FLEX:Unit. The influence of flexible task forces on employees and administration.

As new generations enter the workforce and expectations around work–life balance evolve, public administrations are also rethinking how work can be organized. This makes it essential to examine innovative work arrangements that can support these changing conditions.

Our project investigates one such emerging approach: flexible task-force models (“Flex Units”), which temporarily reassign employees to units facing short-term staffing needs. Municipalities like the City of Kiel are already testing these internal pools to manage workload peaks without overburdening teams or relying on additional hires. As this topic remains mostly unexplored in public administration research, our study will examine how Flex Units are designed, the organisational conditions they require and their influence on employee belonging, role conflict and well-being.