Effect Of Workplace Flexibility On Employee Engagement
[A STUDY OF COVENANT UNIVERSITY]

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The growth of dual-earner households, as well as single-parent, single-earner households and other couples facing joint retirements, has significantly changed the relationship between work and family life in Nigeria and the world at large. Consequently, families where there is only one working class parent are no longer dominant (Bell, Rajendran & Theiler, 2012). Thus, it has become pertinent for companies to be able to provide their employees with good work-life balance. This has increased the interest of human resource experts in the concept of workplace flexibility.

The rapid development of globalization has increased the level competition in the business world and led to the advancement of technology which has made organizations more nimble and customer focused. This has necessitated that employees handle different jobs in order to ensure organizational growth at a minimized cost (Clarke, Kenny & Loxley, 2015). Employees who work in modern organizations are compelled to dedicate a high percentage of their available time to their work while balancing this with the need for self-growth and development, devotion to family responsibilities as well as their social life (Poulose & Sudarsan, 2014).  A major attribute of the work-life balance concept is the time quota a person allocates to work. An average Nigerian worker who has his/her mind focused on making a comfortable living more often than not needs to work on different jobs because of the high level of poverty and high cost of living (Archibong, Bassey & Effiom, 2010).This has increased the stress levels of the average Nigerian employee and has sometimes caused personal damages to their health (Fapohunda, 2014). When there is a balance in the all-round life of an employee, there is less conflict between work and family roles (Jamadin, Mohamad, Syarkawi & Noordin, 2015). 

The issue of workplace flexibility cannot be narrowly explained. It has been described and defined in the various diverse facets. In the past, the concept was linked to the study of women that were engaged in multiple roles (Poulose & Sudarsan, 2014). From 1960, the emergence of two income earning households opened the need for a change from the traditional workplace to more flexible work schedules that allowed employees to address both their personal and professional needs (Idris, 2011). As the rate of women entering the professional workforce increased with the economic crash in 1971, personnel managers started creating policies that allowed for flexible work schedules in terms of the hours worked (Marafi, 2013). The creation of a flexible work schedule allowed for the creation of a new work style and redefined ‘’work/life’’ balance, ensuring that generations to come focus not only on the growth of their careers but also on the roles they play within their family (Kangure, 2014). In Nigeria, employees especially women have increasingly been faced with work family conflict across various sectors. Their inability to find an appropriate balance in their work and personal lives has negatively affected their personal relationships with their family and has caused divided attention at work which leads to poor job engagement (Abdulraheem, 2014). 

According to Beardwell and Clayton (2007), employee engagement is the emotional commitment employees have towards their organisation and the efforts they make to accomplish the organisation’s success. Levison (2007) opined that engaged employees are the spine of a good working environment where people are productive, ethical and accountable. Engagement can affect employees’ attitudes, work attendance and turnover levels as several research done have demonstrated the relationship between engagement and productivity, increasingly pointing to a high correlation with individual, group and organisational performance, a success measured through the quality of customer experience and customer loyalty (Frese, 2008). However, keeping employees engaged in the education industry has become a challenge given the monotonous nature of most education jobs and the long hours required in terms of work input (Alhija, 2015). 

The growth of the education industry all over the world has improved the brand positioning of educational institutions which has led to the rapid increase in demand for educational services globally. As such, modern educational services are now flexible and do not always require physical presence of either the educator or the students/customers receiving the service (Abdulraheem, 2014). Furthermore, the integration of technology into educational services offered recently means that educational services are now less rigid and less structured to fit the specific demands of consumers. Educational services like long-distance learning and Part time learning are based on the flexibility of educational services that do not require a rigid and constant presence of the service provider (educator) or the consumer (student) and are not based on a rigid time schedule (Awais, 2017). Additionally, the innovation and advent of educational service operations like webinars and web lectures mean that employees in the education industry can be flexible with their duties and operation (Clarke, Kenny & Loxely, 2015). However, despite this advancement in technology in the educational industry worldwide, the Nigerian educational system seems to have embraced these inventions without creating a flexible working structure for their employees. According to Adesulu (2017), the average employee in the education industry in Nigeria spends about 13 hours at work per weekday and some even on weekends. 

The lack of flexibility in the education industry has affected the roles and responsibilities employees in the education industry play in their families and if not handled properly can affect their performance at work. Therefore, this study aims to examine the extent to which workplace flexibility affects employee engagement.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

According to Stroups and Yoon (2016), a component of an effective workplace is access to family-friendly workplace policies. Workplace flexibility (vacation, job shifts and working hours) potentially provide employees with the platform to succeed at work while accomplishing and fulfilling personal roles such as family responsibilities or educational pursuits. Furthermore, employees are entitled to flexible working hours so as to function effectively without any form of exhaustion. 

However, most employees working in the education industry in Nigeria do not have the luxury of being flexible in their workplaces (Abdulraheem, 2014). Some employers in the education industry do not recognize the fact that their employees are not machines and as such cannot consistently work round the clock throughout the year (Adam, 2015). Most employers in the education system industry in Nigeria seldom give vacations to employee’s especially nonteaching staff. This leaves many staff disgruntled and less committed to the organization.

Abdulraheem (2014) also noted that to keep employees engaged there needs to be flexibility when it comes to the work schedules of employees. Alhija (2015) noted that the jobs of employees in the education industry are monotonous and boring. He noted that they were not inventive enough to draw upon the employee’s creativity. Consequently, most employees in the education industry in Nigeria have become less enthusiastic about their jobs and become less involved in their jobs emotionally and psychologically.

In addition, most employers in the education industry engage staff in very tedious work without break. The employees that go through this most are employees in educational institutions that earn low wages and are not even paid for extra shifts. Most employees in the education industry are faced with rigidity of their working hours in their respective workplace (Awais, 2017).Thus, there is a lack of flexibility in scheduling working hours including overtime or extra work hours, starting & quitting time and lastly lack of control over break time. In most cases, this makes the employees not attain set goals as the employees easily gets burnt out at work (Archibong, Bassey & Effiom, 2010).

Despite evidence of how destructive employee disengagement can be, studies from the human services field on employee flexibility and engagement are limited. Surprisingly, little academic and empirical research has been conducted overall, and a large portion of it comes from the business management community (Saks, 2006). To address this problem, more research that focuses specifically on the engagement levels of employees as it concerns workplace flexibility in an organization is necessary. Empirical data is needed so that professionals can better understand workplace flexibility and employee engagement and use what they learn about it to develop managerial interventions and alternative strategies that foster engagement for human services workers.  Therefore, in response to this problem, this study proposes to investigate the effect of workplace flexibility on employee engagement.