Alternative Work Schedules: Try Flextime

ALTERNATIVE WORK SCHEDULES: TRY FLEXTIME

by Judith Newman

Innovative work schedules that depart from the traditional five-day, 'nine-to-five' variety have been around now for over 20 years and have been used with a considerable degree of effectiveness in business generally. Although there are several, alternatives to traditional work schedules follow one of two major patterns:

Under the first approach, which has been adopted mainly by manufacturers in this country, a four-day, forty-hour week (the 'four-day week') reduces the number of days worked per week in exchange for more hours per day. Under the second approach, which goes by the popular name 'flextime,' employees start or quit work at times convenient to them, bank time worked and borrow ahead, or even work shorter weeks.

Although there is general agreement that employers and employees both benefit under the four-day week and flextime, some agency managers feel these systems apply only in large firms and are not workable in organizations such as an independent agency. As a matter of fact, there are many independent agencies that have adopted either the four day week or flextime with a high degree of satisfaction.

While the four day-work week has been more popular with manufacturing firms (characterized by assembly line operations), the flexible hours approach has been more popular with service industries, where operations are somewhat independent. Banks and insurance companies were among the innovators in the United States in adopting flexible hours.

There are three basic approaches to 'flexible hours,' the system that allows workers to 'flex' their hours of work within the normal week:

Flextime is by far the best known of the flexible hours approaches. In its simplest form, flextime divides the working day into two segments: mandatory hours called 'core time' (during which all workers must be on the job), and discretionary hours (during which the employee is granted flexibility). Under the flextime system, subject to known restrictions, the employee is permitted to start or finish work at his or her own discretion. The known restrictions, which provide operational and supervisory control, are:

• Core time: A designated period during which all employees must be on the job.
• Flexible starting time: The period during which employees can begin work at their convenience.
• Flexible quitting time: The period during which employees can end work at their convenience.
• Flexible lunch break: A period in the middle of the working day during which employees choose their preferred time to eat or do other off-the-job activities.

Group flexibility is a modification of the flextime system designed around team efforts. Group flexibility requires employees, acting as a group, to agree on a specific work arrival time that remains in effect for either one day or a longer period. Group flexibility differs from flextime because the individual employee is not able to select his or her own time but must subordinate personal preferences and adhere to the group's judgment. Group flexibility is usually associated with small teams of employees working together on projects that do not impinge on other groups.

The staggered hours system, also sometimes referred to as 'multiple reporting times,' is not really a flexible hours system in the true sense. Under this approach, employees simply report for work and leave at different times. For example, if the workday is eight hours with an hour for lunch, three groups of workers could be scheduled with staggered hours as follows:

Normally, the agency manager draws up the schedule plan containing the intervals between the arrival times of the different groups. The employees can sign up for the schedule they wish, with the agency manager retaining veto power to guarantee coverage of the work during each period. Merit, seniority, the order of signing up, or other factors may be used.

About 60% of all 'compressed work weeks' are in the four-day category. (Another 18% are in the three day category.) Although ten hours a day for four days would be necessary to equal the standard 40-hour week, in actual practice employees sometimes trade coffee breaks and shorter lunch periods for fewer hours; some four-day weeks consist of nine hour days. Using a four day week, the agency remains open for five days (or in some cases six days) but groups of employees stagger the days that they work, to provide full coverage. For example, one group of workers might work Monday through Thursday, while another group works Tuesday through Friday (or Wednesday through Saturday). Employees trade longer days at the office for longer weekends.

The flexweek approach alternates four day and six-day work weeks while maintaining an eight-hour day. The employee works 32 and 48 hours in alternating weeks. The work force is divided into two groups, with one group working a four-day week while the other works a six-day week. This permits the agency to be open or process business six days a week. The flexweek system can also be used as a half way point between a regular work week and a four day week, by alternating between four and five-day weeks. This procedure would provide a three-day weekend for employees every other week.

