Effects of Flexible Working Arrangement On Job Satisfaction: Abdurezak Mohammed Abenet Legesse Bekele
Effects of Flexible Working Arrangement On Job Satisfaction: Abdurezak Mohammed Abenet Legesse Bekele
Abdurezak Mohammed*
Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
Abenet Legesse Bekele
Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
Received September 16, 2020; Revised November 09, 2020; Accepted November 11, 2020
ABSTRACT
The rapid trend of changes and social issues in managing the global workforce have forced
organizations to look for innovative ways of enhancing the job satisfaction of employees. Among
these innovative approaches are provision of Flexible Working Arrangements (FWAs). The purpose
of this exploratory research was to identify the effects of FWAs, i.e., flextime schedule, compressed
workweek and telecommuting on job satisfaction from the perspective of the Ethiopian national
employees of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in Addis Ababa. To
achieve this objective both descriptive and inferential statistics were conducted. The total
population of the study was 250; out of which 71% responses were collected. A primary data
collection method was implemented using a structured questionnaire. The analysis showed that
there is significant positive effect of flextime schedule (R = 0.39, R2 = 0.264, p = 0.001) and
compressed workweek (R = 0.39, R2 = 0.159, p =0.039). This means that increase in the use of
flextime schedule and compressed workweek enhances job satisfaction for employees of the ECA in
Addis Ababa. The independent variables reported R = 0.39 and R2 = 0.15 which means that 15% of
corresponding variations in employee job satisfaction can be explained by flexible working
arrangements. Nevertheless, this study found out that there is no significant relationship of
telecommuting (R = 0.39, R2 = 0.065, p = 0.398) on job satisfaction. Therefore, since the provision
of FWAs is at nascent stage, further studies on the effect of telecommuting on job satisfaction from
Ethiopian employee’s context are highly recommended.
Keywords: Flexible working arrangement, Flextime schedule, Compressed
workweek, Telecommuting, Job satisfaction, Un-ECA, Ethiopia.
INTRODUCTION
The fast-paced changes in the characteristics of global workforce and the
seismic trend of approaches in managing human resources are forcing
organizations to look for innovative strategies of attracting and retaining talents as
well as motivating employees. The provision of employee-friendly policies or
FWAs have been considered among these emerging innovative human resources
management practices (Baard & Thomas, 2010; Allen, Golden & Shockley, 2015;
Ansong & Boateng, 2017; Lakshmi, Nigam & Mishra, 2017). This shift of mindset
in incorporating FWAs as a means of organizational competitive advantage points
*
Correspondence to: Abdurezak Mohammed Kuhil, College of Business and Economics,
School of Commerce, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, Tel: +251-911238889; E-mail:
[email protected]
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to the fact that “work is no longer a place but what you do” (Allen, Golden &
Shockley, 2015).
Taking into consideration the multifaceted benefits of FWAs, mainly in
enhancing organizational productivity and employee satisfaction, its adoption and
implementation have become a dominant issue in the workplace almost everywhere
(Mungania, Waiganjo & Kihoro, 2016). Presently, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic
has placed FWAs in the spotlight. Employers everywhere including government
agencies in Ethiopia and beyond, who may have not put in place such modality to
offer flexible scheduling options, have been suddenly forced to implement flexible
work options on the fly. For example, the Council of Ministers in Ethiopia has
passed decisions on the federal government employees to work from home
effective March 25, 2020 until further notice (FBC 2020). Even those organizations
who have offered FWAs to their employees have never done so on a larger scale at
all levels. FWAs have now become the new normal working modality (SHRM,
2020; Kim, Galinsky & Pal, 2020).
Most organizations from the public sector, private as well as non-profit
making are adopting and implementing various forms of FWAs (Nijiru, Kiambati
& Kamau, 2015; Waiganjo & Kihoro, 2016). The United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa (ECA) office in Ethiopia is one of these organizations that
recognized the benefits of incorporating FWAs practices as an innovative human
resources management approach. It has designed a policy for implementing the
most common forms of FWAs. The Commission has already adopted FWAs way
before the prevalent of the pandemic COVID-19 (UN HR Portal, 2015).
The three forms of FWAs, which are flextime schedule, compressed
workweek and telecommuting, are the focus of this study. Flextime Schedule
allows employees a certain level of autonomy to choose their start and end times
provided that they work the required number of the daily compulsory hours.
