Impacts of flexible working hours on the quality of life and flow of public servants at a Federal University.
Name: NATALIA BEATRIZ HONORATO SANTOS
Publication date: 13/12/2024
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| ALEXSANDRO LUIZ DE ANDRADE | Examinador Interno |
| BRUNO HENRIQUE FIORIN | Presidente |
| MARINA GREGHI STICCA | Examinador Externo |
Summary: Quality of life and quality of life at work are concepts that are intrinsically interconnected and are relevant themes for understanding the impacts of working conditions on workers' lives. In the face of social changes and technological advances, these themes have been gaining even more prominence, since satisfaction and well-being bring benefits such as improved work climate and greater productivity to organizations. In this context, flexible work modalities, such as flexible working hours, are increasingly discussed. The Brazilian public sector is no different. Therefore, this work aimed to delve deeper into the reality experienced by employees of a Federal University with and without flexible working hours. The central problem lies in identifying whether flexible working hours have significant impacts on the quality of life at work of public servants, considering its implications on the state of Flow of these workers. The main objective was to evaluate the impact of flexible working hours on the quality of life and state of Flow at work of technical-administrative employees. In theoretical terms, this study covered topics related to Public Administration, Quality of Life (QL) and Quality of Life at Work (QVT), flexible working hours, as well as theories about Flow, in order to achieve the objective of this work. Regarding the methods and procedures, this was a cross-sectional study with a quantitative-qualitative approach in which three questionnaires were applied, one of which assessed the sociodemographic profile, another assessed the quality of life at work and the third characterized the flow at work of technical-administrative employees in education (TAE's), whether on flexible working hours or not, thus collecting psychosocial data and making a correlation between them. The instruments used were the QVT formulated by Walton (1973) and the Work Flow Inventory (Freitas et al., 2019). The sample consisted of employees assigned to the Center for Human and Natural Sciences of the Federal University of Espírito Santo (CCHN/UFES). This research was submitted to the Ethics Committee for Research with Human Beings for consideration. The results, through the correlations between Quality of Life at Work (QVT) and the Flow state, indicated that technical-administrative employees in education (TAEs) with flexible working hours at CCHN presented, on average, a better quality of life at work compared to TAEs with traditional working hours at the same center. The study included the participation of 41 employees, mostly female (68.3%). Flexible working hours are adopted by 63.4% of the participants, with the support of management in 85.4% of the cases. The employees with flexible working hours demonstrated significantly higher averages in the domains "Social Integration and Constitutionalism" (t = 2.86; p < 0.01) and "Space in Life" (t = 5.40; p < 0.01). Based on these results, as a technological product, a technical report was prepared with a diagnosis regarding the impacts caused on the quality of life and flow state of the employees with and without flexible working hours at CCHN/UFES.
