Research Article
Supervisor Support as a Moderator between Flexible Working Arrangement and Job
Performance – Malaysia Evidence
Eni Suriana Binti Alias1, Ahmad Zainal Abidin Abd Razak2, Norlaile Salleh Hudin3,
Shamshuritawati Sharif4
1,2,3Faculty of Management and Economics, UniversitiPendidikan Sultan Idris, Malaysia 4School of Quantitative Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia
Article History: Received: 10 November 2020; Revised: 12 January 2021; Accepted: 27 January 2021;
Published online: 05 April 2021
Abstract: Over the past years, organizations are forced to redesign their workplace to fulfil global labour market needs and to
remain competitive. Due to the ever-changing working environment and competitive markets, organizations opted to choose more flexible work options so they can respond to the volatile environment. This study explores the moderation effect of supervisor support (SS) between flexible working arrangements (FWAs) and employee performance (EP). The population for this study primarily focused on the organizations that adopt the flexible working arrangement such as flexible working time, working from home, and compressed work-week practices in Malaysia. The companies selected are based on the listing of global organizations practices FWAs mentioned in TalentCorp Malaysia Flexible Working Arrangement collaboration with Malaysian Federation Employer report, 2015. The questionnaires were distributed through the Human Resource Department of each organization. The result demonstrated that there is a relationship between FWAs and EP but there was no moderation effect of SS between FWAs and EP relationship. This study supports the idea that the employees seem to benefit from the adoption of FWAs at the workplace. It allows both gender and single or married employees to manage their time better particularly allowing the employees to attend to personal needs. Since FWAs itself is the support given by employers to employees, therefore, the employees were unable to associate supervisor support role as a contributor to help them manage their work and home responsibilities. This study showed that employee motivation to perform are affected by the policies adopted by organizations. Adopting efficient work practices such as FWAs could stimulate employee engagement to improve their work performance. Therefore, organizations that are currently searching for a strategy that can improve productivity and employee performance should consider FWAs as an option. However, the implementation ofFWAs needs to be customized according to the employee's needs. Offering FWAs in the organization will enhance organizational and individual outcomes.
Keywords: Conflict, Flexible Working Arrangement, Job Performance, Moderation Effect, Supervisor Support 1. Introduction
Major changes have been seen in Malaysian workforce trends (KPMG, 2019) over the past decades. Declining fertility rates, changes in labour market conditions, and a growing number of women joining the labour force and exponential growth of both dual income earners and single-parent family (Kossek&Distelberg, 2009) are seen all over the world (Chung, 2011). The demographics changes in the labour force, have resulted in increased multiple role conflicts for both dual-earner families and single-parent family (Greenhaus&Beutell, 1985; Abdul Razak, Che Omar &Yusof, 2010). Regardless of status, employees must deal with the problem daily, affecting both work and family environment (Tammelin, Malinen, Rönkä, &Verhoef, 2016).
According to Becker and Gerhart (1996), organizations have conceded the importance of its employees as a potential source of competitiveness. For example, over the past years, organizations are forced to redesign their work to fulfil the global labour market needs (Kossek& Thompson, 2015) to remain competitive. Due to the ever-changing working environment and competitive markets, organizations opted to choose a more flexible work option enabling them to react to the volatile environment (Stavrou, 2005). With this changes, combining with the demographic and roles changes experience by employees demand, job flexibility is something that employees crave for (SHRM, 2015) which is available in flexible working arrangements (FWAs) (MeeChoo, Desa, & Abu Hassan Asaari, 2016). FWAs can be in various alternative forms and practices of work schedules that can enhance individual and organizational performance (Baltes, Briggs, Huff, Wright, &Neuman, 1999; deMenezes&Kelliher, 2011). Cascio and Montealegre (2016) found that information technology platform has exponentially improved, enabling employee access to work away from the organizations and has become a norm. FWAs aims is to ensure efficient use of organizational manpower in grasping opportunities by allocating it depending on the nature of work and time when it is needed (Berkery, Morley, Tiernan, Purtill,& Parry,2017). According to TalentCorp (2016), Malaysian employees are seen to prefer flexibility in work compared to regular work hours and stationed workplace (Subramaniam, Geetha, &Maniam, 2015). FWAs is favourable among employees because they were able to choose on their working hours and location (Regus, 2017) thus enabling
them to fulfil the home roles demands and expectation, transpired from a rigid working environment (Kossek& Thompson, 2015; Masuda et al., 2012).