Several empirical studies show flextime schedule as one of the most widely used
FWAs across organizations in enhancing employee motivation as well as
increasing productivity (Opeyemi et al., 2019; Rahman, 2019; Waiganjo & Kihoro,
2016; Rawashdeh, Almasarweh & Jaber, 2016; SHRM, 2015; Dettmers, Kaiser &
Fietze, 2013).
Compressed workweek is another form of scheduling practice–it allows
employees to work a standard working hour compressed into fewer than five days
in one week by increasing the number of hours an employee is required to work
each day (SHRM, 2020; CRANET, 2005; Bird, 2020). Unlike these two provisions,
telecommuting or telework is working away from a central workplace using
technology to perform tasks. It provides location flexibility. Telecommuting is
considered as the fastest growing mode of FWAs. Outcome of several empirical
studies done in the developed world pointed out benefits of using these provisions
such as enhancing job satisfaction and employee commitment, operating cost
reduction and addressing social issues (improving road-conjunction, minimizing
pollution (Cox, 2009; Alen, Gordern & Shockley, 2015; Ansong & Boating, 2017;
Sitotaw, 2019).
In view of this, the study attempted to explore the effects of FWAs, i.e.
flextime schedule, compressed workweek and telecommuting on the job
satisfaction from the perspective of Ethiopian national employees of ECA in Addis
Ababa, an organization established in 1958 to promote the economic and social
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development of its member States. In so doing, this study shades light in better
understanding the effect of these most common forms of flexible working
arrangements on job satisfaction from Ethiopian employees’ perspective.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Conceptualization and definition
The concept of FWAs as a human resources management practice was
introduced in 1967 at a German Aerospace Company as a means to minimize
absenteeism (Opeyemi et al., 2019). According to Opeyemi et.al, the introduction
of FWAs from this period onwards has brought a complete turnaround in bringing
more and more women in workplaces that has been previously dominated by men
as a result of benefiting from flexible arrangements. The broad framework that
guided the notion of FWAs in organizational setting is Jon Atkinson’s Flexible
Firm model (a technique for organizing human resources using various forms of
workplace flexibility) that was first proposed in 1986 (Dettmers, Kaiser & Fietze,
2013). Flexible working is now considered as smart working–one of the approaches
that drive greater efficiency and effectiveness in achieving organizational goals by
introducing new practices such as flextime and telecommuting which is different
from the standard arrangement (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).
Flexible working arrangement can be defined in different forms. It is a
human resources management practice that allows employees of an organization in
making informed choices about when, where and for how long they undertake
work-related responsibilities (Opeyemi, et al., 2019). Flexible working arrangement
is also defined as an “alternative work options that allow work to be accomplished
outside of the traditional temporal and/or spatial boundaries of a standard workday”
(Rau & Hyland, 2002). It refers to work arrangements not bound by physical
confines of a traditional office location, it is rather the scheduling of work hours
and workweeks not limited by spatial boarders. In this work pattern, employees are
allowed to adjust their schedule and workplace. According to McGuire, Kenney &
Brashler (2010), FWAs can be considered as “any one of a spectrum of work
structures that alters the time and/or place that work gets done on a regular basis”.
General overview of flexible work arrangements
Maintaining and retaining the right human talent is one of the key
detrimental factors for organizational success. In this fast-paced era, adoption of
human resources practices that enable organizations to adapt its workforce to
changes in the working environment is now being given greater attention globally.
Based on vast literature and empirical studies in human resources management,
FWAs is one of these strategic approaches that are benefiting both organizations as
well as employees in coping up with these challenges (Alen, Gorden & Shockley,
2015; Miller, 2016). Large bodies of studies denote that there are several benefits
of FWAs (Opeyemi et al., 2019; Rahman, 2019; Omondi, & K’Obonyo, 2018;
Rawashdeh, Almasarweh & Jaber, 2016; SHRM, 2015; Dettmers, Kaiser & Fietze,
2013; CRANET, 2006; Albion, 2004; Pruchno, Litchfield & Fried, 2020).
