Flexible Working and Psychological Contract in Leading and Managing People

This report discusses the implementation of flexible working and psychological contracts in organisations, their impact on firms, and recommendations for improvement. It includes examples of flexible working practices and factors that motivate and encourage them. The report also explains the concept of psychological contracts and their differences from legal agreements. It highlights the importance of fairness and trust in psychological contracts and their impact on employee satisfaction and firm performance. The report concludes with recommendations for improving employee satisfaction, including increasing salaries, providing equal opportunities for flexible working, and involving the firm in the social lives of employees.

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LEADING AND MANAGING PEOPLE
INTRODUCTION
When the firm is hiring employees in its organisation they first agree on terms and
condition of what is expected of the parties involved. The parties involved are the employee,
employer, the customer or even the government. To improve the efficiency of the employees,
there have been efforts to make them more productive. One of these trends is the introduction of
flexible working and psychological contracts. The aim of this report to create awareness of new
aspects essential for leading and controlling employees efficiently for better firm financial
performance, competition and success. The report will describe in details how flexible working
and psychological contracts are implemented in organisation point out the implication behind
these trends. The objective of this report is to create awareness of and give recommendations on
how flexible working and psychological contract that can be implemented to achieve the very
best result from applying these two trends.
1.Flexible Working and Psychological Contract
Flexible Working
The word flexible working refers on how the firm’s organisation on its working schedule,
place work and the pattern of doing the job in a way that it accommodates the needs of workers
by providing flexible working time (Mon et al. 2016, pp.150). For instance, where there is no

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fixed start and finish time of the job and even where the firm enables the employee to work when
away from the firm’s premises. The flexible working could also be used to define practices such
as a shift swapping, employee self-rostering or having time off to attend training (Hall et al,
2017,pp.7).
According to a survey by CIPD on flexible working, the following are examples of
flexible working practices by some employees :Part-time. This where the employee allows the
worker to work lesser time than the full-time hours. Term-time. Where the worker under a
permanent contract is allowed to take leave during the holidays : Job-sharing. This where the
firm allows two or more employee to share the responsibility for the particular job among
themselves: Flextime. This enables the employee to work on his/her appropriate time where
he/she set when to begin and end work. Mobile working/teleworking: this allows the employees
to work away from the firm premises. It enables the worker to work still at home or even in
remote areas away from the workplace.
Factor that motivates and encourages flexible working
There following are factors that motivates and encourages flexible working. They occur
in the following scenarios; Where demand for better work-life balance is high,When the firm
wants to give out services on a 24/7 basis, Improved technology that enables the worker to work
remotely and Different profiles involvement in the workforce which includes the young and
ageing population. (Kultalahti and et al, 2014, pp.570)
.

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The psychological contract
The psychological contract is as an agreement between the employer and employees on
business terms that are imprecise and informal that is agreed on upon during the performance
evaluations and the recruitment process (Alcover, Rico, Turnley and Bolino, pp.18). The contract
differs from the legal agreement which is different from the formal contract which gives only a
limited and uncertain illustration of the nature of the employment where their employee may
have little say in terms which leads to this contract (Lv and Xu, 2018, pp.1258). For examples,
some psychological contract is when the firm allows some worker to end work before the time
stipulated in the legal agreement or when the firm offers free transport to workers. Some
companies also allow workers to go for a holiday during off-peak seasons. According to CIPD,
the followings key a point related to psychological contract as identified by Guest (Guest, 2016,
pp.136):The psychological contract will be influenced by the extent the administration will
implement workers management, The contract is well established when the employer is fair and
built trust among his/her employees and when the employer is striving in honouring the deal
between them,If the contrite psychological act, the s other optimistic, improved worker
obligation and fulfilment will result in an encouraging effect on firm performance.
Sometimes the employer may break the psychological contract due to various reasons
that result to the following demerit to an organisation (Chory et al., 2016, pp.41): Poor job

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satisfaction among the employees, Poor an engagement of employees in decision making and
Poor employees’ performance.
The psychological contract was brought out by uncertainties round work insecurity(De
cuyper et al., 2017, pp.42). The administration ought to certify that the agreement is kept by
expounding what they are offering, looking on employee needs on a regular basis, accomplishing
its commitments as per contract and clearing any wrong occurrence in the firm. The worker
engagement plan gives an advantageous framework in which the organisation operates from
where their better employee satisfaction (Bryson, 2018).
2.Impact of Flexible Working and Psychological Contract in The Firm.
The flexible working and psychological contract are evident in my former place work
that was the Bank Sohar in Oman. Regarding flexible working, the bank used part-time working
and job-sharing working. A part-time job is where the company or a firm allows its employees to
work lesser time than the full time stimulated for full-time operation(Sullivan and Carraher,
2018). The Bank allowed some workers to do their job either during the daytime or during the
time. The employee who opted to work during the day didn’t have to be in the firm during the
night. Job sharing mechanism is where two or more workers work in one position in the firm
either during the same time or during a different time of the day (Burkin and Wexler,
2016,pp.406). It mainly helps when the work is too many mostly in peak period when one
employee cannot manage one position alone or when the employees are many and to
accommodate them they have to share this position. In the Sohar Bank, employees used to share
post during the peak hours when the number of customers is high.

