Flexible Working Practices: How Employees Can Reap the Benefits for Engagement and Performance

Technological developments such as the advent of laptops, mobile devices, and related new communication channels (e.g., social and business networks, instant messaging programs) enabled the uptake of flexible working practices in knowledge work organizations. Whether flexible working practices have positive, negative or zero effects for employees and their organizations remains an important question for research and organizations.

This dissertation uncovered that performance and well-being gains through flexible working practices can be achieved. In particular, the results of this dissertation
(a) revealed that employees themselves need to become proactive in the form of time-spatial job crafting and media job crafting if they want to reap the benefits of flexible working practices
(b) emphasize that understanding the effects of increases in spatial flexibility inside the office building (activity-based areas) for performance and health outcomes requires to take on a process evaluation approach and
(c) present a model of flexibility development that enables employees to reap performance and well-being benefits over time.