Most notably, FWAs do have leveraging benefits for reducing absenteeism,
improving commitment, enhancing employee retention and increasing employee
satisfaction (Rahman, 2019). According to a survey result by SHRM (2015), the
study outcome on the positive impact of FWAs indicated job satisfaction (80%),
enhancing quality of employees’ personal/family lives (84%) and employee health
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and wellness (52%). Moreover, based on a recent empirical study done in the U.S.
on the use of FWAs before the coronavirus outbreak, majority of employees (51%)
had access to more than three types of flexible scheduling options. The empirical
study shows only 8% of employees did not have access to any options. And, more
than 26% of them had access to five or more types of FWAs (Kim, Galinsky & Pal,
2020). Their study also showed the positive predictors of high job satisfaction as
perceived scheduling flexibility, support for flexibility from supervisors and
coworkers and support for healthy lifestyles. To cope up in this dynamic world,
incorporating flexible working arrangement as one aspect of human resources
management practice is now being considered as a bridge in aligning individual
and organizational goals (Rahman, 2019). Therefore, adopting more flexible
working options are believed to serve as an approach in attracting and retaining
competent human capital.
Scholars also noted that workplace flexibility does not always imply family-
friendly or employee-centered arrangements (Albion, 2004). Its success is highly
dependent on a number of factors such as meeting the needs of both employees and
employers, as well as effective communication to the employees on the benefits of
such provisions. Results from empirical studies conclude that greater workplace
flexibility is a win-win situation for organizations and their employees (Omondi &
K’Obonyo, 2018; CRANET, 2006). It is also difficult to implement FWAs
uniformly to all job types. As pointed out by Rahman, FWAs can only be
effectively applied to certain jobs such as human resources, information
management, counselling and so on (Rahman, 2019). Therefore, designing a
companywide FWAs as well as ensuring effective and efficient use of FWAs call
for strong support from organizational leaders as well as its proper
institutionalization.
Categories of flexible working arrangements
FWAs are broadly categorized as schedule flexibility and location
flexibility (SHRM, 2020). There are various types of FWAs that can be categorized
as schedule flexibility and location flexibility. From organizational and employees’
perspectives as well as other factors such as, firms view of FWAs itself, the type of
jobs and country context, organizations adopt various modalities of FWAs (SHRM,
2015). In order to make these flexibility options operational, some firms develop
formal written policies that provide clear guidance to employees on such provisions
(Jackson & Fransman, 2018); while others do not consider it as entitlements of
employees rather managers of such organizations negotiate with individuals based
on assessing performance factors (SHRM, 2015).
According to CRANET (2005), the FWAs yield better result for
organizational effectiveness and performance when they are considered as bundles
of arrangements. As a result, they categorize these practices into four different
bundles. Namely: a) non-standard work patterns which include annual contracts,
part-time work, job sharing, flextime,
fixed-term contracts, compressed
workweek, b) non-standard work hours that are weekend work, shift work and
overtime, c) work outsourced such as temporary employment and subcontracting
and d) working away from the office which refers to home-based work and
telecommuting. In view of CRANET, FWAs deal with work patters, work hr, work
outsourced and work away from office. As identified by a number of other
empirical studies, the three most common forms of FWAs that are in use by many
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Flextime schedule
Flextime Schedule is broadly categorized under schedule flexibility
practices (SHRM, 2020). As the name implies, this arrangement allows an
employee to choose their start and end time by fulfilling two prior conditions,
which are working the required number of hr per day and being at work during the
core business hr of the day (Rahman, 2019). Core business hr refer to the daily
compulsory hr that employees are at work. This arrangement including the extent
of its variation is dependent within parameters given by firms, however there are
common arrangements (Bird, 2010). For example, a certain company may have
core hr between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm. Then employees might have the choice to
start anytime between 7:00 am to 9:00 am and the choice to leave anytime between
4:30 pm to 6:30 pm, provided that they work 8 hours. Some employers also permit
a carryover of hours within a fixed period by not requiring their employees that
eight hours be completed each day - allowing the compensation of the balance any
time in the future to meet the requirement of a forty-hr work week (Bird, 2010).
Flextime schedule allows employers to operate beyond the conventional working hr
as well as give employees a certain level of autonomy (Rahman, 2019; Jackson &
Fransman, 2018).
