent), while prudent firms were least like-
ly to do so (35 percent).
13
 As for the bottom-line impact of flexible
work arrangements, three-fourths of respon-
dents said it was either very positive or posi-
tive, while the rest saw it as negligible or neg-
ative. As expected, the groups with the
greatest proportion of %ery positive” re-
sponses were those with the highest percent-
age of women employees and those with cut-
ting-edge philosophies.
Surprisingly, smaller and mid-sized firms
had more “very positive” responses than the
larger firms. This suggests that while larger
firms are more likely to offer flexible pro-
grams, smaller companies see the greatest
benefits. This finding stands in sharp contrast
to current concerns that family leave legisla-
tion will be particularly disadvantageous to
smaller firms.
A different pattern, however, emerges
with the “positive” responses. The greatest per-
As for the bottom-he
arrangements, thee-fourths
said it was either very positive
centage of “positive” responses came from the
largest firms and those with “advanced” or
“thoughtful” philosophies. The companies
most likely to give a “negligible” response were
those with fewer than 40 percent of the work-
force made up of women, and those with “pru-
dent” change philosophies. Thus, it seems clear
that large, progressive firms can achieve strate-
gic benefits from flexible work arrangements.
IMPLICATIONS FOR CHANGE
Work/family flexibility and workforce diversity
activities are becoming part of the fabric of
American business. It is now more widely ac-
cepted that employees need some sort of help
in managing the conflicts between their work
14
and non-work responsibilities. Virtually all
firms in the survey provide some sort of family-
friendly benefit (i.e., maternity benefits or part-
time work), although many provide little else.
Nevertheless, positions such as “work/family
coordinator” and “manager for corporate diver-
sity” have become increasingly common,
whereas ten years ago the mention of these ti-
tles would have produced puzzled looks in
many organizations.
Yet several questions remain: Is flexibility
more beneficial to organizations or to individ-
uals? What kinds of programs belong in the
organization, and what do not? How far
should the organization go in embracing the
whole person-and can it go too far?
To a large extent, our vision of flexibility
promises many benefits to individuals, but
does not always clearly state the payoff to the
organization. The thorny issue of equity rais-
impact offlexible work
of respondents
or positive.. ..
es questions about how flexible policies and
programs should be categorized. For exam-
ple, should flexibility be considered:
l A benefit, which, like insurance, should
be extended to all regular employees? By
placing the responsibility for such programs
in the benefits department, some organiza-
tions have already answered this question af-
firmatively.
l Aform of compensation, which, like salary
increases, is negotiated and may or may not
be granted, depending on the value of the in-
dividual or group to the organization? For ex-
ample, North Carolina National Bank has a
“select time” option for professionals, who
can negotiate individualized part-time sched-
ules and appropriate performance goals with
their managers.
 l A part of the public image of thefirm, which
can drive share prices up, assist in recruiting,
or build up the CEO’s self-image? Several pub-
lications announce annual rankings of the “Top
100 Employers” or the best employers for a par-
ticular group of employees, and many agree
that these ratings have value.
l A component of organizational design,
which can enable the firm to adjust to busi-
ness fluctuations by using contingent work-
ers, voluntary part-time work options, and
short-term leaves?
l A part of an organizational change process,
which can help parts of the organization learn
how to get the work done while not neces-
sarily conforming to the confines of a 40-hour
on-site workweek?
Most organizations categorize flexibility
as a benefit that must be extended to all or
none. But by limiting themselves in this way,
they may be preventing themselves from tap-
ping the concept’s full potential value.
The Benefits of Flexibility
How does flexibility specifically benefit the
individual? Sharon Lobel’s work on social
identity suggests that the person/work con-
flict is minimized when the individual either
achieves value congruence between work
and non-work roles or keeps the roles very
separate-in time, physical space, and psy-
chological space. This model implies that bal-
ance is possible even with equal levels of
commitment to both spheres-an implica-
tion that directly contradicts the more tradi-
tional utilitarian perspective, which holds
that individuals manage the combination of
both roles by overinvesting in one sphere or
the other, in order to maximize the re-
ward/cost trade-off. Flexibility makes it more
likely that employees can maintain equal
commitments, since organizational arrange-
ments will not force such choices as full-time
versus part-time career track. On the other
hand, forcing individuals to overinvest in
one sphere or the other guarantees that they
will not achieve balance.
