Whilst Covid-19 suddenly forced many workers (who could) to work from home which prompted many rapidly produced anecdotal publications about the effects, there has been little or no organised evidence-driven assembled body of knowledge leading to a conceptual framework to inform the evolving future of flexible working. Dictums from management pleading employees to return to the office are highly subjective. There remains a conspicuous absence of a rigorous understanding for both employers and employees to provide a framework for identifying best practice and how the opportunities can be best synergised.

The authors’ longitudinal research on traditional frameworks and practices on flexible working they had begun long before Covid-19 serious shortcomings in job design and ways of working how organisations utilise their people.

New Approaches to Flexible Working presents a new framework that explores the perspectives of employers and employees in the changing world of work. The authors demonstrate that reconciling the competing demands of employers and employees through flexible working can elicit ways of working that can secure optimum contributions from employees whilst enriching the organisation with increasing job satisfaction of employees’ changing expectations.

Each volume in this series will explore failing established models and propose new conceptual frameworks with practical approaches. International case studies enrich the arguments and findings.

Purchase of this book includes exclusive access to app-based content, enabling readers to explore the application of specific concepts in further detail.

Fons Trompenaars, PhD, is director of Trompenaars Hampden-Turner Consulting, CEO of THT Consulting and Culture Factory, and visiting professor at The Free University of Amsterdam.

Peter Woolliams, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of International Management at Anglia Ruskin, Cambridge (UK) and is partner in THT Consulting and its technical subsidiary Culture Factory.