2. Problem Statement
The demographic composition has changed rapidly, where more single parents (Kossek&Distelberg, 2009) and dual-career families (Fiksenbaum, 2014) emerge that contributed to conflicts (Noor, Mahdzir, Nor, & Abdullah, 2019). It is often associated with the issue of work-family conflict that has become an important and critical debate by the past researcher (Allen, Cho, & Meier, 2014; Powell, Greenhaus, Allen, & Johnson, 2019; Williams, Berdahl, &Vandello, 2015). Employees encountered difficulties in managing time and responsibilities in both homes and work, thus disabling them to accomplish their role demands as employee and family member (Oshio, Inoue, &Tsutsumi, 2017). This has a tremendous negative effect on an employee such as job performance (Fiksenbaum, 2014; Idris (2014), work commitments (Clarke &Holdsworth, 2017), turnover (Erdamar&Demirel, 2014; Idris, 2014); Kelly, Moen, Oakes, Fan, Okechukwu, Davis & Casper, 2014), work stress, job burnout Idris (2014) and others (Idris, 2014; Kelly, Moen, Oakes, Fan, Okechukwu, Davis & Casper, 2014).
According to Kossek et al., (2011) disconnection that occurs between the organization and employee does not allow employees to balance work and personal needs thus, enhancing conflict. As an option, many countries across the world from UK, Italy Netherlands, Greece, Romania, Portugal (Gialis& Taylor, 2015), Japan, Australia, USA and Canada (International Labour Organization, 2011; OECD, 2012; Spreitzer, Cameron,& Garrett, 2017) are adopting FWAs as a mean to gain more flexibility (Klindzic&Marić, 2019; Kottey& Sharma, 2016). Since FWAs anticipated the borderless boundaries environment in the situation which employees who are working remotely at home would find it hard to disassociate themselves from work while they are at home, hence this could jeopardize the family relationship (Kossek, 2016b). It was discovered that many employees that work remotely, having difficulties switching to the family role and residual in the family role (Eddleston&Mulki, 2017). FWAs has been suggested to be used as a resolution tool to reduce the effect of work-family conflict (Masuda et al., 2012; Warokka&Febrilia, 2015). If it is not resolved, it may affect employees' career (Greenhaus&Kossek, 2014).
Despite this, Malaysian employers are reluctant to adopt FWAs because they feel insure about the protection of company data and Malaysian employees have the perception and feelings that taking FWAs may harm their career growth (TalentCorp, 2016). However, due to recent (Covid-19) outbreak that plague the world, companies adopting FWAs have benefited during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak (Kalra, 2020). Furthermore, the chief executives of Barclays and WPP are predicting FWAs would be becoming a new normal in a working environment to ensure the workforce is healthy and companies sustainability is safeguarded (Sweney and Makortoff; 2020). The present study investigates the relationship between flexible working arrangement (FWAs) and job performance and examines the moderation effect of Supervisor Support (SS) between flexible working arrangements (FWAs) and the effect on job performance (EP). This study attempt to provide answers to these two questions. First, does a flexible working arrangement (FWAs) related to employee performance (EP)? And secondly, does supervisor support (SS) moderate the relationship between flexible working arrangement (FWAs) and employee performance (EP)?Figure 1.indicates the conceptual framework for this study.
3. Literature Review
Role Theory as the Underlying Theory
Pleck (1977) has defined the combination of roles between men and women is the key component in understanding the concept of work and family domain. The typical perception norms have tagged the responsibilities between work and home by gender (Cerrato&Cifre, 2018). The debate uses to focus on women's participation in the labour market (Gornick and Meyers 2008), neglecting the fact that gender equality not only concerns women but also men and that gender inequalities affect far more dimensions than just labour-market participation (Aboim 2010). The concepts are broader, trans bound in the public and private spheres (Grunow, Begall, &Buchler, 2018) The consequences from this is that, both gender play multiple roles that caused the imbalance and stress in work or family domain (Allen, 2001; Kecklund, Beckers, Leineweber, & Tucker, 2017). For example, an employee that fulfils home responsibilities after an exhausting day at the office may face challenges when entertaining the children's needs. Today, due to the revolutionary of fast-paced technology, the boundary of work and family domain seems to be further affected (Russo, Ollier-Malaterre, Kossek, &Ohana, 2018). When FWAs is being adopted in organizations, employees and managers can schedule work and time when it is needed to be done, thus maximizing the efficient use of organizational manpower (Berkery, et al., 2017). Because of this, the employee can have better control over both work and family since they have access to work without borders and adjustable working environment (Chung & van der Lippe, 2018).
