Interactive impact of Human Resource Flexibility and Transformational Leadership on the Employee’s Assurance of Service Quality: Reinforcement Learning Perspective

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Purpose: Nowadays, service area is indispensable in most of the businesses, therefore service quality assurance has become integral to generate profits. Inevitable organizational transitions and updates has made the assurance of service quality from the employee’s perspective quite challenging. The current study focuses on the influence of human resource (HR) flexibility on the employee’s service quality assurance under the buffering role of transformational leadership within the banking sector of Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach: This study was based on cross-sectional research design and data was collected in two-waves through structured questionnaires from 398 bank employees in Pakistan, following convenience sampling technique. Data was analyzed employing techniques such as bootstrapping, SEM, process macro in the SmartPLS4 software. Findings: The findings of the study showed evidence that the interaction of HR flexibility and transformational leadership have a significant positive influence on employee assurance of service quality within the banking sector. Further, the results indicated that autonomy and enriching employee creativity by transformational leader has actually the ability to assure the service quality in the employee’s mind by interact with HR practices flexibly. Practical implications: The study implies that HR managers/leaders should pursue actions that would enable a flexible workforce, continuity of learning and dispersion of skills to meet customers’ expectations and to invest in leadership development initiatives; such as inspiration, attention to employee growth, and support of innovation. Originality/Value: The characteristics of transformational leadership, i-e. Mentoring, autonomy and enriching employee creativity, has potential to moderate the relationship between HR flexibility and employee’s quality service assurance by adopting/adapting new skills to assure the service quality to customers.