Diploma, Business and Management, Group A- LI CHOR KUE, (VIVIAN)
Student number: 21003934
Tutor: Miss. Alison Bailey
Date: 16 November 2010
Due date of submission: 30 November 2010

Business and Management (BAM) Nationwide Case study Part B Essay

Nationwide have decided that home-working and flexible working opportunities are necessary for their business to be competitive. a) It is assumed that individuals will often have a preference for home-working because of achieving what is referred to as work-life balance. However, what factors are suggested in the case that may go against this idea, and demonstrating your understanding of the theories, discuss the reasons that this way of working may not suit all individuals. b) Managing a team of people in this kind of situation requires specialist skills from manager. Using examples from the case discuss the particular challenges managers face, and what the theories add to our understanding.

a)
Homeworking is paid work tasks carried out at home on a permanent basis. Generally speaking, it is a contractual arrangement which allows an individual to work at home- a kind of virtual team. It is one of the flexible employment options where workers are in electronic contact with a central office. Work-life balance is about people having a measure of control over when, where and how they work. “It is achieved when an individual's right to a fulfilled life inside and outside paid work is accepted and respected as the norm, to the mutual benefit of the individual, business and society.” (Community Business Official Website 2010). In this essay, the downsides of homeworking from workers’ point of view which make it less desirable to them, the reasons accounting for why not all individuals are suitable for being homeworkers as well as the qualities required by managers to manage homeworkers would be thoroughly investigated.
First and foremost, one of the major demerits of homeworking to most staff is that they may feel being isolated. In other words, though homeworking staff know they’re interacting with people but they might not feel real but just a virtual part of the team rather than a vital one. “In fact, according to the social identity theory, we identify ourselves in terms of membership of certain social groupings and differentiate ourselves from other social groupings. This lead to minimizing differences between members of our own groupings(in-groups) and maximizing differences from other groupings.(out-groups), we tend usually to favour the groupings we belong to more than denigrate out-groups.” (J.Mullins 2010), homeworkers may easily be treated as out-group by office staff and thus being isolated. “Another point is that according to a new research conveyed by the Durham Business School, 1 in 4 homeworkers feel that they have been overlooked in terms of career progression. In addition to that, a new survey done with 1,300 executives from 71 countries indicated that respondents believe that homeworkers are having a lower chance to get promoted.” (McGraw-Hill 2008). This may be attributed to the fact that it is reasonable for companies to not promote people who have not been consistently seen, observed and measured into leadership roles since managers are not able to assess homeworkers in-depth concerning their other aspects of ability such as interpersonal skills. Furthermore, some may also reckon that as homeworkers, they would be deprived of office-based learning opportunities, such as being unlikely to improve their interpersonal skills. Apart from that, while some says that homeworkers are entitled to a better work-life balance, it is believed that there should be some reservations on this argument for an unbiased and objective judgment to be made. The reason behind is that in reality, homeworkers have to face the challenge of invasion of work tasks into their home space and habits, putting pressure on them to work even longer hours because the flexible working hours may somehow be too flexible to some extent. Eventually, they may encounter problems such as stress of balancing work and family commitments. “Mr. Ian Jones, the homeworking director of Tolson Messenger Insurance Brokers in Cumbria also acknowledged that invasion of work into daily life would aggravate the problem of dissatisfactory work-life balance in his article written in April 2000”. “Also, a recent study carried out by Dr. Jeanne Moore and Tracey Crosbie of the University of Teesside for the Economic and Social Research Council do have some implications. Dr. Moore contacted over 100 homeworkers, mostly in the North of England and Wales to build up a body of detailed data and opinion. The range of homeworkers were broadly categorized according to the type of work they did, the skill and resources involved and the amount of control they had on their job. Surprisingly, over half of the respondents complain that they cannot relax nor escape from work.” (Moore 28 April 2003). Besides, both before and in the midst of the process of homeworking, there are in fact innumerable procedures involved, for example, “according to the guidelines of Nationwide, the procedure for approving a request to homework is complex, for example, Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999”, (HSE 1996), “they require a detailed risk assessment questionnaire including every single details about the homeworking environment and the staff’s self-assessment test. And out of monitoring and management concerns, staff has to allow Nationwide’s monitoring staff to undertake a site visit to their homes anytime.” (Nationwide Building Society Official Website 2010).Thus, as shown by the aforementioned arguments, not many individuals wish to engage in homeworking and work-life balance is not necessarily ameliorated via homeworking. Different individuals need different mode of working, conceivably, homeworking is not necessarily suitable for everyone either. “According to McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X workers are those who are inherently lazy and seek to avoid work if able, desire control, direction and clear instruction and avoid responsibility and autonomy and their behavior are purely primarily based on self-interest while Theory Y workers are those who desires autonomy and democratic leadership, seek fulfillment and meaning through work and their behavior are based mainly on society and community building.”(Stewart Clegg 2009). “To Theory Y workers, work is as natural as play.” (M.J. Daniels Papa 2008). Comprehensibly, Theory X homeworkers would of a high likelihood become an obstacle for line managers in controlling work processes while Theory Y workers would make good homeworkers.