How Time Management, Autonomy, and Flexibility Can Shape the Employee Experience

Abstract: Following the COVID-19 pandemic, employees across industries in the United States are now placing an increased importance on time flexibility and autonomy, and leaders are looking for ways to implement flexible work strategies that create equitable opportunities for all employees. This renewed focus on flexibility leads researchers to question how time and autonomy-related rewards, policies, and norms shape the employee experience today. Across four talks, we demonstrate the psychological factors that influence whether telecommuting has positive or negative consequences for the employee experience, the downstream benefits of time-based rewards like vacation, how to offer choice to employees in a way that encourages them to express their true feelings (i.e. consent), and how to manage increased interruptions that arise from hybrid work. By studying the informal (team collaboration norms and consent) and formal (telecommuting and vacation) policies that impact the experiences of workers in today’s economy, the papers in this symposium provide novel and timely insights into when and how certain time and autonomy-related practices are beneficial (or harmful) to employees, with potential implications for how leaders should promote these policies and practices.

Keywords: organizational behavior, wellbeing, flexible work policies