Autonomy, Flexibility and Job Control

Autonomy in the workplace is the ability and freedom a worker has to make independent, job related decisions and to choose how and when the job related tasks gets completed. Essentially, it is the ability to have a choice in one’s behaviour rather than having to act contrary to what one would want to do .  

In organisations, workers often need to either earn or be endowed with autonomy, whether through seniority, experience or their professional capacity.

This autonomy gives workers the ability to have a degree of control over the decisions or judgements they make in addition to when, where and how they perform their professional obligations.

Worker autonomy tends to carry with it the weight and the associated social identity of seniority, encouraging workers to feel indispensable to others, with an associated obligation to meet professional commitments to colleagues, clients and supervisors.

The seniority and social status synonymous with autonomy can create an expectation of keeping an eye on project related communications, ensuring the projects are kept moving forward and subordinates are given continuous guidance and answers.

Professional employees who were given the autonomy to decide when and where they worked, and how often they monitored email communication, spent more time using professional technology to communicate with colleagues and coworkers in their private time.

They would justify these extra hours of unpaid work by positively rationalising the perceived expectation that others had of them.

Although autonomy and schedule control can help manage worker distress and work family conflict, autonomy-triggered continuous engagement with email messages amongst supervisors, team members and subordinates tended to create a shared assumption of normative behaviour, across multiple levels within a company, implying that employees are potentially reachable anytime.  

Workplace norms, and the increasing pace of work demands, have meant that workers are tending to feel “technologically tethered” to their workplace at all times. 

The resulting workplace norms raised expectations and reinforced shared assumptions of being continuously available, thereby creating a feeling of continuous stress regarding workplace commitments.  

Referred to as “The Autonomy Paradox”, the very flexibility and freedom granted to workers allowing them the ability to work and engage in professional ICT anytime and anywhere, can be the very thing that binds workers to the company, their colleagues and clients every waking hour.

Essentially, the inability to disconnect reduces the autonomy and increases their overall job stress.