Flexible Working Arrangements (FWAs)
The demographic composition has changed over the years (Kossek&Distelberg, 2009) where employee demand for flexibility (SHRM, 2015) is needed to respond to the changing needs of the workforce (Kossek&Distelberg, 2009). Those changes are seen in changes brought upon by gender roles responsibilities which require greater flexibility in work and family relationship to overcome pressures (Allen, 2001). This is often associated with the issue of work-family conflict that has become an important and critical debate by the past researcher (Allen, Cho, & Meier, 2014; Powell, Greenhaus, Allen, & Johnson, 2019; Williams, Berdahl, &Vandello, 2015). Employees encountered difficulties in managing time and responsibilities in both homes and work, thus disabling them to accomplish their role demands as employee and family member (Oshio, Inoue, &Tsutsumi, 2017). This has a tremendous negative effect on the employee at the workplace, particularly on job performance (Fiksenbaum, 2014; Idris, 2014), work commitment (Clarke &Holdsworth, 2017), work stress and job burnout (Idris, 2014). FWAs, as suggested by Warokka and Febrilia, (2015), can be used as a solution for this. A study by Shagvaliyeva and Yazdanifard (2014), found that flexibility at work could give control to employees over their job, stimulating them to be creative so that they could manage work and home responsibilities better (Byrne &Canato, 2017; Kossek& Thompson, 2015).
FWAs has shown to produce positive outcomes on employee job performance (Beatson, 2019; Clarke &Holdsworth, 2017). Over the past two decades, there has been extensive research done on the area of FWAs implicating the importance of flexibility in the workplace (Berkery, Morley, Tiernan, Purtill, & Parry, 2017; Haar and Spell, 2004; Stavrou, 2005; Stavrou et al., 2015). There have been many different effects on FWAs on work e.g. Attrition, job satisfaction, burnout, employee retention and absenteeism and a range of organizational performance measures (Dalton and Mesch, 1990; Konrad and Mangel, 2000; Perry-Smith and Blum, 2000; Valverde et al., 2000). Since, research on FWAs produces inconsistency findings especially in a different organizational setting, employment level, (Tietze et al., 2003), in single countries (Battisti and Vallanti, 2013) and within specific industries (Cohen and Single, 2001), it is important to explore the area of FWAs further Stavrou et al. (2010). This is supported by claims by de Menezes and Kelliher (2011), where they found that there was a shortage of strong proof supporting a universal business model for FWAs implementation.
FWAs in Malaysia is not a prevalence working practice and many organization still utilizing the conventional way of working practices, shying away from FWAs (Ahmad, Shaw, Bown, Leach, Gardiner, & Omar, 2015). Not many organization adopts the FWAs initiative since it is still at an infant stage in Malaysia (Choo, Desa, & Abu Hassan Asaari, 2016). Furthermore, only about 32 per cent of Malaysian professional employees take consideration FWAs availability as a reason for accepting the job offers based on a survey conducted a recruitment agency (Micheal Page Malaysia, 2015). Unlike in the United States, young American professional is looking forward to having more FWAs opportunities (Matos &Galinsky, 2012). Only recently, since practitioners stress that FWAs contributions is observable during (COVID-19) pandemic (Kalra, 2020) and predicting that FWAs would become a new normal in the working environment (Sweney&Makortoff; 2020), Malaysian organizations start to probe FWAs as an option for their organizations.