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, homeworking may not be applicable for people who put much emphasis on pursuing social needs. “Social needs include affection, sense of belonging, social activities, friendships, and both the giving and receiving of love.” (J.Mullins 2010) as “homeworkers are often denied the opportunity to interact directly with people, different needs derived from different personalities have to be managed differently for motivational effects.” (Abraham 1954). “According to the Big Five factors suggested by McCrae and Costa, individuals have different characteristics, personality traits and thus needs. For example, in the aspect of extraversion, extraversion is the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self. Extroverts tend to enjoy human interactions and take pleasure in activities that involve large social gatherings, such as parties, community activities, public demonstrations, and business or political groups. An extroverted person is likely to enjoy time spent with people and find less reward in time spent alone. They tend to be energized when around other people, and they are more prone to boredom when they are by themselves.” (Online March 23, 2004). Therefore, staff who are extroverts may not be suitable for homeworking. b)
As shown by the aforementioned drawbacks from the point of view of employees, it is evident that homeworking is not without its flaws. As a matter of fact, from the managers’ perspective, it sparks off problems and challenges as well, with high level and specific managerial skills included. To commence, for homeworking to be smoothly operated, a multitude of problems have to be faced and tackled. Firstly, specific type of support is needed, enormous amount of training development and support to homeworkers is of high priority. Furthermore, for the manager, a lot of time management will be involved, such as affairs like managing interruptions, maintaining motivation and addressing innumerable communications issues. “For example, Nationwide’s training is designed to be extremely interactive which is particularly beneficial as they have a mix of employees, some of whom have a range of experience in working at home and some who are completely new to the arrangement, so if there is proper training and management, there are excellent opportunities for cross-learning.” (About Nationwide- History from Nationwide building Society official website 2009). A huge difficulty faced is that traditional line managers are accustomed to managing by observation and not necessarily by results, which act as an obstacle to managing homeworker.Communication barriers between office staff, the management and homeworkers also cause problems as staff may feel unmanaged and consequently become unproductive. “According to Elton Mayo, Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.” (McCarney R 2007). It is proved that there is a strong link between productivity and attention given to workers, when homeworkers feel they are not monitored and managed, it may result in a decline of productivity from them. Conceivably, monitoring cost for managers are extremely high, “according to Ged Petch, one of Nationwide’s team leaders, one-to-one meetings have to take place regularly with each team member, either in their homes or at a Nationwide office. These meetings typically provide an opportunity to go through the case work currently being handled, to discuss the outcomes achieved in each case.” (About Nationwide- History from Nationwide building Society official website 2009).
As managers of homeworker, they should possess the following skills and qualities. “First, they should have in-depth understanding of the demands and challenges faced by homeworkers, the impact of working with a remote team, the ability to develop communication strategies, handle performance management and manage homeworkers’ daily schedules along with health and safety.” (Institute of Occupation Health Safety 1996). Managers should also be more people-oriented in the sense that they are capable of coaching, motivating and communicating via electronic means with homeworkers. Moreover, they also have to be very structured such as to plan agenda before calls. They have to be clear about the outputs of the job and keep team members informed. Managers should possess greater flexibility, tolerance, open-mindedness and trust towards homeworkers. They have to be able to identify whether their staff are Theory X or Theory Y workers, and only enable Theory Y workers to be homeworkers is of high essence as mentioned in part a. Managers also have to be extremely familiar with what they have to do, ranging from liability and workers' compensation, local legal issues, union issues, zoning laws, different training tools like evaluation, simulation programs, team meetings, written materials, and forums, re-designation of operational and administrative support. “The conclusion for managers working within homeworking organizations is that new approaches to evaluating, educating, organizing, and informing workers should be adopted.” (Davenport 1998). Overall, a more consultative style of management would be more suitable for managers to adopt.
In conclusion, working from home is certainly a mixed blessing with its pros and cons. It is definitely a good idea for having a mix of office-based staff and homeworkers from organization’s point of view, “Pauline Henderson, Nationwide’s homeworking project manager also agreed that homeworking would be beneficial and effective with appropriate monitor, management, training and support.”Tom Redman, professor of Durham University’s HR management, commented: "It seems at least for managerial and professional employees in knowledge-based industries that working from home is an antidote to the stresses of office-based working, but this may be at the expense of lower levels of support for career development." Despite some people’s preference for being homeworkers, many others are actually not, owing to a myriad of drawbacks that homeworking may bring about in the perspective of workers. Homeworking strongly hinges on trust on both sides- managers and employees. It suits the humanist approach that people can decide the way they wish to work and live. Yet, there are numerous barriers in enabling successful homeworking like communication, manager’s quality and staff’s personality, to name but a few. Therefore, only by the collective endeavor of the organization, managers and employees can homeworking be successful.

