Applied Research Bulletin - Volume 3, Number 1 (Winter-Spring 1997) - April 1997

Flexible Work Arrangements - Gaining Ground

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Most Canadian workers head off in the morning to a full-time, permanent, nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday job with one employer. Or do they? Early results from the 1995 Survey of Work Arrangements (SWA), sponsored by Human Resources Development Canada and conducted by Statistics Canada, challenge this view of "typical" employment. According to this very narrow definition, only one in three Canadian workers held a "typical" job in 1995.

Flexible work arrangements - including temporary jobs, part-time jobs, jobs with more than 49 hours a week, job sharing, home-based or telework, flextime, weekend work, compressed work week, shift work, and self-employment - are now the norm. This wide array of arrangements has the potential to meet the needs of employers and workers as we restructure to meet the demands of a round-the-clock world of production and commerce while striving to balance work and family life. This "atypical" employment, however, often comes with less security and fewer tangible rewards than "typical" employment. This is the main finding in a recent research paper, Flexible Work Arrangements, by Brenda Lipsett and Mark Reesor of the Applied Research Branch. In the authors' descriptive analysis, based on the 1991 and 1995 SWA results, they identify key facts, point out some of the critical issues surrounding these arrangements, and suggest possible trends, acknowledging that 1991 and 1995 represent different points in the economic cycle.

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As the chart indicates, a focus on particular work arrangements makes "typical" jobs difficult to define. If we consider a typical job to be a full-time, permanent, Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five day job performed outside of the home for a single employer, only 32.9 percent of Canadian workers held a typical job in 1995.

Referring the the chart, the tip of each horizontal bar successively highlights a portion of the labour force that can be considered in "atypical" employment, and this portion of workers is removed from the bar that follows below it. For example, the first bar separates workers into paid workers and the self-employed. The second bar represents only the paid workers and highlights the portion that are temporary workers. The third bar represents permanent paid workers and highlights the portion that are part-time workers. And so on ... until we are left with only one in three Canadian workers in "typical" jobs.

Note: Full time is defined as 30 hours and over; home based includes all those who work some or all of their paid work at home; normal weekly hours are 30 to 48 hours; and shift includes rotating, evening, night and split shifts, irregular schedules and on-call or casual.

Source: HRDC calculations based on the 1995 Survey of Work Arrangements, Statistics Canada

Three flexible work arrangements in particular are increasing in usage - shift work, flextime and telework. These arrangements - and their growing popularity - come with both costs and benefits for employers and employees. Who reaps the benefits? And who bears the costs?

• Data related to work schedules indicate that the two percentage point decline from 1991 to 1995 in the share of workers working a regular daytime schedule (and the corresponding increase in rotating, night, evening, irregular and split shifts) has been increasingly due to employer, not employee, preferences. This said, almost half of part-time workers still choose their schedules for personal reasons.

Reasons for Schedule for Full- and Part-Time Employees, 1991 and 1995
	Percentage of Full-Time Employees		Percentage of Part-Time Employees
Reason	1991	1995	1991	1995
Required of the Job	86.9	90.2	47.5	53.4
Personal Reasons	7.5	5.9	47.1	42.4
Other	5.6	3.9	5.4	4.2
Share of Paid Employment	81.8	82.0	18.2	18.0

Note: Full-time employees usually work 30 or more total hours per week, part-time employees usually work less than 30 total hours per week. Source: HRDC calculations based on the 1991 and 1995 Survey of Work Arrangements, Statistics Canada

• Flextime, a flexible work arrangement where employees can vary the beginning and end of their workday, is one innovation in work arrangements that can provide benefits to both employees and employers. The percentage of employees on a flexible schedule increased from 17 percent in 1991 to 24 percent in 1995. Dual-earner, husband-wife workers, particularly those with children under six, are the most likely to have a flextime schedule - an advantage when balancing work and family life. In addition, flextime can benefit employers by reducing the average length of employee absences for illness or personal reasons - 18 hours for those with flextime absent in the week the survey was conducted versus 24 hours for those without a flextime schedule. Flextime, however, has little effect on the number of workers absent for those reasons.

• More companies are allowing or asking their employees to work from home. (See chart.) There are three dominant types of teleworkers: those who do overtime work at home, those who work some normally scheduled hours at home (predominantly one to two days a week or less than 40 percent of their hours worked), and those who do not have an external office and do all their work from home. In 1995, half of all home-based workers were provided with equipment to support their work: 22 percent received a computer, 14 percent a modem, and 11 percent a fax machine. Although the main reasons for working at home related to personal choice, it was a requirement of the job for 44 percent of home-based workers.

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Note: For 1995 results, the survey classified usual overtime work done at home as "home-based work". This accounts for the large increase in the number of workers who do a small percentage of their paid work at home.

Source: Labour Force Survey, Statistics Canada

Job-Related Employee Benefits by Work Arrangement Characteristics, 1995
	Percentage of Employees Entitled to Benefit
	Pension Plan Other Than CPP/QPP	Health Plan Other Than Prov. Health Care	Dental Plan	Paid Sick Leave	Paid Vacation Leave
Full-Time	58.4	68.1	63.4	65.7	81.9
Part-Time	18.7	17.8	15.9	17.8	29.9
Permanent	55.5	64.4	60.0	62.2	78.5
Temporary	19.9	19.3	16.5	19.3	28.4
Firm Size < 20	12.8	22.1	19.7	29.2	55.3
Firm Size > 500	74.6	77.2	73.8	72.9	81.3
Union	81.1	82.8	75.9	77.0	84.2
Non-Union	33.0	44.4	41.9	44.8	65.3

Note: With respect to paid vacation leave, respondents answered "yes" to the question, "Through his/her employer, is ... entitled to paid vacation leave?" if they are allowed to take paid time off work. Respondents answered "no" if they are paid four percent of their salary as "vacation pay" but are not entitled to take any vacation time off.

Source: HRDC calculations based on the 1995 Survey of Work Arrangements, Statistics Canada

New in the 1995 SWA were questions on job-related employee benefits. The answers to those questions revealed that both temporary and part-time workers are much less likely to be entitled to supplemental pension, health and dental plans or paid sick leave and vacation leave than their permanent and full-time counterparts. Large, unionized firms are also more likely to provide these fringe benefits than their small, non-unionized counterparts. The Applied Research Branch is currently conducting further analysis of the factors determining entitlement to benefits.

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