Work Performance and FWAs
Work performance can be defined as a multi-dimensional standpoint represent work in terms of quality or/and efficiency of work, productivity, innovation and organizational profitability in line with objectives (Tangen, 2005). In organizations, the employees work performance were normally evaluated by quantifying the effectiveness and efficiency action by the employees (Neely, Gregory, &Platts, 1995). It is not only employee performance is imperative to the employee's career growth but it also mirrors the performance of the organization concern (Bataineh, 2019). Studies have shown that besides workplace environment (Diamantidis&Chatzoglou, 2019; Md. Amin & Abdul Majid, 2017) organizational culture, supervisor's attitude and FWAs (Md. Amin & Abdul Majid, 2017), play a significant role which affects employee work performance. Long working hours, higher workloads tend to negatively influence productivity and job performance (Bataineh, 2019). It causes stress which often not only confine to work but tend to spill over to personal domain thus damaging work-life balance (Bataineh, 2019). The employee must be given adequate and relevant knowledge and skills via job training (Diamantidis&Chatzoglou, 2019) to improve their work performance. This can be done by the organization, through building a healthy relationship between the organization and employee is projecting a career advancement opportunity for the employee (Tsui, Pearce, Porter, & Tripoli, 1997). FWAs has been perceived as an alternative tool to foster positive outcome on the job performance (Clarke &Holdsworth, 2017; De Menezes&Kelliher, 2017), employee satisfaction, minimize absenteeism and reduce employees' turnover (Kotey& Sharma, 2019).and business performance (Beatson, 2019; Giovanis, 2018; Peros Khan, Mohammed, & Mohamed Harith, 2018; Tangen, 2005). As for the employee, they often associate good performance with employee's career growth (Altindag&Siller, 2014) thus because of this, they feel that FWAs is beneficial to them. Contradictory with this, Bray et al., (2018) claimed that FWAs does not have an impact on the employees' performance.
Supervisor Support
Supervisor support is one of the most prominent roles that can help employees wellbeing at the workplace is taken care of (Hemmig, 2017) besides other sources of supports (AbdRazak, YeopYunusSamsudin, Ab Wahid, and Wahid, 2019). Supervisor support refers to the willingness of managers to provide psychological and instrumental support to his or her subordinates so that the employees can manage work and home responsibilities (Meguella, Abdul Khalil, Ahmad, &MohdNor, 2017). Relatively, it was said that supervisor support is the key factor that contributed to the FWAs successful implementation (Clarke &Holdsworth, 2017). Researchers have identified that four dimensions or types of supervisor support can aid work and family demands faced by employees which comprise of emotional support, instrumental support, dual agenda support and role supportive behaviours support (Hammer, Kossek, Zimmerman, & Daniels, 2006; Kossek, Hammer, Kelly, & Moen, 2014). Organizational leaders could establish instrumental support by supporting FWAs practices in the workplace as a standard model of working (Kossek, 2016). Furthermore, Hammig (2017) stress that the supervisor plays a significant role in employee's health and wellbeing at work. A good supervisor is responsible to ensure the structural resources, rewards are maintained and providing the opportunities to co-workers that could enhance job satisfaction and employee's needs at the workplace (Rathi& Lee, 2017). Therefore, in implementing FWAs at the workplace, the supervisor is an important element for it to be implemented successful (Cooper and Baird, 2015). It is believed that the supervisor could influence employees' attitude and response in the implementation of FWAs practice in an organization (Koivisto& Rice, 2016). It allows the employee to overcome the repercussion of job loads and its difficulties which will give positive impact towards work (Goh, Ilies, & Wilson, 2015). It has been documented that supervisor support moderates the relationship in multiple stressors and strain relationships (Beehr et al., 1990; role stressors and job satisfaction; Fenlason and Beehr, 1994: underutilization of skills/qualitative under load). While, Chen, Sun, Lam, Hu, Huo, and Zhong, (2012) proposed that supervisor support moderates the relationship between emotional labour and job satisfaction/burnout. A study conducted by Kim, Hur, Moon, & Jun (2017) found that deep acting and job performance, are positively moderated by employee performance however the same study found that supervisor support does not moderate the relationship between surface acting and performance.
4. Methodology
This paper aims to examine the influence of flexible working arrangements on employee performance and the moderation effect of supervisor support between flexible working arrangements and employee performance in organizations that implement FWAs in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The population for this study primarily focused on the organizations that adopt the flexible working arrangements such as flexible working time, working from home, and compressed work-week practices. The companies selected in the study is based on the listing of global organizations practices FWAs mentioned in TalentCorp Malaysia Flexible Working Arrangements collaboration
with Malaysian Federation Employer (MEF) report (2015). Based on the report, only three (3) out of four (4) companies is present in Malaysia. The companies were contacted and the questionnaires were distributed to these companies. The survey questionnaire of the study was designed with a cover letter defining the purposes of the research background and objective. For this study, non-probability sampling design was selected because the element of the study population does not own any probabilities that devoted as the reason for being selected as a sample subject (Sekaran, 2010). The sampling design is dedicated to employees that possibly able to provide feedback on the required information. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect the data. Since it is impossible to identify the respondent; the assistance from each organization Human Resource Department was sought to help distribute the questionnaire using Google Form distribution link via corporate office email. The questionnaires were developed using items replicated and adopted from previous researchers.
