What is it about?
Professionals who go part-time often end up delivering 100% of the outputs in 60 or 80% of the hours – and for 60 or 80% of the salary. This usually means high pressure of work for the part-timer, and insufficient time for development, networking or career-building. Part-timers suffer disproportionately heavy workloads, as well as negative impacts on their careers. But there is another way: some part-time professionals negotiate with colleagues, manager and clients to distribute workload more fairly across the team, and to arrange cover during their absence. This 'job crafting' enables part-timers to achieve a fairer and more feasible solution for the part-timer: collaborative job crafting, involving colleagues, offers many more options than individual job crafting. To facilitate this collaboration, employers need to address two working practices common in professional environments. The first is the expectation that the individual, as opposed to the team, will be constantly available to deal with unpredictable client demands. The second is the failure to plan and share the team’s workload collaboratively, so that tasks are shared fairly across the team.
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Why is it important?
Part-time job design is not an insignificant problem for employers: one in five professionals and managers in the UK works part-time already, with more than two in five working part-time in the Netherlands. More people want to work part-time – not just parents and carers, but also older workers, millennials and those with health issues. A quarter of full-timers in the UK would prefer to work part-time, and are prepared to earn less, but don’t believe it’s possible. Disproportionate workloads and career stagnation make part-time work less attractive, leading many to leave the workforce, effectively excluded from work. Employers need to pay more attention to better part-time job design, and changing professional working practices, in order to attract and retain the best talent.
Perspectives
The research was conducted in both the UK and the Netherlands. Despite the differences between the two countries, with a much more part-time-friendly legislative framework and cultural context in the Netherlands, it was interesting to note that the job design issues were common to both countries. Two organisations were involved, each operating in both the UK and the Netherlands: despite one having a much more part-time-friendly policy, again the job design issues were common in all contexts, suggesting that part-time job design needs to be addressed as a key management skill, not as an organisational policy.
Charlotte Gascoigne
Cranfield University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The transition to part-time: How professionals negotiate ‘reduced time and workload’ i-deals and craft their jobs, Human Relations, October 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0018726717722394.
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