IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 25, Issue 5, Series. 6 (May. 2020) 50-59 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/0837-2505065059 www.iosrjournals.org 50 |Page Flexible Working Arrangments and Organizational Performance: An Overview AUSTIN-EGOLE, Ifeyinwa Stella 1 , IHERIOHANMA, E. B. J 2 , NWOKORIE, Chinedu 3 1 Directorate of General Studies, Federal University of Technology, Owerri. 2 Directorate of General Studies, Federal University of Technology, Owerri. 3 Department of Sociology Imo State University, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria Abstract: Flexible working arrangements (FWA)are both important and significant to workplaces in this twentyfirst century. Organizations are burdened with how to balance their employees work-life balance to enable them reduce all the attendant problems associated with them while ensuring efficient and effective performance. Hence, a lot of organizations offer flexible working arrangements to employees due to the benefits associated with flexibility both for the employees and employers. Greatly improved employee cum organizationalperformanceisone of the most common benefits. It equally facilitatesbalanced work-life resulting in reduced stress andincreased wellbeing for the employees and reduced absenteeism and employeeturnoverfor the organization. This paper aims at highlighting the various forms and general principles of flexible working arrangements and their effect on employee performance.Library research involving analytical discussion of secondary datais adopted as the methodology. It recommends that more research be conducted on the effects of employee-driven and employer-driven flexible work arrangements on organizational performance in order to substantiate the claim that effects of FWAs vary depending on the primary beneficiary. Keywords: Flexible working arrangements, Performance, Employer-driven arrangements, Employee-driven arrangements --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 06-05-2020 Date of Acceptance: 19-05-2020 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION As organizations strive to achieve their aims and objectives which, most times, include meeting stakeholders’ unending demand for capital appreciation, increasing market share, continued survival in the industry, sustained retention of valuable workers, all of which are indicatives of achieving optimal performance, they require the services of peoplewho will help navigate the affairs of the organizations. Jackson (2007) avers that the employees are the most valuable assets that organizations have in hand. These workers are however regularly burdened with the dilemma of how to distribute their time among several competing needs such as attending to family issues, socio-political events and many other activities that sometimes conflict with organizational goals. This situation often creates work-life conflict for some workers whose private life is threatened by the disparity in the time they invest in their office work as against time spent at home.The resultanteffect affects both the organization and individual employees as well as the society as a whole(Fapohunda,2014). For the organizations, the negative impact could be in the form of incessant absenteeism or inefficiency of some workers whereas the employee could experience increased marital conflicts, separation, divorce, and/ or even ineffective parenting amongst other issues (Vlems, 2008). In another vein, organizationsarenot static;rather they evolve in response to the changing technological and business environment.The on-going digitization of the workplace necessitated by information and communication technology, global market and trans nationalizationhas beennoted to have brought radical changes in the human experience of work both in the nature of work performed, the time and how employees ’ performance are obtained in the organization. Technological advancements have enabledteleworking andplayed a criticalprominent role in the creation and evolvementof 24-hour organizations where there is a very thin line separating work and non-work time, making it increasingly indistinct. This has equally resulted in a notable significant shift away from the normal or standard working week towards non-standard work schedules causing firms to consider the adjustment of actual working hours without affecting both employee wellbeing and practices relating to firm performance (Hashim, Ullah & Khan, 2017). Flexible working arrangements (FWAs)are those common practices used by organizations globally in response to various challenges resulting from these changes.They are those programmes,according toKlindzic and Marić (2019), designed by employers to allow employees have more scheduling freedom to enable them