Several empirical studies pointed out a number of benefits of flextime
arrangements including its effect in improving commuting, improving productivity,
improving work-life balance, increasing job satisfaction, reducing operating cost
such as overtime payments and more (Rawashdeh, Almasarweh & Jaber, 2016). As
indicated by Jackson & Fransman (2018), the association between flextime and job
satisfaction from the context of developed countries is heavily researched and the
most commonly reported in the literature (Jackson & Fransman, 2018). For
example, empirical studies showed flextime as one of the most widely used FWAs
across organization as well as the existence of positive relationship between
flextime arrangement as independent variable and job satisfaction as dependent
variable (Rawashdeh, Almasarweh & Jaber, 2016; Omondi & K’Obonyo, 2018;
Rahman, 2019). Overall, there is a strong claim that workplace flexibility does lead
to improved job satisfaction and morale among employees. Ronda, López and
López (2016) and a number of other empirical studies pointed out that there is an
obvious correlation between employers that are able to show trust and support for
their employees (provision of flextime arrangement) and employees who are more
satisfied with their job and those who work harder (Ronda, López & López, 2016;
Rahman, 2019; Jackson & Fransman, 2018; SHRM, 2020).
The drawback of this practice is that “scheduling trainings and meetings can
be very difficult while practicing flextime in the organization and there could be
lack of supervision for those who work during nonconventional hours” (Scott &
Rahman, 2019). This can create burden on managers in meeting the competing
needs of their organizations as well as their co-workers. Moreover, such
arrangement might not be practical to be implemented in continuous process
operations such as manufacturing organizations–assembly lines (Baltes et al.,
1999). Therefore, it is important to note that just having access to flextime
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provision, in and of itself, might not give the important outcomes that employers
and employees care about such as productivity, job satisfaction, health and well-
being.
Compressed workweek
Compressed workweek is another form of scheduling method that allows
employees to work a standard workweek of 40 hours compressed into fewer than
five days in one week (SHRM, 2020; CRANET, 2005). The concept of compressed
workweek (the working modality of 4 days a week) became popular in 1970’s in
which companies claimed great results and more businesses began to use them
(Bird, 2010). According to Bird, ‘interest in compressed workweek [modality]
peaked in 1973’ (Bird, 2010). In this scheduling, the workweek is reduced than the
standard days by increasing the number of hours an employee is required to work
each day. For example, instead of the standard five 8-hr days week, employees can
work for four 10 hours days. In this modality, employees work fulltime in a few
whereas longer days (Rahman, 2019; Rawashdeh, Almasarweh & Jaber, 2016).
The most common forms of compressed workweek is 4/40 - employees
work 10 hours daily in 4 days of the week and they will be able to take either
Friday or Monday off, enabling employees to extend their weekend to 3 days
(Baltes & Sirabian, 2017; Baltes, et al. 1999; Njiru, Kiambati & Kamau, 2015).
This arrangement entails ‘an extra day off in the middle of the week, a weekend
work day with two weekdays off, or rotating days off to share the three-day
weekend across the workforce’ (Bird, 2010). The recently introduced compressed
week schedules that have been adopted by some organizations include 3/36, 4/32,
and more, with employees working three days for twelve hr per day or four days
for eight hr per day, respectively (Bird, 2020; Baltes et al., 1999). For example,
most UN offices in Addis Ababa have implemented compressed workweek for
many years by allowing their employees to work for 32 hours from Monday to
Thursday (8:30 am to 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm to 5:30 pm) and only work for 5½
hours (8:30 am to 2:00 pm) on Fridays without lunch break. This arrangement
allows employees to take Friday afternoons off.
There are prior considerations in implementing compressed workweek.
Workweek can only be compressed in alignment with any federal law (if any) that
caps the number of working hours. For example, in Germany the working day can
be extended to 10 hours but the average daily working hours, within 6 months,
should not exceed 8 hours (Baltes & Sirabian, 2017). Compressed workweek
modality is not mentioned in Ethiopian labor law; however, the provision of the
new Proclamation of article 67(2) does clearly indicate that the maximum overtime
work is capped at 4 hours per day and a maximum of 12 hours per week (EFDR,
2019).
Compressed workweek is commonly used in manufacturing settings due to
the interdependence nature of the work in assembly lines and the fact that
manufacturing organizations might not require employees to be present at regular
time intervals (Baltes & Sirabian, 2017; Baltes et al. 1999). Moreover, in
comparison to other FWAs such as flextime and telecommuting, compressed
workweek arrangement is claimed to be less desirable by employees (Rahman,
2019).
