Impact of Flexible Work Arrangements on Job Satisfaction Among the Female Teachers in the Higher Education Sector

A remarkable growth of female participation has been observed in the job market of Bangladesh over the past few years. The number of female employees and their contribution is likely to increase further with the pace of the country’s development in terms of the literacy rate and employment scope. Among the several thriving sectors of the country, the significance of the education sector especially in the tertiary level is highlighted by the noble contribution they make to the economy. Due the rapid increase in the number of private universities over the past few years in the country, quite a large number of women have chosen to embark on this field with the hopes of establishing themselves as academicians. However, one of the existing impediments which obstructs several women to reach their zenith professionally is rigid company policies specifically lack of flexibility. The importance of Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA) has recently gained the attention of academicians as well as practitioners to improve employee performance. Since participation of women in a noble sector like education is highly desired; hence, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA), Employee Job satisfaction and Work-life Balance of the female teachers in the higher education sector of the country. Based on the analysis of diverse literature from the secondary data, hypotheses were developed and in order to test those, primary data had been collected, responses from 203 female teachers were analyzed through SPSS. The findings have confirmed that FWA have positive and significant impact both on Employee Job Satisfaction and Work-life Balance as well as Work-life Balance has a positive impact on Job Satisfaction. However, one of the elements of FWA, namely, Compressed Workweek, is found to have values lower than the significance level after performing regression analysis.


Flexible Work Arrangements and Work-life Balance:
Work-life balance has generated a lot of interest in the field of research especially among those who are concerned about the quality of working life and its relation to broader quality of life (Guest, 2002). Greenhaus and Allen (2006), defined work-life-balance as 'the extent to which an individual's effectiveness and satisfaction in work and family roles are compatible with the individuals' life role priorities at a given point in time'. According to Kalliath and Brough (2008), employees need to readjust to multiple demands throughout their period of employment, hence, it is a continual method, i.e., the level of work-life balance can change over time, as a result, came up with the following definition "Work-life balance is the individual perception that work and non-work activities are compatible and promote growth in accordance with an individual's current life priorities" (p. 326). Since the level of work-life balance is expected to change overtime, a question of flexibility in work arrangement arises in order to facilitate the workers for striking a proper balance between work and life. According to a research by Shagvaliyeva and Yazdanifard (2014), flexibility in work positively influences work-life balance and that employee wellbeing is a positive outcome of work-life balance. According to Frank and Lowe (2003), most of the employees have a need of flexibility in their work schedule to strike a balance between their work and family issues. In a study of (Gregory and Milner, 2009), it has been found that organizations have an important role to play for improving the employees' balance between work and life as individual choice regarding work life balance is constrained by organizational culture and national gender cultures. Workplace practices emphasizing on flexibility that can facilitate employees by reducing work-family conflict have recently received a great amount of interest among the researchers and practitioners (Hammer et al, 2005). Moreover, such practices are considered to be popular tools that can help individuals maintain a balance between their work and family responsibilities (Allen, et al, 2013). Additionally, several scholars such as (Allen et al, 2013, Palmeri, 2013 and Culberth, 2010) have found positive association between FWA as independent variables and dependent variables like job satisfaction and work-family balance. Also, from the employer's point of view, if the employees can fulfill both their working and non-working roles properly, they will be highly satisfied resulting in better performance, greater commitment, lower absenteeism and lower turnover, however, trust between the employer and employee is the key here as, if not monitored, flexible working practices might create even more difficulties (Shagvaliyeva and Yazdanifard, 2014). In addition, although flexible working practices are being widely embraced by employees as they allow them to prioritize, some of the cons of the system, if not controlled and monitored carefully might include errors due to communication problems, minimized staffing levels, isolation of work and so on (Maxwell et al, 2007). However, as it has been found in several studies that most of the FWA especially flextime schedules are significantly helping to improve work-life balance (Allen, 2001, McNall et al, 2010 and Palmeri, 2013), it has been advised that management carefully incorporates such practices inside their organizations (Rawashdeh, Almasarweh and Jaber 2016). Intriguingly, it has been found that men generally perceive flexible working practices as a means of developing their organizational commitment, whereas women see flexibility as an opportunity to improve work-life balance (Hofäcker & König, 2013).Since a lot of women are now interested to work, yet maintain their family roles, it is important to understand how the women balance their professional and domestic lives (Narayana and Neelima, 2017). Also, it has been found that some women working in organizations with a paternalistic culture and high structural constraints, disruptive to their family maintenance, tend to find loopholes to bypass organizational norms. Hence, this study aims to find the important factors regarding the FWA that will aid the working women to continue their career and personal lives simultaneously.

