Ma bucur sa vad ca in ultima vreme, din ce in ce mai multe firme devin interesate de un astfel de program. Undeva la finalul anului 2006 am facut un studiu legat de acest subiect (nu stiu cat de actualizat mai este) pentru un program de invatamant on-line si m-am gandit ca poate va ajuta.
Flexible Time – Pros and Cons
Summary:
1. Definition
2.Pros for the employer
3. Pros for the employee
4. Cons for the employer
5. Cons for the employee
6. Conclusions and recommendations
7. Bibliography
“Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas. But can it really? True effectiveness requires balance.”
– Stephen Covey
1. Definition:
According to www.wikipedia.org, flexible time is:
Flextime (or flexitime) is a variable work schedule, in contrast to traditional work arrangements requiring employees to work a standard 9am to 5pm day. Under flexitime, there is typically a “core time” period of the day when employees are expected to be at work (for example, between 10 am and 4pm), while the rest of the working day is “flexitime”, in which employees can choose when they work, subject to achieving total daily, weekly or monthly hours in the region of what the employer expects, and subject to the necessary work being done.
Flexitime in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, flextime working is now commonplace in both the private and public sectors. The practice is often found in administrative and back office functions of commercial organizations and local councils. There is no specific legislation dealing with flextime, however, there is some legal restrictions on the working patterns of pilots, driver and so on.
Flextime in the United States
In the United States, flextime workers, like salaried workers exempted from overtime regulations, are given broad leeway in setting their own work schedule. Unlike exempted salaried workers, employers are still required to pay overtime to a flextime worker if they work more than 40 hours per week. In addition, the employer will usually require that a flextime employee works a minimum number of hours each week.
In certain industries such as information technology, flextime permits workers to vary their schedule for example such as working a four 10 hour days per week, put in enough hours Monday thru Thursday to leave early on Friday. Other workers come in early such as 5 or 6 am (0500 to 0600) and leave in the mid-afternoon or come in late and therefore leave late. The benefit is commuting time is outside of rush hour depending on geographic region.
In the U.S., flextime generally applies only to white collar workers. It is a part of the work/life balance discussion in many companies.
According to the “European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions”, the highest proportion of companies and organizations offering flexible working schedule arrangements in Europe are to be found in Latvia, Sweden, Finland and UK. At the end of the scale Cyprus, Portugal, Greece and Hungary (and as far as I know – Romania) have the fewest companies offering such working arrangements.
2. Pros for the employer:
Ø No late starting because of travel difficulties.
Ø Less time taken off due to family crisis. Employees will have what would otherwise be commute time to deal with problems and still be available during any designated “core” work time.
Ø Less productivity loss due to early wind down towards the end of the work day as employees mentally start to prepare to leave and clear their desks.
Ø Reduced labor turnover because:
o Flexible work offering makes employees reluctant to leave
o Maternity and medical related incidents will result in less staff leaving employment because they can work almost right up to and much sooner after the event.
Ø Facilitates recruiting because:
o Flexible working is more appealing, especially to the educated younger generation, than having a 7:30 AM - 6:00 PM day.
o Employer can appeal to a large labor pool of disabled, those with young families, or the elderly.
o Employer can tap into a larger labor pool that is further away from city centers and also often less expensive.
Ø Reduce absenteeism as a result of enabling employees to better balance work and family responsibilities.
Ø Schedule work across longer portions of the day, so extending customer service.
3. Pros for the employee:
Ø You can avoid traveling during peak commute times
Ø Ability to cope more easily with personal family matters. What was once commuting time is now available to make arrangements to cover school closings, minor family illnesses, and household repairs, services, etc. by outside contractors.
Ø You can set your schedule to match with your child care arrangement (you can avoid extra fees for not taking your child on time from school)
Ø You can have more time to spend on improving personal skills / education thereby commanding better job security.
Ø Reduced child or elder care because drop-off and/or pick-up times can be adjusted to reduce hours under care.
Ø The ability to schedule quiet times to get on with work.
Ø If you’re working the same number of hours, you don’t have to take a reduction in pay.
