ReWAGE. Policy Brief.
This policy brief focuses on working time and places of work as key aspects of the future of flexible working. It considers how work organisation, including the time structure, intensity, and location of work, can be managed and developed in the post-pandemic period in ways that meet the needs of both employers and employees across diverse sectors and workplaces.
Identifying potential for new ways of working is, of course, only a starting point. There are major sectoral differences in demand patterns and the nature of work that influence employers’ staffing needs. Likewise there are also differences among employees in their focus on, for example, maintaining or increasing income versus achieving working arrangements that are more sustainable and compatible with family commitments.
Finding new compromises on working arrangements to meet both employer and employee interests is therefore challenging and there is also the key issue of how such compromises could be brought into effect. For example, should arrangements be individually tailored or require more general and collectively agreed new ways of working; and what is the role of public policy in developing, supporting or mandating change.