Anna Haley-Lock

Schedule flexibility in hourly jobs: unanticipated consequences and promising directions

This article considers the challenge of extending conventional models of flexibility to hourly jobs that are often structured quite differently than the salaried, professional positions for which flexibility options were originally designed. We argue that the assumptions of job rigidity and overwork motivating existing flexibility options may not be broadly applicable across jobs in the US labor market. We focus specifically on two types of flexibility: (1) working reduced hours and (2) varying work timing. We first review central aspects of the US business and policy contexts that inspire our concerns, and then draw on original analyses from US census data and several examples from our comparative case-study research to explain how conventional flexibility options do not always map well onto hourly jobs, and in certain instances may disadvantage workers by undermining their ability to earn an adequate living. We conclude with a discussion of alternative approaches to implementing flexibility in hourly jobs when hours are scarce and fluctuating rather than long and rigid.

The organizational stratification of opportunities for work–life balance

As organizational scholars, we offer an ‘organizational stratification’ approach useful for revealing inequalities in the distribution of work–life ‘opportunities’ within and across jobs and workplaces. In doing so, we discuss the implications of historically narrow conceptualizations of workplace opportunity — typically focused on promotion only — and suggest a more expansive approach to theorizing, and in turn operationalizing, workplace opportunities essential to worker and family well‐being. We illustrate how researchers might employ an organizational stratification approach by describing an ongoing research project in which we differentiate opportunities ‘on paper’ from opportunities ‘in practice’ and examine variations in how US employers distribute work–life opportunities among lower‐skilled jobs. We demonstrate how an organizational stratification perspective can be useful for developing knowledge on the nature of inequality in the distribution of opportunities for work–life balance, and thus, for suggesting new avenues that enhance social justice in the workplace.

Place-Bound Jobs at the Intersection of Policy and Management: Comparing Employer Practices in U.S. and Canadian Chain Restaurants

Debate about the United States’ minimum wage spiked several years ago at a time when its role in influencing employment conditions had become complicated by firms’ increasing use of job outsourcing and “offshoring.” Yet the latter labor strategies are not obviously applicable to employment revolving around in-person transactions between workers and customers, or “place-bound” work. Such jobs present an opportunity for studying human resource management, and the capacity of public policy to shape it, when policy may be at its most influential over employer practices. The current article considers such a case, investigating how minimum wage rates, other public policies and programs associated with work, and firms’ human resource practices interact in the place-bound position of restaurant waiter. Using new data collected from managers of a sample of 21 sites of two low-end, full-service restaurant chains, the author examined the relationships between management practices for wages and tips, fringe benefits, and staffing and scheduling and the public policy contexts in which they were embedded in suburban Seattle, Chicago, and Vancouver, British Columbia. The author found that employer practices varied by geographic area as a product of contrasts in public regulation of employers as well as supports to workers and families; that employer practices varied between the two chains, independent of geographic location; and that those practices were often poised to have dramatic impacts on waiters’ income and benefits access. The author concludes by discussing some of the limitations of and prospects for applying public tools to promote the quality of private, hourly jobs.

Waiting for the Minimum: US State Wage Laws, Firm Strategy, and Chain-Restaurant Job Quality

The US approach to employment regulation has created conditions in which ‘high road’ employee management practices can be costly for employers, while limited regulation gives firms ample freedom to pursue ‘low road’ strategies. Within this context, US firms face increasing domestic and global pressures to cut labor costs of all types, particularly businesses operating in the retail service industry with many low-skilled, hourly jobs. Yet as recent organization- and job-level studies document, not all such jobs are created equal. This article considers potentially different business strategies applied to the same job, that of restaurant waiter, within the distinct public policy contexts of two US states. The authors analyze practices related to waitstaff wages, benefits, and staffing and scheduling reported by managers at 16 sites of two national restaurant chains positioned in different lower-end segments of the full-service restaurant industry; and in suburban Seattle and Chicago, reflecting divergent state minimum-wage policy approaches. Findings reveal variation in employer practices across sites, often patterned by chain and state.

One Size Does Not Fit All Understanding Parent Engagement in the Contexts of Work, Family, and Public Schooling

We examined how parents and educators in a low-income school conceptualize parental engagement, and how school, work, and family domains together shape these parties’ practices as well as understandings of how and why parents engage. From interviews with the principal, five teachers, and 17 mothers of children at a Title I elementary school, we observed mothers’ varied approaches to juggling employment and caregiving responsibilities with desires to be involved in their children’s education, strategies often unknown and mismatched to the focuses of school staff. The study suggests the value of engagement opportunities tailored to families’ unique circumstances and assets.

Accounting for Job Quality in Women’s and Men’s Commute Time to Work: An Update to the “Household Responsibility” Thesis

Women often face trade-offs in fulfilling both employment and household responsibilities. One indicator of this is commute time, a compromise between the stresses of longer work journeys and potentially expanded job options. Women spend less time commuting than men and thus may have fewer work opportunities. While prior research finds a link between commute time and womens disproportionate household responsibilities, it does not examine in detail the potential role of job quality. Using employee data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, this study examines how fringe benefits, scheduling flexibility, wages, and full-time hours relate to commute time and mediate relationships between sex, household responsibilities, and commute time. This study finds that for women, orientation toward traditional gender roles is associated with shorter commute times, though access to benefits is related to longer commutes. The association between wages and commute time is similar between women and men, and men’s commute times are not tied to their household roles or attitudes.

Serving men and mothers: workplace practices and workforce composition in two US restaurant chains and states

In this paper, we apply a ‘gendered lens’ to research that has sought to understand how private firm practices and public policies shape employment conditions. We report on a study of the realities facing a highly female-dominated job, that of waiter in low-end chain restaurants. Through interviews with managers at 16 sites of two international restaurant chains located in Seattle, Washington and Chicago, Illinois, we examined how the gender and family caregiver compositions of waiter workforces intersect with private employers’ practices related to waiter wages, fringe benefits, and staffing and scheduling and preferred job qualifications, on the one hand; and with mandated minimum wage regulations, on the other. Male waiters were most heavily concentrated in the chain with more generous benefits and input into scheduling, while the largest proportions of women were found in the chain offering few or no benefits and little scheduling control. Sites with the most waiter–caregivers came from both chains but were mostly in Seattle, aligning with a US state policy context assuring a higher minimum wage. Paralleling those findings, we observed that managers in especially male-heavy settings stressed intellectual and experience qualifications for waiter positions, while within more female and dependent caregiver employing sites they prioritized factors such as personality and ‘good hygiene.’

Employment Opportunity for Workers Without a College Degree Across the Public, Nonprofit, and For-Profit Sectors

The public and nonprofit sectors are known for providing enhanced employment opportunity to women, persons of color, and parents. The authors ask whether the same is true for workers without college degrees, examining sectoral differences in access to jobs offering fringe benefits, full-time hours, and schedule flexibility. The authors find that the influence of sector and union representation on job quality varies by type of benefit. For example, among public and for-profit employees, union representation is positively associated with benefits availability. Nonprofit employees of either union status have less access to full-time hours, and schedule flexibility is comparably available to all but unionized for-profit workers.