Ø Depending on the organization, you can earn “credit hours” for every hour over the basic work requirement, hours that can be transformed in free hours or even free days depending on your schedule.
Ø Increased job satisfaction, energy, creativity, and ability to handle stress.
4. Cons for the employer:
Ø Less accessibility to employees.
Ø Less control.
Ø More money spent in time-management software that will be used to register and track employee hours.
Ø Lost time working on a schedule in order to be sure that the whole work program is covered (lets say that in a supermarket open from 8am till 7pm, 10 out of 12 employees decide to leave at 5pm – the rest of the program won’t be covered only with 2 employees – that will generate loss of sales and customer satisfaction).
Ø Difficulties in schedule meetings and training courses at which most employees can attend.
5. Cons for the employee:
Ø Less contact with co-workers:
- Depending on each employee schedule, there might be periods of time when contact with other colleagues will be reduced.
- If you are having a project that needs team-work, you can be in a situation when help from others is needed, but you will have to postpone the problem in order to find the moment when all the team is present. In these situations you can easily outrun the project’s dead-line.
Ø There is a risk that a not so organized person will find at the end of the day/week that his/her tasks are not achieved. This situation can occur when unforeseen problems appear out of the core-time and the entire work program is disturbed.
6. Conclusions and recommendations:
Using a good organization and an evaluation system to follow the employee’s flexible work arrangements, flextime will be a good method for motivating and retaining good employees. Use of this type of schedule, will allow companies/organizations/small firms to extend their research and their recruitment in a much bigger labour pool (women with children, persons who can’t work well on a strict work schedule, employees who are continuing their studies and always looking for improvement in both private and professional life, etc). By letting the employee to decide how to schedule his/her own working hours, he/she will become much more responsible and organized.
A balance between professional and personal life will help you give the best of what you’ve got in the time you spend in your office. As long as you have the assurance that your free time will be enough to cover your personal business, the job related stress will reduce considerably. When you are in the office you can concentrate strictly on business. For example, you don’t have to worry for hours (time wasted – it will be impossible to focus on the business problems) that you don’t have a person who can pick up your kid from school, when it’s much easier to go yourself to do that.
The possibility of leaving whenever you need (except the core-hours determined together with your boss), will offer you the calm and security needed in order to accomplish all your tasks in time. In the actual working conditions (without flextime) the employee might feel guilty every time he/she has to leave for an hour, even that maybe yesterday he/she spent more than 12 hours in the office.
The use of flexible time working schedule, allows you to be your own boss.
My personal opinion and recommendation is that companies will have to use this type of schedule on a greater scale than is used in the present (I’m talking about Europe and countries like Hungary, Romania, Poland, Greece, Portugal, etc), in order to be able to motivate and most important, retain there most valuable employees.
The most significant aspect in implementing this work schedule will be a thorough analyze of the organization/company and job types within. I’m aware that is impossible to use this schedule in every kind of job, but wherever is possible, I fully sustain this. After the analysis of jobs and company, I will recommend implementation in small departments where will be much easier to follow the results. If the results will be satisfactory (and I’m sure there will be), the program can be continued in the entire organization - always keeping in mind the job and job specifications.
I can say that this program will bring benefits for both employee and employer on a long term period. In the same time will be a key differential factor for the companies’ recruitment strategy.
7. Bibliography
Ø Managing Human Resources – Belcourt, Bohlander, Snell – 4th Canadian Edition
Ø The Enthusiastic Employee – How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What They Want – David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind, Michael Irwin Meltzer – Wharton School Publishing – 2005
Ø The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave – Leigh Branham
Ø Human Resource Management- R. Waine Mondy, Robert M. Noe -9th Edition
Ø http://www.time-management-guide.com/goal-time-quotes.html
Ø http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/psychosocial/flexible.html
Ø http://www.magellanassist.com/mem/library/default.asp?TopicId=328&CategoryId=0&ArticleId=25
Ø http://www.doi.gov/hrm/pmanager/er8c1.html
Ø http://www.flexibility.co.uk/flexwork/time/time-options.htm
Ø http://www.flexibility.co.uk/flexwork/time/time-options.htm
