Preliminary Report on Implementation of Flexible Working Hours at the Corporate Office “The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
” – Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple Inc. A large part of the reports that the HR Department has submitted over the past few months contain numerous occurrences of dissatisfaction with the rigid working hours amongst employees within the corporate office. When further inquiries about the reasons for the dissatisfaction were made, a few important points were raised.First and foremost, a not insignificant portion of our workforce resides at a sizeable distance from office and so requires a long commute to work every morning. However, since the office timings generally coincide with the rush hours along their routes, they regularly end up being late, sometimes by up to an hour.
Secondly, our female employees have raised the issue that they require some time in the mornings to fulfil their domestic responsibilities, failure in which leaves them considerably stressed and decreases their workplace efficiency.Another aspect that quite a few employees focussed on was their need for a proper work-life balance, the lack of which can be positively correlated with the higher than average levels of absenteeism within the office. Research into common industrial practice dealing with such issues led to the following revelations:•In the United Kingdom, flexitime working is commonplace in both the private and public sectors. The practice is often found in administrative and back office functions of commercial organisations and local councils. •In the United States, flextime workers, like salaried workers exempted from overtime regulations, are given broad leeway in setting their own work schedule. This practice is followed especially within the IT industry.
•Flextime in Australia is usually referred to accumulated overtime hours that an employee can build up and exchange for the equivalent amount of time off. It is implemented formally in the Australian Federal Public Service and is available for staff in most state and territory government departments.•The SHRM 2009 report indicated a high priority for the maintenance of a proper work-life balance, both amongst the HR Managers, as well as the employees surveyed. •Data from the Office of National Statistics, UK, indicated higher levels of job satisfaction in companies implementing flexitime systems. The implementation of a system incorporating flexible working hours for the corporate hours would require a survey of the organization.
This survey would be used to provide details regarding the average amount of time taken by any employee to commute to and from the office, as well as the preferred timings of parents (in particular, single parents) of young children within the organization. Once this information has been gathered, it can be analyzed to create a system like this:•Begin work between 0700 – 1000 (Flexitime) •Must be there between 1000 – 1200 (Core Time) •Lunch break between 1200 – 1400 (Flexible Lunch Hour) •Must be there from 1400 – 1600 (Core Time) •Leave between 1600 – 1900 (Flexitime) The hours worked between these times would be credited to a personal flexitime balance. A maximum credit or debit margin of 8 hours could be kept.For example, if an employee works a 35-hour week, then, over four weeks, he will be obliged to work for 140 hours.
If he works more than the required hours in those four weeks then he will be in credit. If he works fewer hours then he would be in deficit. If he exceeds a stipulated credit level he might lose those extra hours he has worked, but if he goes into excess deficit he might lose pay, have to use up annual leave to make the difference or be disciplined. It is to be noted that all executives above the Senior Manager level are to be exempted from such a system and will be required to follow the standard office timings.The benefits of such a flexible timing arrangement for the employees are immediately visible; they afford employees to individually choose the hours that best suit them to complete the job that they have been given. This also gives employees valuable freedom to balance work and non-work life.
Furthermore, an efficient flexible work scheme can significantly reduce the amount of leave and overtime requested by employees, thus saving the company’s money. The benefits of flexible work arrangements for organization itself can be just as significant. Surveys have indicated that if flexitime is offered as part of a benefits package, it can be found that the productivity of the workforce increases drastically, as employees are more likely to feel that they are in the office of their own volition. Such a feeling generally makes for a happier workforce.Similarly, flexitime is one of the most popular employee benefits in this country.
As such, offering it as a core part of the benefits scheme is likely to increase goodwill on the part of the employees. However, the system does have its drawbacks as well. Reports from organizations implementing the system have mentioned cases of employee abuse, in particular the practice of deliberately 'banking' flextime and needing to take time in lieu - usually a full/half day which can be difficult to cover/plan for by the organization. Reports also indicate that supervising staff may become more challenging and increased/decreased productivity amongst the employees could be difficult to gauge.The implementation of the system comes with a major caveat attached, the clocking method to be chosen.
Instead of the existing time-sheet concept that is the practice in our company, it would be better to obtain a dedicated employee timing software such as the FlexiPlanner. This is primarily because time-sheets are the easiest targets for flexitime abuse. Overall, one would recommend the implementation of flexible working hours at the corporate office, but only if due precautions are taken to ensure its efficient implementation.