This work on social identity also applies
to another aspect of flexibility: style. For ex-
ample, do women (not just mothers) routine-
ly need to compromise one role or the other-
either their identities as women or their
commitment to the organization? It has been
suggested that the early stages of women’s ca-
reer advancement were based on just such
trade-offs, and the highest praise a women
manager could get was, “You don’t even act
like a woman.”
It does not require a huge leap of imagi-
nation to see that other organizational mi-
norities, such as African-Americans and Lati-
nos, have confronted similar problems of
social identity. For example, Ella Bell has de-
scribed a bicultural balancing act that career-
oriented black women must perform to suc-
ceed in predominately white organizations.
For members of these groups, flexibility may
help eliminate the need to downplay their
identities (and important differences with the
majority culture) in order to demonstrate
their commitment to the organization. Re-
ducing the need for such bicultural balancing
should reduce stress, freeing energy for more
productive uses.
While flexibility is often framed by top
management as something it does for the
benefit of employees, the available data sug-
gest that the employer is the major benefi-
ciary of workplace flexibility, in terms of
more effective recruitment, retention, and
attendance, and an improved corporate im-
age. Moreover, all of these benefits repre-
sent cost savings for the organization-
which means that neither customers nor
shareholders nor other employees pay for
the implementation of this concept.
Flexibility is one of the key aspects of an
emerging organizational form that author
Charles Handy has named the “shamrock”
organization. Such organizations have three
distinct groups of workers: (1) core profes-
sionals, technicians, and managers essential
to organizational functioning; (2) contract
specialists hired to do non-essential tasks on
a fee-for-service basis; and (3) part-time and
temporary workers whose numbers and
hours are adjusted to accommodate fluctua-
tions in production. In Handy’s view, the
15

flexibility provided by these various ar-
rangements is beneficial for both organiza-
tions and employees. We believe that both
employers and employees could benefit
from workplace flexibility even more. In fact,
sufficiently compelling reasons for greater
flexibility already exist (in terms of pay-offs
for organizational design and learning) but
are unrealized in organizations where flexi-
bility is consigned to the benefits function
and not made part of a broader strategic
agenda. For example, the survey above sug-
gests that organizations that use more con-
tingent workers tend to be more flexible,
which makes sense. Use of contingent labor
is a way of adjusting organizational re-
sources to cope with fluctuations in the busi-
ness cycle; flexible work options can function
16
similarly, if handled as part of the same plan-
ning process.
While flexibility programs as a whole are
intended to enable employees to participate
more fully in the work of the organization,
many current programs, such as sick and
back-up child care, make it possible-perhaps
even requisite-for employees to spend less
time with their families. Options such as flex-
place, which permit the employee to spend
more time at home, are not nearly as prevalent
as those that make it easier to come to work.
In the long run, however, as the personal costs
of such imbalance become apparent, we may
find that the current, more popular approach
is not in the organization’s interest.
Of course, for some employees, company-
sponsored child care represents a vast im-
provement over leaving children and/or elders
under poor (or nonexistent) care due to eco-
nomic necessity. Our concern is that the provi-
sion of such options may create the expectation
that they be used-that is, that new parents
should be willing to return after six weeks
leave because the on-site care center accepts in-
fants at that age. This situation raises several
questions: Is it a good thing to “help” parents
spend less time with their children (or their de-
pendent parents)? Is it a good thing to provide
temporary care for sick children so that em-
ployees can come to work? Who is the advocate
for the interests of children and other depen-
dents in these situations? What value judg-
ments are being made about where employees
should spend their time? Such questions point
to another issue: Where should the organiza-
tional/individual boundary be drawn?
REFRAMING FLEXIBILITY FOR
ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING
To reap all the potential benefits of work-
place flexibility, organizations need to see
how this concept can become a strategic part
of the more effective management of their
human resources. As should be clear by now,
we believe that a major potential benefit of
workplace flexibility is a more responsive,
adaptive organization. An organization that
can change time and space boundaries for
employees not only helps employees manage
work/family demands better, but helps itself
redeploy its human resources more rapidly
and efficiently. An organization that lets em-
ployees take longer parental leaves or reduce
their workweek is also an organization that
trims its workforce voluntarily without losing
valuable, high-investment talent. An organi-
zation that reduces its employees’ daily stress
also increases the energy and creativity avail-
able to help the firm become more competi-
tive. A firm that uses the potential of all types
of employees not only provides equal oppor-
tunity, but harnesses all of its “people power”
for competitive advantage.