Flexible Work Arrangements and Job Satisfaction:
FWA are gaining immense popularity and these definitely have substantial impact on Job Satisfaction of employees. Job Satisfaction is undoubtedly one of the essential factors for employee motivation and better performance (Raziq and Maulabakhsh, 2015). Employee job satisfaction is a widely used term in the field of human resources and is associated with employee emotions i.e. how people think, feel and observe their jobs while performing at their workplaces (Vroom, 1964 andSpector, 1997). In the present era of globalization, the organizations are facing multiple challenges to keep up with the pace and remain competitive in the market and as we know human capital is the key asset of an organization (Fulmer & Ployhart, 2013), it is imperative to keep the employees motivated and engaged which can be possible by creating a work environment that will foster employee performance at workplace yet enable them to maintain work-life balance (Rane, 2011). A lot of organizations are seen to practice FWA as these arrangements are seen to boost the employee satisfaction level. According to McNall, Masuda and Nicklin (2009), the presence of FWA such as flextime and compressed workweek at organizations make employees feel much enriched, which in turn, results in higher job satisfaction. FWA can benefit both the employers and the employees and the benefits include higher commitment, lower turnover, reduced work-family conflict, higher autonomy and higher job satisfaction (Omondi and K'Obonyo, 2018).
Although several male employees are now utilizing flexible time schedules, it is still much more prevalent among the women in the workplaces and it results in increased employee loyalty and engagement as well as higher job satisfaction; however, proper controlling mechanisms are required to prevent further difficulties in the workplace (Shagvaliyeva and Yazdanifard, 2014). Researchers also suggest that, there is a positive relationship between telecommuting and job satisfaction as employees get the opportunity to satisfy their personal needs by adjusting job responsibilities (Bélanger, 1999 andNorman et al, 1995). However, according to the findings of Golden and Veiga (2005), gains in job satisfaction due to telecommuting are highly significant at initial levels but tend to be lower at higher levels of usage. Also, the practice and benefits of telecommuting can be questioned as technology cannot fully substitute the experience of working together onsite (Shapiro, et al, 2002). In addition, according to some research, implementation of compressed workweek can result in positive changes in job attitude and higher job satisfaction as it presents with higher workers' independence (Pierce et al, 1989 andBaltes et al, 1999). According to a report of Bureau of Labor Statistics, the share of women in labor force is projected to increase between 2014 and 2024; however, they are still not immune from unfair treatment in the workplace (Agarwal, 2018). Since the number of educated women has increased substantially and they now comprise a large proportion of the total employment sector including education in Bangladesh, (Khatun, 2018), it is crucial to find out ways to retain this potential talented pool of employees for the socio-economic development. In order to do so, it is pivotal to ensure that these women are satisfied with their jobs as only satisfied employees can perform productively through increased commitment levels (Rane, 2011); owing to the paramount importance of job satisfaction, it can be said that more research is needed to find out ways to incorporate FWA for women in the workplace as these practices have prominent impact on positive attitude towards job. While there are studies highlighting the benefits and suggesting the practice of FWA ( From the findings of the literature above, the following hypotheses have been developed to conduct this study: H1: There is a positive relationship between Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA) and Work-life Balance. H2: There is a positive relationship between Work-life Balance and Job Satisfaction. H3: There is a positive relationship between Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA) and Job Satisfaction.

