Flexible Workplace

What a flexible workplace is

A flexible workplace (مكان العمل المرن), also described as flexible working or flexible work arrangements, is an arrangement that gives an employee a degree of choice over where they work, when they work, or both, in place of one fixed place and one fixed schedule for everyone. It is a way of organising work, not the flexible work contract (العمل المرن) defined in paragraph Two of Article 27 of the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) of the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل).

The two are separate. Under item 1 of paragraph Two of Article 27 of the Implementing Regulation, flexible work is work performed by a worker who is not full time, for one employer or more, with the wage calculated by the hour, on condition that the worker’s hours with any single employer are fewer than half the working hours of the establishment. Under item 2 of paragraph Two of Article 27 of the Implementing Regulation, flexible work contracts are restricted to Saudis. That contract type, with its conditions, is discussed under employment status. A flexible workplace, by contrast, describes how an organisation arranges the place and the timing of work for its employees.

The point of departure for a flexible workplace is the fixed arrangement it replaces. Under a fixed arrangement, every employee works at the same place and to the same schedule. A flexible workplace loosens one or both of those two constants and leaves the employee some choice within it.

The three axes of flexibility in a flexible workplace

The flexibility that a flexible workplace grants runs along three axes, and each of them concerns a different part of the working arrangement.

• Flexibility of place: working from home, in full or in part.
• Flexibility of time: start and finish times that the employee chooses within a set range, or shared core hours with the rest of the day left flexible.
• Flexibility of volume: part time hours, or a compressed week worked in fewer days.

Flexibility of place concerns the location at which the work is done. The employee may work from home for the whole of their working time, or for part of it.

Flexibility of time concerns the hours at which the work is done, and it takes one of two forms. In the first, the employee chooses when to start and when to finish, provided that both fall within the range the organisation has set. In the second, a window of core hours is shared by everyone, and the hours outside that window are flexible. The working hours themselves, and the limits within which they are set, are covered in our guide to working hours and the weekly rest in the Saudi Labor Law.

Flexibility of volume concerns how much time is worked. Under it, the employee works part time hours, or works the hours of a week compressed into fewer days.

The three axes do not necessarily come together. An arrangement that grants flexibility of place alone does not address the situation of an employee who is bound by fixed appointments outside work, and that situation is the one the second axis, flexibility of time, concerns.

What makes a flexible workplace work

A flexible workplace rests on three conditions:

• Written rules, not custom: who is eligible, by what procedure, and what the shared hours of availability are.
• Measuring outputs, not attendance: flexibility combined with management based on direct observation turns into surveillance at a distance.
• Fairness of access: some roles cannot by their nature accommodate flexibility of place, and granting flexibility to some roles without stating the reason can be taken as favouritism.

The first condition is that the rules of a flexible workplace are written down, rather than left to custom. They answer three questions: who is eligible for the arrangement, by what procedure an employee obtains it, and which hours of availability are shared.

Under the second condition, the question is how work in a flexible workplace is measured. Measurement looks at outputs, meaning what the employee delivers, and not at attendance, meaning the time the employee is seen to be present. Where flexibility is combined with management that depends on direct observation, the observation does not stop when the employee is away from the premises. It turns instead into surveillance conducted at a distance.

Fairness of access to a flexible workplace is the third condition. Some roles cannot accommodate flexibility of place, because of the nature of the work they involve. Where flexibility is granted to some roles and not to others without the reason being stated, the difference can be taken as favouritism.

What a flexible workplace does not change

Flexibility in a flexible workplace is an operational arrangement. The wage, the type of work and the place of work, by contrast, are among the particulars of the employment contract that the Labor Law addresses.

Article 52 of the Saudi Labor Law lists the agreed wage, including benefits and allowances, and the type of work and its place among the particulars that the unified model the Ministry sets for each type of employment contract contains at a minimum, and it requires the contract to follow that model. Article 51 of the Labor Law requires the employment contract to be written in two copies, one held by each party, and to be documented in accordance with the relevant statutory provisions and as the Implementing Regulation specifies, a duty described under contract authentication. Royal Decree M/44 amended Articles 51 and 52 of the Labor Law.

A flexibility arrangement that touches any of these particulars without being addressed in the contract therefore leaves a written contract that does not match what happens in practice. The contract states one place of work, one type of work or one wage, while the work is carried out on different terms. The arrangement itself remains a verbal agreement with the line manager, with no documented effect.

How a flexible workplace differs from hybrid work

Hybrid work (العمل المختلط) is one pattern of flexibility. Under it, the employee spends part of the week at the office and part of it elsewhere, and the division between the two can be set in a fixed proportion.

A flexible workplace is wider. It can include flexibility of time and flexibility of volume as well as flexibility of place, and it can take the form of working remotely in full. Hybrid work, by contrast, concerns only how the week is divided between the office and elsewhere.

Every hybrid arrangement is a flexible workplace arrangement, but not every flexible workplace arrangement is hybrid.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.