The questionnaires items consist of five (5) major sections which are Demographic Information, Flexible Working Arrangements questions which consist of 8 questions adapted from Hyland (2000); Job performance questions which consist of 11 questions adapted from Tsui, Pearce, Porter, & Tripoli, (1997). Finally, Supervisor Support questions which consist of 6 questions adapted from Anderson, Coffey, and Byerly (2002). Revilla, Saris, &Krosnick, (2014) stated that five (5)-point and fewer scale would contribute to better result of validity and quality. The dichotomous scale should be considered the middle category to avoid the higher non-response rate therefore, the Likert scale-5-point were used for the study. Descriptive analysis, factor analysis, reliability measures, The Chi-Square test, The Mann-Whitney U Test and Binary Logistic Regression Analysis were conducted to analyze the data.
5. Results
A total number of 600 questionnaires were distributed. It was targeted to have returned of 400 sets of questionnaires, but only 305 sets of questionnaires were returned with a response rate of 50.00%. The questionnaires data were screened and cleaned. 1 set of questionnaires were removed and declared unusable due to incomplete reason. Therefore, the remaining of 304 sets of questionnaires was deemed acceptable for further data analysis. Table 1, illustrates the demographic profile of respondent by gender, age, marital status, the status of a spouse working, number of children, children age, education background, household and personal income range, type of employment, level of position, time taken to travel from home to office and distance between home and office.
Table1.Demographic Data of Respondent
Demographic Variables Categories Frequency(N) Percent (%)
Gender Male 134 44.1
Female 170 55.9
Age 18-24 years old 15 4.9
25-34 years old 114 37.5
35-44 years old 116 38.2
45-54 years old 54 17.8
55 years old and above 5 1.6
Marital status Single 79 26.0
Single Father/ Single Mother 3 1.0
Married 222 73.0
Spouse working Yes 192 63.2
No 30 9.9
Not Applicable 82 27.0
No of children None 107 35.2
2 children and below 130 42.8
More than 2 children 67 22.0
Child age None 107 35.2
17 years old and below 164 53.9
18 years old and above 12 3.9
Both 2 & 3 21 6.9
Education Background PMR/SPM / STPM 55 18.1
Tertiary level ( e.g.; Diploma,
Bachelor Degree, Master, PHD)
249 81.9
Household income Below RM4500 60 19.7
RM4501-RM6000 64 21.1 RM6001 – RM8000 39 12.8 RM8001 – RM10000 76 25.0 RM10001- RM12000 27 8.9 RM12001 – RM14000 27 8.9 RM14001 – RM16000 8 2.6 RM16001-RM18000 1 .3 RM18001-RM20000 1 .3 RM20001 and above 1 .3
Personal Income Below RM4500 95 31.3
RM4501-RM6000 95 31.3 RM6001 – RM8000 50 16.4 RM8001 – RM10000 43 14.1 RM10001- RM12000 9 3.0 RM12001 – RM14000 9 3.0 RM14001 – RM16000 2 .7 RM16001-RM18000 1 .3
Demographic Variables Categories Frequency(N) Percent (%)
Type of Employment Permanent 264 86.8
Contract 40 13.2
Level of Position Managerial 132 43.4
Non- Managerial 172 56.6
Time taken to travel from home to office
20 mins and less 104 34.2
21 mins-40mins 77 25.3
41 mins- 60 mins 97 31.9
more than 60 mins 26 8.6
office.
