The Benefits of Flextime Work Schedules
Uploaded by spootyhead on Mar 04, 2007
The Benefits of Flextime Work Schedules
Flexible work options represent an important trend in today’s workplace. Businesses are challenging their employees to do more with less and the employees are being pulled in many directions at once. Businesses are operating 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Despite the advancement in technology, people are working longer and longer hours. The high demand by organizations leaves less time for families to share quality time and adds a high amount of stress to individuals who are trying to balance their effectiveness at work, in the home and in the community. Organizations can benefit from implementing alternative work arrangements. Examples of possible circumstances where employees may ask for an alternative work arrangement are: employees returning from maternity, paternity or adoptive leave, employees having to care for elderly relatives, employees who may, due to a disability, now wish to work on a part-time basis, employees returning to school, or employees who may wish to spend more time on leisure interests. Some of the widely used alternative work options that many organizations are engaging in to help employees manage their fast-paced, overloaded lives are: Flex Scheduling, Telecommuting and Job Sharing.
Flex scheduling is an alternative work arrangement that allows an employee to work a non-traditional schedule to meet personal needs. The schedule is created and agreed on by an employee and their manager for a period of time. There are several variations of flextime arrangements for employees to participate in.
Set starting and quitting times that are determined for a specific period of time.
Starting and quitting times that can change on a daily basis.
Variations in daily hours (for example, an employee may work a six-hour day and then work a ten-hour day), with required core time.”
Variations in the daily hours per day, without required core time.”
Flextime arrangements were one of the first alternative work options available to employees. Flextime was first introduced in Germany in 1967. (Olmsted & Smith, 16) “The Hewlett-Packard Company is generally credited with introducing flextime in the United States.” (Olmsted & Smith, 17)
There are many pros and cons of flextime. Flextime can have a positive impact on an organization by reducing the number of paid absences
improve employee morale and job satisfaction, which leads employees to be...