ESWT – Establishment Survey on Working-time and Work-Life Balance 2004/05

1. ESWT – Establishment Survey on Working-time and Work-Life Balance 2004/05 Experiences and future prospects 2nd WORKS Workshop on Measuring changes in work by organisation surveys Leuven, 19/20 March 2007 Presentation by Arnold Riedmann, TNS Infratest Sozialforschung, Munich

2. Contents • About TNS Infratest • About the European Foundation • Key features of the survey: a) Technical specifications b) Contents • Challenges with regard to comparability: some selected issues • Questionnaire design • Choice of the unit of enquiry: Company vs. establishment • Address sources and statistical background information: What is available? • Coverage of the public sector in organizational surveys: A specific challenge • Interviews with formal employee representation • Our experiences – an overall assessment

3. About TNS Infratest Sozialforschung • Private research institute with own data-collection unit • Part of an international network with fieldwork institutes in almost all European countries • Social research unit, specialised in research for public organisations (government, research institutes, universities, EU bodies etc.) • Specific profile: Expertise in the subject matter (labour market issues) and experiences in survey design, data-collection (e.g. German establishment panel and several multi-national surveys) and analysis • Our role in the ESWT project: • Role of co-ordinator and main responsible in all stages of the preparatory and fieldwork phases • Supported by a large team of international experts in working-time and work-life balance issues • Co-ordination of part of the analysis phase and responsibility for first analysis & reporting

4. About the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions • European Union body • Specialised in research aiming at providing policy makers and social partners with information, expertise and advice for decisions in the field of EU social policy • Ultimate aim: improvement of living and working conditions in Europe • One of the instruments for gaining information: European-wide surveys • Three mayor European-wide surveys: • Working Conditions Survey (individuals) • Quality of Life Survey (individuals) • Establishment Survey on Working-Time and Work-Life Balance (ESWT) • ESWT fills gap of knowledge about European companies (much less knowledge about the European company than about the European employee)

5. Key features of the survey I: Technical specifications • 21 countries in two phases 15 countries January 2004 – November 2004 6 countries January 2005 – July 2005 • Telephone interviews • Net sample: 350 – 1,500 establishments per country • Stratified samples with establishments of 10 or more employees • Inclusion of all relevant sectors • Respondents: Management (MM) and Employee Representation bodies (ER) in same establishments • Total of more than 21.000 MM and 5.200 ER interviews

6. Key features of the survey II: Contents • Measurement of incidence and specifications of various working-time arrangements at establishment level, such as part-time work, working time accounts, overtime, shift work, work at unusual hours, parental leave, long-term leave, early and phased retirement • Analysis of reasons for implementation and of the experiences made with these working time arrangements at establishment level (flexibility strategies, work-life balance philosophies etc.) • Identification of flexibility needs and strategies on the employer’s side • Repercussions of the applied working-time arrangements on the employees, especially on their work-life balance (e.g.: predictability of working time patterns) • Nature of the social dialogue within the establishments with regard to these working-time arrangements • Policy context: Flexible working-time arrangements as a way to: • increase employment rates (Lisbon strategy) • enhance the competitiveness of the EU economy (e.g. by raising flexibility at the company level) • Improve people’s work-life balance (in a short-term and life-course perspective)

7. Questionnaire design: Striving for the highest degree of comparability • Trade-off in the conceptualisation of cross-national surveys: • Design a custom-tailored survey for one country and subsequently adapt it to others (possibly at the expense of comparability) • Start with a concept taking into account the core variations across countries (possibly at the expense of national details) Example: Working-time accounts – a term/concept well known in some countries but little known in others • High importance of translation process

8. Definition of the unit of enquiry: Company vs. establishment • Differences: • Company level sampling: Single-site companies and headquarters of multi-site companies • Establishment level sampling: Single-site companies and both headquarters and (legally dependent) subsidiaries of multi-site companies • Limited awareness of the differences especially in countries where company/establishment level surveys are a new field of research • What is the appropriate unit? ( topic and aim of the study!) • Establishment level more suitable to investigate everyday practice (e.g. working time) • Company level might be more appropriate for research on company policy issues decided at the headquarters level (e.g. outsourcing strategies, IT strategies) • Does the difference matter?  Highly significant correlations between types of establishment (single-site, HQ/subsidiary of multi-sites) for most issues asked in the ESWT

9. Address sources and statistical background information I – What is needed? • An up-to-date address register of either companies (in all countries) or establishments (in all countries) with: • Clearly defined units (either establishments or companies) • Information on sector and size for all addresses (stratified sample!) • Telephone numbers • Representativeness with regard to sectors of activity (and sizes) • Up-to-date statistical information on the universe of companies or establishments with: • Corresponding information on distribution of est./comp by size-class and sector of activity • Completeness with regard to sectors and sizes (or at least information on weaknesses) • Information on distribution of employees by sectors and size-classes

10. Address sources and statistical background information II – What was available? • Address sources: • Good establishment registers in several, but not all countries • Company registers in several countries only from commercial providers (usually not best source, widely varying quality) • Deficiencies with regard to comprehensiveness in both commercial and official sources (comp./est.) in some countries • Statistical background information: • In some countries only information on establishments, in others only on companies, rarely information on both types of units • Still no EU-wide establishment or company statistics and registers available for research purposes • Little comparative methodological research

11. The public sector – a blind spot in several national address sources and statistics • Three sectors with major involvement of public establishments/organisations: • Public Administration (NACE L) • Education (NACE M) • Health and social services (NACE N) • Many address registers – commercial as well as official ones – do not or only partially include these sectors • In many countries limited knowledge about the universe of these sectors, e.g. size composition and ratio between public and private units  Coverage of these sectors in European-wide company surveys difficult and costly, limitations with regard to quality/comparability  Check of importance of these sectors for aims of study recommended

12. Interviews with employee representation bodies: an innovative element of enhancing knowledge • Brings in an additional perspective, adds important information on decision-making at establishment level, e.g.: • Role of the ER in the shape of working-time arrangements at establishment level • Assessment of the establishment practice • Identification of most conflictive work-life balance issues in the social dialogue • Employee representative perspective ≠ employee perspective! (no replacement for a linked employer-employee dataset) • Three major methodological challenges: • Identification of the appropriate national body • Getting access to the employee representation within the establishment (ESWT: via MM) • Handling of the differences in ER-incidences between countries in the analysis phase

13. The analysis phase • Involvement of a large (centrally coordinated) group of experts from different institutes and countries in the analysis phase (BE, ES, FR, DE, HU, NL, PL, SE, UK) • Three stages with an output of 7 reports in total: (1) Overview report covering all topics in a first analysis (published) (2) Specific reports on selected arrangements: • Part-time work • Parental leave (published) • Unusual hours • Early and phased retirement (published) (3) Further in-depth analysis of broader topics: • Flexibility at company level (e.g. interrelations between different working-time arrangements) • Social dialogue at company level regarding working time arrangements and work-life balance issues

14. Final remarks – overall assessment • Pioneering work with the ESWT 2004/05: • Pan-European establishment survey with a high degree of comparability • Employee representative interviews in same establishment as an innovative element • Analysis of the data from many different angles • High investments in quality in all stages of the survey, from survey design to analysis • At some points compromises with regard to methodological quality were (and will be) necessary • Experiences drawn from ESWT 2004/05 as a good basis for future surveys • Survey provided many interesting insights, e.g. in different work-life balance concepts, national company cultures and approaches towards flexibility