11-25kms 108 35.5
26-35kms 28 9.2
36-45kms 49 16.1
more than 45kms 21 6.9
From Table 1, Demographic Data of Respondent shows that the female respondents (55.9%) has represented the majority and the remaining is male respondents which accounted for 44.1%. The majority of the respondents aged between 35-44 years old (38.2%), with 37.5 % aged between 25-34 years old, followed by 17.8% aged between 45-54 years, aged 18-24 years old with a percentage of 4.9% and only 1.6% of the respondents that are aged more than 55 years old and above. The marital status of respondent shows that 73(%) are married, single (26%) and single father or mother (1%). Meanwhile, for the status of a spouse working, it was accounted 63.2% for "Yes'', followed by 9.9(%) for "No". It summarizes that 42.8 % respondents have 2 children and below followed by 35.2% of respondents has no children (it combined whether married or single respondent) and the remaining of 22% represents respondents that have more than 2 children. Majority percentage of 53.9% of respondents have children of age 17 years old and below followed by 3.9% of respondents have children aged 18 years old and above. Meanwhile, 6.9% of respondents have both range age of children. It can be summarized that nearly the majority of the respondents have tertiary education that represents about 81.9% and the remaining of 18.1 % respondents have an education level of PMR/SPM/STPM. For personal income, majority of the respondents earned between RM4501-RM6000 and below RM4500 that represents the percentage of 31.3%, followed by the income range of RM6001 – RM8000 represents 16.4%, RM8001 – RM10000 with a percentage of 14.1%, RM10001- RM12000 and RM12001 – RM14000 with the percentage of 3. The highest income range of RM16001-RM18000 with 3% respondents and the income range of RM14001 – RM16000 represents 7% of respondents. The majority of respondents 86.8% were permanent employees and 13.2% were contract employees. It consists about 56.6% of respondents were non-managerial positions and 43.4% respondents were managerial positions. About 34.2% respondents have taken time to office 20 minutes and less, followed by 41-60 minutes with 31.9% of respondents, 21-40 minutes with 25.3% of respondents, more than 60 minutes with 8.6% of respondents. Moreover, the majority respondents staying in the distance range of 11-25 kilometers with a leading percentage of 35.5%, followed by the distance range of fewer than 10 kilometers with 32.2%, then the distance range of 36-45 kilometers with 16.1% and the least percentage of 6.9% staying distance range of more than 45 kilometers. The data has been processed systematically, for example by running factor analysis, normality test, reliability tests, Chi-Square, The Mann- Whitney U test and the logistic regression. The reliability for Flexible Working Arrangement (FWAs) is 0.821; Employee Performance (EP) is 0.92; and Supervisor Support is 0.931. The reliability is good when it is more than 0.8 (Sekaran&Bougie, 1993). The greater the alpha close to 1 the greater the internal consistency of the study item (George &Mallery, 2016). It can be concluded that the study variables reliability is good since all the values exceeding 0.8. Chi-square test is shown in Table 2.
Table 2.Summary of Chi-Square Test Results
Variable /Demographics Factor
Age Gender Marital
Status Number of
Children
Justification
Flexible Working
Arrangement (FWAs) p<0.025 p<0.153 p<0.924 p<0.134
FWAs has significant association with age Employee
Performance (EP)
p<0.258 p<0.002 p<0.006 p<0.130
EP have significant association with gender and marital status
Supervisor Support
(SS) p<0.598 p<0.726 p<0.321 p<0.483
SS has no significant association between these 4 factors
Note : Significant level p<0.05, p<0.01
The Mann- Whitney U test is non-parametric test used for comparing the differences between the two independent groups on continuous measures. The Mann Whitney U Test is substitutes to T- Test (for parametric statistical test) which it compares median of the variables. It has converted the scores from continuous variables to ranks and compares across the two groups (Pallant, 2001). The results indicated that supervisor Support (SS)
between Gender, the results indicated that that the supervisor support (SS) is not significant even it was close to Alpha significant level which median for female employees (Mdn = 4.0) and male employees (Mdn = 4.0), Z= -1.896, p=.058 < .05. The Kruskal–Wallis test is a non-parametric analysis used to test whether samples were from the same distribution. It is used for comparing the differences on the continuous variables for three or more independent groups of the samples. It extends the Mann–Whitney U test, which is used for comparing only two groups. The Kruskal–Wallis test is an alternative to parametric test of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). As for Supervisor Support (SS) between Age, the test showed that there is no significant difference value, χ2(2)(4) = 7.576, p = .108, with a mean rank of 181.53 for 18 to 24 years old, 147.50 for 25 to 34 years old, 142.40 for 35 to44 years old, 175.52 for 45 to 54 years old and 165.10 for 55 years old and above. Finally, the test of Supervisor Support(SS) between Number of Children showed that there is no significant difference value , χ2(2)(2) = 2.750, p = .253, with a mean rank of 163.48 for none, 145.18 for 2 children and below, and 149.16 for more than 2 children.
The logistic regression was used to measure goodness of fit of the model in two ways. First, looking at the Pseudo R2 value in Model Summary Table that contains Cox & Snell R2 value and Nagelkerke R2 value . Second, it can be measured through the value of Chi-Square in Omnibus Test of Model Coefficients table and the corrected percentage in Classification table that represent the accuracy of the model. The lower of 2 log likelihood values (-2LL) is considered as better fit model (Hair et al., 2014).The -2LL value can be compared with first model and proposed model for estimation fit.