(*Word count excluding references: 907 words*)
Bibliography
1) About Nationwide- History(Nationwide building Society official website). 02 15, 2009. http://www.nationwide.co.uk/about_nationwide/membership_matters/history/ (accessed 11 26, 2010).
2) Abraham, Maslow. Motivation and Personality. New York Harper, 1954.
3) Community Business Official Website. 11 26, 2010. www.communitybusiness.org/focus_areas/WLB.htm (accessed 11 26, 2010).
4) Davenport, T. Two cheers for the virtual office. 1998.
5) HSE. Homeworking- Guidance for Employers and Employees on Health and Safety. 1996.
6) Institute of Occupational Health and Safety. Teleworking - Out of site, out of mind. 1996.
7) J.Mullins, Laurie. Management & organisational behaviour. FT Prentice Hall, 2010.
8) M.J. Daniels Papa, T.D. &Spiker, B.K. Organizational communication: Perspectives and trends. Thousand Oaks, 2008.
9) McCarney R, Warner J, Iliffe S, van Haselen R, Griffin M, Fisher P. The Hawthorne Effect: a randomised, controlled trial. BMC Med Res Methodol, 2007.
10) McGraw-Hill. Organizational Behavior,eight edition. 2008.
11) Moore, Dr. Jeanne. "Homeworking- a double-edged sword?" 28 April 2003: http://www.management-issues.com/2006/8/24/research/homeworking-a-double-edged-sword.asp.
12) Nationwide Building Society Official Website. 2010. http://www.nationwide.co.uk/default.htm (accessed 11 27, 2010).
13) Online, AllPsych. The OCEAN of Personality. March 23, 2004.
14) Stewart Clegg, Martin Kornberger, Tyrone Pitsis. Managing & Organizations- An introduction to theory & practice. SAGE, 2009.

Other resources taken for reference: 1) Winnie Ng, The State of Work-Life Balance in Hong Kong 2010 Survey, P.5-6, October 2010 2) Winnie Ng & Kate Vernon, Standard Chartered State of Work-Life Balance in Seoul 2010 Survey, P.4-5, June 2010 3) Nationwide’s official website: http://www.nationwide.co.uk 4) KPMG Building Societies Database 2008, page 3.
About Nationwide - History. Nationwide Building Society. http://www.nationwide.co.uk/about_nationwide/membership_matters/history/. Retrieved 2009-02-15. 5) An Article by Andrew Bibby: http://www.andrewbibby.com/telework/nationwide.html 6) An article by a homeworker at Nationwide: http://www.kcom.com/connectedthinking/homeworking-views-from-the-frontline-power-to-the-people/