English

Directions (1-5): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below them. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions. Life is messy. If we want our best and brightest in the workforce, we need to accept that they have complex lives. We need to be flexible when it comes to the realities of balancing career and family. Being flexible at work doesn’t just benefit people trying to balance their outside lives with work. An extensive body of research demonstrates the business benefits of flexible working. Yet despite this overwhelming evidence, access to flexible work and careers is not widespread. Flexible work is still regarded as an add-on, something we do for mothers for a few months when they are back from parental leave. But in the face of rapid changes to the way we work, organizations need to move beyond just having policies for flexible working or making ad-hoc adjustments for certain individuals. Companies need to fundamentally rethink the way they design work and jobs. The World Economic Forum predicts that we are on the cusp of a fourth industrial revolution. Technological, socioeconomic and demographic shifts are transforming the way we work, demanding flexibility in the way individuals, teams and organizations work. We all have different things happening in our lives at different times. Not just caring for young kids, but other family members, community roles, study and volunteering. And all of these parts of our identities bring with them different skill sets. In today’s workforce, fewer people identify with the stereotype of the ideal worker – a full-time, fully committed employee without personal or family commitments that impact on availability. There are a few factors driving the demand for increased flexibility. Globalization is one. The development of a 24/7 marketplace, and the rapid expansion of the services economy are also having a transformational effect on the workplace, requiring organizations to think creatively about how they can best organize jobs and work to respond to an increasingly diverse and demanding customer base. Similarly technology is driving – and enabling – greater flexibility. It is dramatically reshaping our workplaces, blurring the boundaries between work and home and diversifying where, when and how employees work. Advances in mobile, internet and cloud technologies, the rapid development of computing power, and the digital connection between multiple objects have all driven workplace innovations such as remote working, telecommuting, co-working spaces, video/teleconferencing, and virtual teams and collaboration. So the future of work demands new approaches to work design – but have workplaces risen to the challenge? The evidence suggests we have yet to grasp this opportunity to be more innovative. While some employers are making flexible work more available, there is still a high prevalence of bolted-on temporary arrangements. These arrangements are seen as the exception to the rule, with the full-time, “face-time”, long hours “ideal worker” still the model to which everyone is expected to adhere.



Q1. According to the author, how is flexible working still regarded as? (a) the way of designing work and jobs. (b) the way to identify the stereotype of an ideal worker. (c) an add-on, something we do for mothers for a few months when they are back from parental leave. (d) advances in mobile, internet and cloud technologies and the rapid development of computing power. (e) None of these.

Q2. According to the passage, in today’s workforce, which among the following is/are the stereotype(s) of an ideal worker?
(I) a full time worker
(II) an employee who is fully committed to work
(III) the employee has no personal or family commitments that impact his availability

(a) Only (II)
(b) Only (III)
(c) Both (II) and (III)
(d) Both (I) and (III)
(e) All of these.

Q3. According to the passage, how is technology driving and enabling greater flexibility? (a) It is identifying the stereotype of an ideal worker. (b) It is dramatically reshaping our workplaces, blurring the boundaries between work and home and diversifying where, when and how employees work. (c) It is training the workers on how to transform the ways in which flexibility can be introduced (d) It is one of the factors that is contributing in declining the demand for flexibility at the workplace worldwide. (e) None of these.


Q4. Which of the following were the steps taken by the UK Bakery with regards to the working time of their bakers?
(I) The UK Bakery came up with a flexible system of two to three baking shifts a day to maintain a steady supply of fresh bread.
(II) The Bakery team agreed to rotate their hours each week so no team member permanently worked a shift that did not suit.
(III) The bakery sales increased by more than 65% in the first year and employee satisfaction in the bakery has risen 10% since the change to 93%.
(a) Only (III)
(b) Both (I) and (III)
(c) Both (II) and (III)
(d) Both (I) and (II)
(e) All of these.

Q5. The most appropriate title of the passage is. (a) Complex lives of the workforce (b) Role of technology in increasing flexibility of workers (c) The brightest workforce requires more flexible work (d) How a UK Bakery increased their sales (e) Importance of Globalization in increasing workforce