H01: There is no relationship between flexible working arrangement (FWAs) and employee
performance_(EP) (EP_ALL).
As per Table 3, the variable in equation of EP_ALL was generated without addition of demographic variables, which shows a significant relationship between FWAs and EP_ALL with p-value =.05, (Wald =3.855,p<.05). Model 3 has similar corrected classified of 95.4 per cent as Model 4. This model has shown a significant of p-value=.001 in Omnibus Tests of Model Coefficients with the chi-square value of 16.21 , X2(3, N=304) = 16.21, p< .05.. Therefore, the hypothesis of H01 is rejected.
Table 3.Logistic Regression Predicting Likelihood of Employee Performance (EP)
Variable Logistic Regression Coefficient (B) SD Wald Coefficient
df Sig. value Odd Ratio
(Exp (B)) Flexible Working Arrangement ( FWAs) -3.137 1.598 3.855 1 .050 .043 Supervisor Support (SS) -1.026 1.357 .571 1 .450 .359 FWAs by SS .623 .462 1.817 1 .178 1.865 Constant 9.097 4.766 3.644 1 .056 8932.394 Model X2 (3, N=304) =16.21
Pseudo R2=5.2 (Cox & Snell), 15.4 (Nagelkerke) N =304
Note := The dependent variable in this analysis is Employee Performance_ALL a. Variable(s) entered on step 1: FWAs, SS and FWAs by SS ( Moderator)
As per full model, it was illustrated in Omnibus Tests of Model Coefficients table (see Appendix), the chi-square value is 28.36 with p-value=.002 was statistically significant, X2(10, N=304) = 28.36, p< .05, demonstrated that the full model (Model 4) was able to differentiate between the employees who have performed (EP_ALL) and the employees who do not have performed (EP_ALL). The full model explained 8.9 per cent (Cox and Snell R Squared) and 26.4 per cent
(Nagelkerke R Squared) of the variance in predicting the occurrence of employee performance (EP_ALL). The full model has correctly classified 95.4 per cent of cases.
As per Table 3, the full model has showed the addition of predictors variable that consist of flexible working arrangement (FWAs) variable and the demographics variables ( age, gender and number of children) that has
been included. Gender (male) with p-value=.018 (Wald =5.606, p<.05) is a strongest predictor towards predicting the dependent variable of employee performance_ALL (EP) which controlling for the other predictors in the model.
Table 4.Logistic Regression Predicting Likelihood of Employee Performance_ALL
Variable Logistic Regression Coefficient (B) SD Wald Coefficient df Sig. value
Odd Ratio (Exp (B)) Flexible Working Arrangement ( FWA) -2.749 1.728 2.531 1.000 0.112 0.064 Supervisor Support (SS) -0.961 1.415 0.461 1.000 0.497 0.383 FWA by SS 0.593 0.491 1.455 1.000 0.228 1.809 Gender (Male) -1.636 0.691 5.606 1.000 0.018 0.195 Age (55 years old and above
:Ref Group) 1.948 4.000 0.745 Age (1) 17.572 10126.423 0.000 1.000 0.999 42792266.839 Age (2) 0.465 1.785 0.068 1.000 0.795 1.592 Age(3) -0.029 1.725 0.000 1.000 0.986 0.971 Age (4) 1.139 1.808 0.397 1.000 0.529 3.122 No of Children (More than 2 children : Ref Group) 2.097 2.000 0.351 No of Children (1) 0.214 0.991 0.047 1.000 0.829 1.239 No of Children (2) -0.770 0.711 1.173 1.000 0.279 0.463 Constant 9.115 5.716 2.543 1.000 0.111 9089.259 Model X2= (10, N=304) =28.36
Pseudo R2=8.9 (Cox & Snell), 26.4 (Nagelkerke) N =304
Note:= The dependent variable in this analysis is Employee Performance_ALL
a. Variable(s) entered on step 1: Age, Gender, Number of Children, FWAs by SS (Moderator)
Ho2: There is no moderation effect of supervisor support between flexible working arrangement (FWAs) and employee performance_ALL(EP).