Research Methodology:
The study aims to examine the relationship of FWA with work-life balance and job satisfaction; owing to which 3 hypotheses have been developed as mentioned earlier. In order to test the hypotheses developed after critically reviewing prior related researches, primary data were collected using a structured, close-ended questionnaire. The survey instrument was constructed in the form of likert-scale with the help of secondary data gathered from previous studies with values ranging from "1" (i.e. Strongly Disagree) to "5" (i.e. Strongly Agree). The questionnaire comprised of three segments sections with the first focusing on the background information of the respondents (i.e. age, income level, job duration, designation), whereas the second part focused on the main components of FWA (i.e. flextime schedule, compressed workweek, telecommuting and job sharing), work-life balance and their job satisfaction. In addition, the segment C was developed to gather insights from the respondents' perspectives that which sector would they rather choose to work in if they based their decisions on the dimensions of flexibility in work and work-life balance.
While preparing the second segment of the questionnaire with 31 variables, the factors have been adapted with some modifications from the prior study of Rawashdeh, Almasarweh and Jaber (2016) on flexible work arrangement. For sampling purpose in order to generate data, both convenience sampling and random sampling have been used. As part of the convenience sampling, self-administered survey by the means of Google Forms were provided to some female teachers known personally by the researcher and the rest of the forms were distributed randomly to the female teachers of multiple private universities in the three major cities of Bangladesh found through social media platforms namely Facebook and Linkedin. From a total of 290 distributed questionnaires, only 214 were returned, however, some extreme/incomplete and dubious responses could be found which were then discarded and 203 were finalized. Along with the Mean and Standard Deviation of the responses of the surveyed teachers, reliability of constructs was tested using Cronbach's Alpha to examine the consistency between the constructs. Eventually, in order to investigate the study and test the hypotheses, Regression Analysis was carried out using SPSS version 24. In addition to the above-mentioned methods, Frequency Analysis was used to comprehend the profile of the respondents and explore the sectors where they believe have strong practice of FWA and there is a possibility to maintain a proper work-life balance.  Table 1 illustrates some basic information of the respondents, which exhibits that majority of the respondents, i.e. 55.7% fall into the age group of 31-40. Most of the female teachers surveyed have a monthly income level between BDT 41,000 and BDT 50,000 as well as a noteworthy proportion of the respondents earns BDT 51,000-BDT 1, 00,000 which is a satisfactory income range in the context of Bangladesh. When asked about their job tenure, it has been found that 28.1% of them have been working in their current institution for 1-2 years and most of the women are lecturers with a percentage of 45.8, whereas only 11.8% of them are working for more than 7 years and the lowest percentage consists of professors i.e. 5.4, indicating a significant attrition rate. It is possible to understand and connect with others in a much better way if the organization practices job sharing method.

Work-life Balance Mean
Std. Deviation N FWA should be practiced in every organization for employees to maintain a better work-life balance.

.679 203
My institution is flexible with its employees to avail early leaves/late entry for personal emergencies.

.910
My institution allows its employees to avail their earned leaves without much hassle.

.930
My institution gives assurance to its employees to return to their jobs after maternity leaves.

.944
My working arrangements allow me to spend time with my family and friends after work.

.861
My working arrangements do not lead to much interference of work with family life.

