I’ve started to hear the term “microshifting” come up among colleagues at work. Friends and parents at my children’s school have also started mentioning it. I’ve heard a few different explanations. Some make me a little uneasy, but others make me think that this is something my partner and I should be considering. We’re juggling work with all the responsibilities that come with being the parents of young children, as well as our own leisure pursuits, trying to remain social and spending time relaxing and resting.
Where does the term come from and is there a standard definition? Are there known upsides and downsides?
I asked Dr Connie Zheng, an associate professor in human resource management in the Adelaide University School of Management about your questions. She said that many people face tensions between aspects of their life similar to yours.
In many ways it was as a response to these pressures, that the concept of “flexible work arrangements” arose. Microshifting is a specific form of flexible work, a departure from the traditional nine-to-five model that prioritises outcomes over fixed hours.
Where did the term come from? Well, Zheng says it was likely first used in a survey report by the technology company Owl Labs made public in September 2025.
That report talks about breaking work into much smaller periods of activity than might be considered traditional and interspersing it with non-work tasks – a medical appointment, undertaking a fitness activity, doing laundry, picking up or dropping off children, preparing dinner and so on.
The feasibility and effectiveness of microshifting is highly contingent on organisational trust.
Associate Professor Dr Connie Zheng.
Rather than keeping work tasks to a single, hours-long block and non-work to a completely separate block, it involves doing a combination in short bursts throughout the day. At the time of writing this, then, the term isn’t even six months old and so it stands to reason that there is no standard definition yet.
“In practice, however, the underlying idea of fragmenting work into flexible, non-continuous blocks has long been adopted by many knowledge workers, such as academics, writers, software engineers and senior executives,” Zheng says.
“What is relatively new is the broader appeal of this approach among workers seeking to improve their work-life balance and wellbeing. The working pattern aligns closely with individual energy peaks, caregiving responsibilities and personal wellbeing needs, making it especially attractive in contemporary hybrid work contexts.”
Zheng said that because the term is so new, there aren’t any academic publications she is aware of that formally theorise or operationalise the term. There is, however, a lot of research on the broader subject of flexible work arrangements that points to numerous benefits.
“The [upsides] include improved work-life balance, reduced stress and burnout, higher job satisfaction, better mental health and increased productivity. From an organisational perspective, flexible work can enhance talent attraction and retention, foster autonomy, engagement and focus, and ultimately contribute to a more adaptable and committed workforce.”
But there are notable limitations of using this approach across the board, Zheng said.
“The feasibility and effectiveness of microshifting is highly contingent on organisational trust, the nature of the job and task interdependence. Certain roles, such as healthcare professionals or emergency service workers, have limited scope for such flexibility, as work must be performed in real time and cannot be postponed until an individual’s energy level peaks,” she says.
“Similarly, roles requiring high levels of teamwork and co-ordination may need shared schedules, which can constrain individual flexibility.”
Finally, Zheng mentioned that managerial practices also play a critical role in whether practices such as microshifting are effective. They require managers to shift towards outcome-based performance evaluation and often away from micromanagement.
“Employers may therefore approach microshifting cautiously, or in fact be much slower to accept the benefits of research evidence on flexible work arrangements. However, ongoing labour shortages and increasing employee expectations, especially from Gen Z workers, are likely to intensify pressure on organisations to experiment with and adopt more flexible work arrangements.”
Send your questions through to Work Therapy by emailing jonathan@theinkbureau.com.au
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