To examine the role of the supervisor support as the moderator, the interaction variable of FWAs by SS with the independent variable (FWAs) and a dependent variable (EP_ALL) were assessed. In Table 4, the independent variable of FWAs and the moderator variable of SS and the interaction variable of FWAs by SS were included together to interact with EP_ALL (dependent variable). However, it does not show a significant relationship (Wald=1.455, p>.05). Thus, the hypothesis of H02 is failed to reject. Table 5, indicates the results of this study.
Table 5.Summary of Findings
Hypothesis Statement Relationship status
H01: There is no relationship between flexible working arrangement (FWAs) and employee performance_
Hypothesis of H01 is rejected (significant)
H02 There is no moderation effect of supervisor support between flexible working arrangement (FWAs) and employee performance
6. Discussions
The result demonstrates that there is a relationship between FWAs and employee performance which is consistent with the previous study (Beatson, 2019; Giovanis, 2018; Peros Khan, Mohammed, & Mohamed Harith, 2018; Tangen, 2005). However, the results showed that there is no moderation effect of supervisor support between flexible working arrangement and employee performance which is also consistent with a previous study by Kim, Hur, Moon, & Jun (2017).In this study, the result showed that male employees seem to have higher work performance compared to women employees, but the differences are small. Plausible reasons are that, even though 55.9% of the respondent are female employees and the rest about 44.1% respondent is male, their performance seems to be at par.
Similar conclusions also can be made about the marital status that, it does not affect the performance of the employee. When a comparison regarding marital status is done, even though there are about 73% of the respondent who is married, more than those who are single, their performance is the same. In this study, regardless of gender and marital status, the employees seem to benefit with the adoption of FWAs at the workplace. It allows both gender and single or married employees to manage their time better particularly allowing the employees to personal needs (Allen et al. 2014; Kelly et al. 2014). Traditional gender role were women, who were once associated to be the persons dealing with home issues (Lott and Chung, 2016; Weiss, 1990), and men, who were portrayed as the head of the families cum bread-winners of the families (Kanter, 1977; Lott and Chung, 2016) is no longer relevant nowadays.
This is further proven with the fact that 98.4% of the employee's age is between 25 to 44 years which is the prime time in building a family (Kohno, Dahlui, NikFarid, Safii, &, Nakayama., 2020). Thus, the availability of FWAs allows both genders to have a balance in work and family life which is crucial especially during the transition into parenthood (Erickson, Martinengo, & Hill, 2010). This is when marital problems or caring for an ill parent (Bennett.,Beehr, &Lepisto, 2016) and readjusting to life changes (Hobson &Delunas, 2001). As for the moderation effect of supervisor support between flexible working arrangement and employee performance, the observation is that FWAs itself is the support given by employers to employees for them to have better control over when or where they work (Kelly et al. 2011; Glass and Estes 1997) to have a balance in work and family life (Allen, 2001). Thus, supervisor support is seen as part of FWAs, and the employees do not see them as two different entity. It is different in traditional organizations, where supervisors assume the responsibility as the caretakers for effective work and family policies (Hopkins, 2005; Ryan &Kossek, 2008). In this study, the companies that the employees are working has a FWAs policy and are practising it throughout the entire organization (Ryan &Kossek, 2008), employees feel that the company does not have rigid rules that they need to comply (MacDermid, et al., 1994) which makes them think they are free to decide on when and where they should work thus supervisor approval is not needed. The situation where supervisor approval is needed normally can be found in an organization that does not implement FWAs (Hopkins, 2005; Ryan &Kossek, 2008). For the employees, they were unable to associate the supervisor support role as a critical factor in managing their work and home responsibilities. Unlike, home responsibilities, it requires support from family members and spouse (AbdRazak et al 2019; Abdul Razak et al., 2010; Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992) which is visible for them to see, unlike support in companies that have a FWAs policy. The implication for this study is that FWAs have a direct impact on the employee performance which directly reflected on the organization business outcomes such as business productivity and earnings. Organizations, having to achieve desired productivity and earnings will allow them to reward their employees. From the employee perspective, monetary rewards were seen as a communal factor that engaging them to perform better. This study showed that employee motivation to perform are affected by the policies adopted by organizations.
The adoption of efficient work practices such as FWAs could signify employee engagement that can exhibit positive work performance in the organization. Organizations that are currently searching for a strategy that can improve productivity and employee performance should consider FWAs as an option. However, the implementation of FWAs needs to be customized according to the needs of each organizational employees. Offering FWAs benefits in the organization will enhance organizational and individual outcomes (Kattenbach et al., 2010; de Menezes&Kelliher, 2011).
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