In view of a quantitative (meta-analysis) study done in 1999, compressed
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workweek is indicated to have positive relationship to both the job satisfaction and
satisfaction with work schedule (Baltes et al. 1999). It is also asserted in this study
that the key features of a job including responsibility, autonomy and job knowledge
emanated from implementing compressed workweek might be related with more
positive attitudes toward the job itself. Such positive changes would lead to higher
job satisfaction. In view of this empirical study, the extent of behavioral work-
related criteria such as absenteeism and productivity were lower than attitudinal
work-related criteria such as job satisfaction when compared to the findings of
flextime schedule. On the contrary, a recent study done in 2008 showed a positive
relationship with productivity of employees working a 4/40 compressed week
schedule but the finding reported that these employees did not have greater job
satisfaction (Facer & Wadsworth, 2008).
In conclusion, compressed workweek allows employees to exercise certain
form of autonomy in managing their time, it increases their job responsibility and
knowledge which are positive indicators of employees’ attitude towards their job.
And, these positive organizational outcomes are correlated with employee job
satisfaction. As discussed above, the extent of the provision of compressed
workweek on job satisfaction might be lower than that of flextime schedule.
Nevertheless, compressed workweek schedule does positively affect employee job
satisfaction.
Telecommuting
The terms telecommuting or telework are used interchangeably (Lakshmi,
Nigam & Mishra, 2017; Huws, Jagger & O’Regan, 1999). Telecommuting is best
defined as “a work practice that involves members of an organization substituting a
portion of their typical work hours (ranging from a few hours per week to nearly
full-time) to work away from a central workplace-typically principally from home-
using technology to interact with others as needed to conduct work tasks” (Alen,
Gordern & Shockley, 2015). The focus of telecommuting is on provision of
location flexibility.
Another key aspect of telecommuting as identified by a number of literature
and empirical studies is the advancement of information and communication
technologies such as the spread of broadband services, mobile connections at ever-
affordable rates that paved the way for telecommuting as the fastest growing mode
of flexible work environment (Cox, 2009; Siddhartha & Malika, 2016; Ansong &
Boateng, 2017). Moreover, the shift from manufacturing to information economy is
the other factor which contributed for the increase of jobs that lend themselves to
telecommuting (Allen, Golden & Shockley, 2015). From the inception of the notion
of telecommuting in 1973, a large number of organizations mainly in the developed
countries have now adopting it as a mainstream organizational strategy to accessing
work other than a central place of work. (Miller, 2016; Cox, 2009; Alen, Gordern
& Shockley, 2015; Teh, et al., 2017).
A number of empirical studies unearthed key employee motivational factors
that drive high organizational productivity from the implementation of
telecommuting scheme (Cox, 2009; Ye, 2012; Teh et al., 2013; Allen, Golden &
Shockley, 2015; Ansong & Boateng, 2017). To mention a few, an outcome of an
empirical study done in Malaysia among telecommuting employees identified job
satisfaction and employee commitment as well as operating cost reduction as
advantages of telecommuting (Baard & Thomas, 2010; Teh et al., 2017; Ansong &
Boateng, 2017). Other empirical studies done on telecommuting showed work-life
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Table 1 presents the reliability and validity test, which was conducted to
measure the internal consistency among the four constructs of this study. Studies
pointed out that there are no uniformly acceptable values of alpha (Tavakol &
Dennick, 2011; Rahman, 2019). Based on these studies some indicate 0.70 to 0.95
while others denote 0.60 as the lowest acceptable value of alpha. Tavakol and
Dennick stated that correlation of items in a test does imply an increased value of
alpha but it does not always denote a high degree of internal consistency. They go
on to explain that there are other factors such as the length of the test that can
reduce the value of alpha. Moreover, according to Malhotra (2007) in Rahman
(2019), “an Alpha (α) value of at least 0.60 can be considered to be acceptable
where he suggested, the higher the score the greater will be the reliability of the
data (Rahman, 2019)”.
The values of Alpha in this study are between 0.630 and 0.737. Based on
the above explanation, all components fall within the acceptable range and it can be
inferred that these items from the questionnaire are valid and be considered to be
reliable for this study.
ANALYSIS
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National Officer 24 13
1. Flextime Schedule
My job does not have rigid start and end times. 3.80 1.17
My job gives me the flexibility to choose my start and end 3.66 1.14
times by fulfilling the mandatory core hours.
