Workplace flexibility as a paradoxical phenomenon: Exploring employee experiences
通过对一家大型咨询公司的案例研究，探讨员工如何在客户至上的高压环境中体验和应对工作灵活性，发现其远超正式政策，并构成深层心理契约的一部分。
How do employees of dynamic consulting firms deal with their demanding professional environment, where they must be accessible, responsive and flexible seemingly around the clock? This case study of a large consulting firm explores employee experiences of flexible working through the lens of paradox. It finds that flexible working far exceeds the set of approved flexible work arrangements and practices enshrined in formal HR policies. Rather, individuals develop varied perceptions, expectations and ways of organizing flexible working, which emerge and evolve as they accumulate experience in a context where client-focused responsiveness is key. The article argues that flexible working is part of the deeper psychological contract between professional employees and the firm. This allows us to better understand how the paradoxical tensions that characterize workplace flexibility are experienced as evolving combinations of contributions and inducements. Employees manage these tensions in different ways, including vacillating between polar opposites and integrating contradictory elements, creating an overall mental picture of their flexible working experience.