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The job sharing was also evident when employee shared same post by shifting whereby
one works at daytime and the other during the night. The mechanism was to help in maintain the
normal flow of process in the bank during the busy hours when the number of customers were
many. It also encouraged 24/7 operation of banks process. In the firm, the women were working
more flexible than men who tend to work full-time. The firm mostly considers women to work
on a flexible scheduled compared to men having the assumption that women had a family to
cater for them. The flexible working had many advantages toward the firm such as the
satisfaction of working days and time that enables the employees to work to their best thus doing
best work leading to improved work efficiency of the firm. Better flexible working allows the
firm to operate during the day or the night to cater the needs of its customer in anytime thus
helping the bank to have a better reputation in the market thus increasing its customers that will
enable the bank to grow (Jin et al., 2016, pp.515). Flexible working also enables the employee to
feel being part of the firm, and thus he/she can air his/her view or query very quickly and openly.
In Bank Sohar, the psychological contract was viewed as the priorities for employees in
the organization. The worker was exposed to be the better working condition and worked using
the appropriate apparatus. The bank uses the current technology and equipment such as better
computer and its related equipment to make the work easier for the employees. The firm also did
promote the employees fairly according to their performance e and their determination in their
place of work. The firm did promote Khalil Salim Al Hedaif to be in charge of retail banking.
The employees in the bank has the priority of accessing loans in the bank to enable them to
improve their lives or in case of emergency or personal needs.
According to CIPD, the psychological contract has many impacts on every organisation.
One of the effects is fairness in its processes where the administration carried its operations fairly

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for example during its promotion session it awards the hardworking employees with more
significant responsibility. The contract also creates a channel for communication where the
employees can quickly raise their view and query. The deal enables the firm to work with
satisfied workers who work to their best as a result of better working conditions in the firm.
3.Conclusion
Through the research, I realise that my former place of work has been implementing a
flexible working and had a psychological contract in their day-to-day work practices. I
recognized flexible working practices such as part-time job and job-sharing in the firm. The
psychological agreements are the priorities extended to employees mostly acting as a motivation
factor (Caldwell and peters, 2018, pp.29). These priorities include fairness in the firm’s practices
and added advantages such as access to loans and better working equipment and better working
place. My former place of work lacked the satisfaction of the employees regarding the salaries
they received. It didn’t motivate the employees to work hard, and the firm gave little on matters
to do with the training of employees to improve the skills.
Finally, the firm didn’t take much time and resources to involve itself in the social
life of the employees during events such as wedding and burial of one of the employees
and allowing men and women to have the same chance of having a flexible working
schedule. The firm should consider increasing or salaries of the employees, enable men to
have an equal opportunity of flexible working practice, attend or involve itself in the
social lives of its employees. Increasing their wages will allow the workers to work
without the pressure of looking for another source of income which may prompt the

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worker to steal from the organisation. The firm should organise training for its employees
to improve their skill which will lead to better performance of the employees (Epstein,
2018). Involvement of the firm on the social lives of employees will raise the sense of
belonging to the worker to that firm and will act as motivating factor.

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Reference
Alcover, C.M., Rico, R., Turnley, W.H. and Bolino, M.C., 2017. Understanding the changing
nature of psychological contracts in 21st century organizations: A multiple-foci exchange
relationships approach and proposed framework. Organizational Psychology Review, 7(1), pp.4-
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Bryson, J.M., 2018. Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to
strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. John Wiley & Sons.
Bukchin, Y. and Wexler, E., 2016. The effect of buffers and work sharing on makespan
improvement of small batches in assembly lines under learning effects. IIE Transactions, 48(5),
pp.403-414.
Caldwell, C. and Peters, R., 2018. New employee onboarding–psychological contracts and
ethical perspectives. Journal of Management Development, 37(1), pp.27-39.
Chory, R.M., Vela, L.E. and Avtgis, T.A., 2016. Organizational surveillance of computer-
mediated workplace communication: employee privacy concerns and responses. Employee
Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 28(1), pp.23-43.
De Cuyper, N., De Witte, H. and Isaksson, K., 2017. Psychological Contracts–How to Deal with
Complexity?. In Employment contracts and well-being among European workers (pp. 41-56).
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Guest, D.E., 2016. Trust and the role of the psychological contract in contemporary employment
relations. In Building trust and constructive conflict management in organizations(pp. 137-149).

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Hall, A.L., Smit, A.N., Mistlberger, R.E., Landry, G.J. and Koehoorn, M., 2017. Organisational
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Jin, T., Wang, H. and Liu, H., 2016, November. Design of a flexible high-performance real-time
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Kultalahti, S. and Liisa Viitala, R., 2014. Sufficient challenges and a weekend ahead–Generation
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Lv, Z. and Xu, T., 2018. Psychological contract breach, high-performance work system and
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Appendix A
The Bank Sohar
The bank sohah SAOG is bank in Oman that gives Islamic financial services, investments
and commercial services. The bank was founded in the 2007 and today has 738 employees and it
has other branches in the world. The bank is located in the Bank Sohar building in the
Muscat,Masqat in Oman. The bank has the variety of employees including the young, old,
women and men. The bank operates in the several segments as follows; retail banking,
wholesale banking, investments, project finance and Islamic banking. The banks enable the
customers to save or deposit their cash in the bank. The bank has a variety of accounts which are
used by different peaples such as fixed account and current account. The offers loans such as
educational, home, personal, emergency to its customers. The banks use the current trends in the
baking such as use of the electronic money. This where the bank uses technology such as use of
credit cards, Atms, electronic money transfers and banking applications to aid their customer to
access services any time.
The bank Sohar is one of the fast growing banks in the Oman. The bank has grown in the
past years such a way that its estimated revenue is about $280m. The development has a been as
result of better management of the firm by the managers. The firm has also emblazed the flexible
working and psychological contract that enables the employees to work to their best.

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