Working-Time Flexibility and Full-Time Work in a Retail Banking Organisation

ABSTRACT

In this article we seek to examine how full-time workers can attain working-time flexibility through formal and informal mechanisms. To explore avenues for flexibility for full-time employees who have caring responsibilities, we look at a single case-study of a retail-banking organisation with a non-union enterprise agreement that pays particular attention to the codification of working- time issues. Through interviews with the human resources department, line managers and full-time employees, the case study demonstrates how within one organisational context, the length of the ‘normal’ working week has expanded, with weekend work and unpaid overtime merged into the organisational assumption of ordinary hours. The case study highlights the impact of this expansion on full-time employees with caring commitments and the intersection of caring commitments and working-time flexibilities. Much of the working-time flexibility available to full-time employees was informal in nature, dependent on workplace circumstances, and its implementation was entirely up to the discretion of line managers. The research illustrates how line managers could choose to facilitate employee-based flexibility in working hours but typically this required them to either intensify work for the remaining workforce or intensify work for the managers themselves.