2. Compressed Workweek
I have the option to work fewer than 5 working days. 3.10 1.04
I have to work for 9 or more hours each day for availing 3.34 .55
an extra day off in the week unlike the traditional working
hours.
I have the option to take mini breaks during work when I 3.77 .52
work for such long hours.
I have to be present during the core working days at office. 4.20 0.74
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3. Telecommuting
I get the opportunity to work from out of office with the 3.99 1.05
aid of technology for a certain number of hours each week.
It can be much convenient to integrate work and life due 4.19 0.91
to telecommuting.
4. Job Satisfaction
N = 186
Regression analysis
After checking the required assumptions, multiple regression analysis was
performed to understand by how much each of the components of FWAs, i.e.,
Flextime Schedule, Compressed Workweek and Telecommuting explain the
dependent variable, i.e., Job Satisfaction. The Model Summary, ANOVA, results of
regression for each independent variable (components of FWAs) with the job
satisfaction of the employees and summary result are presented below (Tables 4-
6).
According to the multiple regression analysis above, the study specifically
aimed at proving the research hypothesis, i.e., as shown on Table 7. From the
regression analysis and the summary result, it can be seen that R-square value of
0.15 that signifies 16% of the variation in job satisfaction can be explained by the
combination of the three components of FWAs. This means that the unit change in
these three forms of FWAs will result to a change in job satisfaction by a factor of
0.15 at 5% significant level. According to Cohen (1988), R2 values are assessed
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Std. Error
Adjusted
Statistics
estimate
Change
Model
of the
R2
R2
R
R2 change
F Change
change
0.392a
Sig. F
0.154
0.140
0.588
df1
df2
1
10.895
0.154
0.000
180
3
Table 5. ANOVA.
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
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CONCLUSION
The objective of this study was to explore the positive effects of flextime
schedule, compressed workweek and telecommuting on job satisfaction. The
analysis showed that there is significant positive effect of flextime schedule (R =
0.39, R2 = 0.264, p = 0.001) and compressed workweek (R = 0.39, R2 = 0.159, p =
0.398). This means that increase in the use of flexible working arrangements
(flextime schedule and compressed workweek) can lead to increase in employee
job satisfaction of the ECA in Addis Ababa. The independent variables reported R
value of 0.39 and R2 = 0.15 which means that 15% of corresponding variations in
employee job satisfaction can be explained by flexible working arrangements.
It is evident from this study and prior similar empirical studies that
adoption of flextime schedule and compressed workweek FWAs as a human
resources management practice contribute in terms of enhancing employee job
satisfaction. Nevertheless, all forms of FWAs cannot be uniformly applied across
cultures and different contexts, as its effectiveness is highly dependent on several
factors. A case in point from this study was, absence of significant relationship
between telecommuting and job satisfaction from the perspective of Ethiopian
national employees of ECA in Addis Ababa. Contrary to prior studies, this study
disproves that there is no significant relationship between telecommuting (β=0.065,
p=0.398) and job satisfaction from the perspective of Ethiopian national employees
of the ECA.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
Even though the adoption and implementation of FWAs as an innovative
human resources management practice at the ECA is at nascent stage, flexible
schedule and compressed workweek contribute in enhancing the job satisfaction of
the Ethiopian national employees of the ECA. It is therefore believed that the
outcome of this study can serve as an input in exploring further on identifying
context relevant FWAs as one key provision towards maximizing employee job
satisfaction. This study also showed that telecommuting has no significant
relationship on job satisfaction. Therefore, further study could be considered in this
area from Ethiopian context, as the outcome of prior studies focus on the
experiences of organizations from the developed world.
There are limitations of the study, which could be considered if further
research is conducted. Due to the prevailing challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic,
it has been difficult to obtain a greater number of respondents and be able to get
more accurate data from the diverse UN offices located within the ECA compound
in Addis Ababa. In order to boost the accuracy of research findings in the area of
FWAs, future research should consider increasing the sample size as well as
maximize the diversity of respondents from different organizations or sectors. The
study only focuses on employees of the ECA and it is believed that a comparative
analysis could be performed in diversified industries such as private and
government sectors in Ethiopia. Moreover, there is research gap in FWAs in
Ethiopia, therefore as an innovative human resource management practice in
obtaining and sustaining the human capital, the factors of FWAs need to be studied
further.
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