Flexible Working Hours - The Concept

Posted Wed, 02/25/2009 - 00:16 by admin

 

Flexible Working Hours are one component of a set of wider working conditions referred to as Flexible Working Arrangements.

So in addition to working hours, Flexible Working Arrangements encompass flexibility of working location, for example working from home or hot desking etc.

Just then looking at the concept of Flexible Working Hours, fixed times of arrival & departure are replaced by a working day which is split into two types of time:-

 

  • The Core Period - the main part of the day when everyone must be in attendance and

  • Flexible Periods - at the beginning and end of the day and often at lunchtime, when staff can choose their own times of arrival and departure, within agreed guidelines. Contact us for sample guidelines 0044 207 495 1221

A Typical Flex Daily Schedule :

 

typical flex daily schedule

Use of the Flexible Periods by the employee are subject to certain common sense understandings e.g.that work is kept up to date and that care is taken to ensure adequate workplace coverage is maintained (see elsewhere where MultiTime has developed special programmes to assist the employees/managers with this issue of cover).

How the employee then uses his/her flexiblity is the next important consideration. 

Some will just want to "flex" in and out, so as to regulate more easily the balance between work and home life e.g. to travel at times so as to avoid traffic peaks; maybe take a long lunch break on some days to do some shopping and then on other days to mainly take shorter lunch breaks then he/she would in a fixed day, perhaps even the minimum half hour.      

However, another significant component of the flexi concept is the "flex day".  This is whereby the employee can build up time at the end of each month, for taking off as a full day or as half days in the following month. This build up of time is called the carry forward allowance.

The amount of this allowance can vary between flexi schemes. Typically organisations allow employees to carry forward up to 10 or 12 Hours. Some allow more time, others less.   Indeed some organisations do not allow any carry over time.   More here about accounting periods and flex cycles

The VisionTimeWeb system from Multitime calculates all of these variables for the employee and supervisors, so as to make things easier for each party  to manage time efficiently.