.951
My working arrangements allow me to sleep for adequate number of hours and perform productively at work.  Table 2 illustrates the mean and the standard deviation values of those variables. The mean values range from 3.13 to 4.22 for the variables composed, which signifies that tendency is more towards the scale of 'Neutral' to 'Strongly Agree'. The standard deviation for the same items is between 0.679 and 1.139. Among the four factors considered under the FWA, the mean values of the items under Flextime Schedule tend to be mostly higher than the values of the items under the other three factors namely Compressed Workweek, Telecommuting and Job Sharing which is in congruence with the study of Rawashdeh, Almasarweh and Jaber (2016), who associated the higher values under the item of flextime schedule with the fact that it is the oldest and the most widespread practice among the employees.   Table 3 shows the reliability test which is conducted to confirm the internal consistency of the measures. Although there is no specific or determined lower value of Alpha (α), however, as per cited by George and Mallery  (2003, p.231), "_ > .9 -Excellent, _ > .8 -Good, _ > .7 -Acceptable, _ > .6 -Questionable, _ > .5 -Poor, and _ < .5 -Unacceptable." Also, higher the value of α, the greater will be the reliability of the data (Tavagol and Dennick, 2011). In addition, according to Malhotra (2007), an Alpha (α) value of at least 0.60 can be considered to be acceptable where he suggested, the higher the score the greater will be the reliability of the data. In this study, all the values of Alpha are between .616 and .771 indicating that the components fall within the acceptable range. As a result, it could be inferred that these items from the questionnaire are valid and can be considered to be reliable for this research. Regression Analysis was carried out in order to test the hypotheses and to examine all the related variables more comprehensively for further validation of the study. Table 4 specifically aims to prove hypothesis 1 and it can be noticed that a positive relationship between all the factors of FWA (i.e. independent variables) and Worklife Balance (i.e. dependent variable) has been found. This is in congruence with the findings of the literature review where it was found that FWA can promote a better work-life balance (Shagvaliyeva and Yazdanifard, 2014, Frank and Lowe, 2003and Hammer et al, 2005. However, one factor of FWA, i.e., Compressed Workweek (β=.048, p=.404) could not be accepted, as the level of acceptance is p <0.05. Moreover, it can be said that the overall strength of association between the independent variables and the target variable is moderately significant with R-square value of .515 which indicates that 51.5% of the variation in Work-life Balance can be explained by the regression model.  Table 5 exhibits the regression analysis between Work-life Balance as the independent variable and Job Satisfaction as the dependent variable. The test was conducted in order to prove the second hypothesis and it has been found that a positive relationship exists between the two variables. This is characterized by the values (β=.825, p=.000) which signifies that a moderately positive relationship exists between the two; owing to which it can be denoted that the better the balance between the employees' professional and personal lives, the greater will be their job satisfaction level. Furthermore, the R-square value implies that 63.4% of the variation in the job satisfaction is explained by work-life balance.  A supplementary segment was added in the questionnaire with the aim to figure out the sectors where these female teachers would rather be employed if they based their employment decisions on the dimensions of FWA that promote a better work-life balance. According to the survey, more than 75% of the respondents marked "No" to one of the questions in the survey instrument which stated "Do you intend to switch your profession in future?" A related question was asked which stated "Which of the following sectors would you work if you want a more flexible life?" Among the multiple options given, the highest proportion, i.e., 24.1% of the respondents feel that Research & Consultancy would have been a better option to maintain a greater flexibility. Intriguingly, a noteworthy percentage of the respondents marked that they would rather stick to their current profession which signifies that the higher education sector is still a considerable option for employment from the aspect of flexibility; the figure is 19.7. In addition, 13.8% of the respondents deem that self-employment would aid to promote a greater flexibility in their lives. An interesting related finding was also observed from one of the secondary sources i.e. the Independent, which stated that despite being a male dominated country, Bangladesh is advancing noticeably in terms of women empowerment where many courageous women are excelling in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and more than 10% of the entrepreneurs are women in the country (Pramanik, 2018). The other options given were IT/Telecommunication, Hospitality, Banks/Financial Institutions and others where the lowest percentage of the respondents, only 3, perceive that working in Banks/Financial Institutions would provide them with greater flexibility. This can be related to one of the prior research where according to Rahman (2019), it was found that women working in the private banks of Bangladesh are experiencing low job satisfaction due to not being able to maintain a proper work-life balance.

Conclusion and Further Scopes of Research:
This study has identified that most of the independent variables, namely Flextime Schedule, Telecommuting and Job Sharing have significant influence on the dependent variables i.e. Work-life Balance and Job Satisfaction. In addition, Work-life Balance is also found to have positive relationship with Job Satisfaction. Hence, it can be stated that, if organizations strongly incorporates FWA then the employees would be able to maintain a balance between work and life which will be beneficial for the female employees and would lead to higher job satisfaction. Contrariwise, one of the factors, Compressed Workweek, is found to have no significant relationship with the dependent variables Work-life Balance and Job Satisfaction. Therefore, it can be concluded that all the hypotheses developed in this study have been proven right, but Work-life Balance or their Job Satisfaction level is not significantly influenced by Compressed Workweek, unlike other FWA factors. One limitation to point out regarding the study which could be considered if further research is conducted in related areas is the sample size, as more accurate data could possibly be accumulated if a greater number of respondents could be reached out to as well as surveying female teachers of public universities could help to gather better insights regarding the topic. Supposedly, more items could be added to the survey instrument in addition to the ones identified in this study which could lead to new factors, followed by a factor analysis to refine the groupings. Moreover, this study has only covered the female teachers in the higher education segment of the country and it is believed that a comparative analysis could be performed by comparing and contrasting the practices of FWA in diversified sectors including the primary and secondary levels of education where the women are employed. Consequently, this might not only help the women to compare and choose their preferred employment sectors from the outlook of flexibility,