Twentieth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Hybrid work arrangements represent an opportunity to advance towards social sustainability because they can be designed with an eye on workers’ wellbeing, gender equity, and social cohesion –which ultimately can deliver improvements in productivity. Based on responses provided by a sample of 439 office workers in Mexico City, this study documents how four work arrangements –including working full-time at the office (S1) or from home (S2), part-time from home and part-time at office (S3), and part-time at office and part-time at a near-home shared office (S4)– rank in terms of social sustainability indicators. We have developed a battery of questions requesting that respondents rank work arrangements across social sustainability criteria, and we have constructed indicators summarizing such rankings. This is the first time such a strategy has been deployed and, given its generality and replicability, we expect it to be flexibly adapted to future office work studies. Our respondents have ranked working full-time from home (S2) as the preferred arrangement when it comes to social sustainability. Theoretically, we suggest the arrangement with most potential to contribute to social sustainability is working part-time at office and part-time at a near-home shared office (S4), and we have developed an index to measure how far employee’s preferences are from S4. We discuss implications of differences between preferences for a theoretically preferable and the preferred arrangements.