But these benefits to the organization will
An organization that provides
a way of empowering
just providing a family-friendly
environment. . . . It is creating
organization.
not be realized if the responsibility for devel-
oping a more flexible organization is housed
in the wrong place. We worry that work/fam-
ily and diversity concerns in most companies
have too easily been accepted as merely an-
other human resources function. (For a de-
scription of one position that typically is re-
sponsible for managing such programs, the
work/family coordinator, see the box on page
16.) In the language of total quality, we may
be “doing the wrong thing right.” When it
comes to flexibility, “doing the right thing
right” means that top management reflects on
what its values are and what the desired rela-
tionship is between the organization and its
employees. It means giving employees a voice
in stating their needs and working toward so-
lutions, whether through task forces, surveys,
a total quality management program, or an-
other means of organizational improvement.
It means including in this process all organi-
zational functions-manufacturing, finance,
marketing, research-and not just the human
resources department.
A good example of a company moving in
the right direction is General Electric, where
diversity is viewed as a critical component of
high-performing work teams and an integral
part of the basic manufacturing, product de-
velopment, and customer service processes,
according to Eugene Andrews, corporate
manager of workforce diversity. GE has made
diversity a major corporate goal, which re-
ceives direct attention from CEO Jack Welch
flexibility as
employees is not
work
a learning
(in much the same way it does from Corn-
ing’s chairman, Jamie Houghton). The view
at GE is that the full engagement and utiliza-
tion of every employee is essential to its long-
term effectiveness..
All organizations-starting at the top-
need to think more about the organizational
benefits of a flexible workplace and an em-
powered workforce. We need to demand
that workplace flexibility be a strategic ele-
ment promoting organizational excellence.
An organization that provides flexibility as a
way of empowering employees is not just
providing a family-friendly work environ-
ment. It is not even just providing an em-
ployee-friendly environment. It is creating a
learning organization.
17
 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
This article is based on a survey of corporate
flexibility practices that is reported as a chap-
ter in Philip Mirvis’ Building a Competitive
Work Force (New York: Wiley, 1993, in press).
William Kahn’s work on psychological avail-
ability can be found in William A. Kahn, “Psy-
chological conditions of personal engagement
and disengagement at work,” Academy of
Management Journal, 1990, Vol. 33, pp. 692-724.
Related work by Sharon Lobe1 on social iden-
tity and work/family roles is reported in
Sharon A. Lobel, “Allocation of investment in
work and family roles: Alternative theories
and implications for research,” Academy of
Management Review, 1991, Vol. 16, pp. 507-521.
Analysis of and prescriptions for dealing with
work/family issues as a corporate culture
change process are found in Douglas T. Hall,
“Promoting work/family balance: An organi-
zation change approach,” Organizational Dy-
namics, 1991, Vol. 18, pp. 5-18. An excellent
view of the entire work/family corporate
landscape is found in Sheldon Zedeck, Work
and Family (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992).
Regarding the strategic approach to flexibility
and the three-stage model, see the chapter in
this book by Dana Friedman and Ellen Galin-
sky, “Work and family trends.”
A good overview of work on corporate
diversity is found in Susan Jackson and Asso-
ciates’ Diversity in the Workplace: Human Re-
sozrce Initiatives (New York: The Guilford
18
Press, 1992.) Another excellent guide to effec-
tive corporate diversity programs is Ann Mor-
rison’s Leadership Diversity (San Francisco:
Jossey- Bass, 1992.)
For good empirical research on the per-
formance-enhancing effects of diversity in
organizational teams, see Taylor Cox,
Sharon Lobel, and Poppy L. McLeod, “Ef-
fects of ethnic group cultural differences on
cooperative and competitive behavior on a
group task,” Academy of Management Journal,
1991, Vol. 34, pp. 827-847, and Poppy L.
McLeod and Sharon A. Lobel, “The effects of
ethnic diversity on idea generation in small
groups,” Best Paper Proceedings of the Annual
Meeting of the Academy of Management, 1992,
pp. 227-231.
Our organization design ideas in this ar-
ticle draw heavily on Charles Handy’s The Age
of Unreason (Boston: Harvard Business School
Press, 1989), particularly his discussion of per-
sonal empowerment in the federal organiza-
tion and his model of the shamrock organiza-
tion.
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