What is more interesting is that most studies suggest that employers using one of these work schedules also benefit. Improved employee morale, savings in employee turnover, reductions in absenteeism and a decrease in employee tardiness are reported so often and over such extended periods that these advantages appear to be valid attributes of the alternative schedules. An abundance of evidence suggests that when a firm adopts flextime, management reacts favorably to the results. Very few cases have been documented (none in the agency system of which we are aware) of companies reverting to a fixed schedule after experimenting with flexible working hours. Some of the more important advantages that accrue to the employer are discussed below.

The first major advantage to the agency under a flextime system is that productivity is likely to increase. Unquestionably, flextime has a beneficial impact on employee morale and, to the extent that employee morale influences productivity, the quantity and quality of work should improve. But increases in productivity also spring from sources other than improved employee morale. Still another factor that contributes to increased productivity under flextime and the compressed week is that they both create work periods in which there are larger chunks of uninterrupted time for workers. The phones in the average agency are generally silent - at least more so - before 9:00 a.m. and after 5:00 p.m. This silence permits increased productivity in those tasks requiring greater concentration.

One of the synergistic effects of both flextime and the compressed week is that agencies using either system have greater ease in contacting clients. Such agencies can stay open longer hours each day, providing access to agency personnel for clients who cannot come to the agency during normal working hours. These systems also simplify agency initiated contact with many clients. For example, with the increase in the number of families with two working members, it has become increasingly difficult for agency employees to contact many personal line clients during normal working hours. The flextime system permits agency employees to contact those clients by telephone who are not usually at home during the agency's normal business hours.

Flextime also aids in the recruitment of agency personnel. Since it is a system that employees find preferable to the traditional work schedule, it makes the agency a more attractive employer. In addition, it permits the agency to tap unused reservoirs of labor - for example, women with children-who do not feel they can work a nine-to-five schedule but might find attractive a schedule that permits them to be home by 3:30 p.m. or 4:00 p.m.. Personnel Development Finally, the flex time system and four-day week both promote personnel development.

The mechanics of flextime provide an excellent climate for cross training, since some employees will need to cover for others in early and late work periods. With the four-day week, when some employees work Monday through Thursday while others work Tuesday through Friday (or Wednesday through Saturday), the same need for cross training exists. Such cross training increases the value of employees to the agency, since they are capable of handling a wider variety of tasks. Employees also view the cross training as advantageous, since it increases the variety of their job and their chances for promotion.

Some administrators have reported difficulties in supervision and some experienced increased difficulties in internal communication. These problems tend to be more pronounced with a compressed work week than with flexible hours. The compressed week can cause some communication and scheduling problems, particularly if the number of supervisory personnel is limited. It might be possible for the supervisory personnel to work five days at the increased hours with increased pay but this seems like a poor solution.

Interferences with work scheduling and work coverage can be handled by careful planning and coordination by management. For example, if the agency's telephones must be covered from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. each working day, it would hardly do to have all employees elect to report at 9:30 a.m.. Usually, staffing during discretionary hours can be left up to the employees, although the agency manager will undoubtedly want to establish general guides regarding this aspect of the program.

Since in most cases, employees will sometimes be working longer than an eight-hour day, provisions of the labor laws must be carefully considered. For example, the Fair Labor Standards Act, which applies to all employees in interstate commerce, and many state laws require that employees must be paid at overtime rates for any hours worked over eight hours a day or forty hours a week. Some firms deal with this problem by reducing the base pay of employees so that the weekly base plus overtime remains the same as before. Other firms pay the overtime on the premise that increased productivity and employee morale warrant the increased cost.

Although employee abuse is a possibility, controls can be built into the system to protect against such abuses. For example, keeping track of the time spent on the job by individual employees can be handled in one of several ways. One approach is the traditional time clock. Employees punch in when arriving at work and punch out when leaving. Some employees dislike a time clock and, while being able to arrive and leave work at any time represents greater freedom, having these arrival and departure times strictly recorded may be resented by some employees.

One solution to this problem is to allow each employee to maintain his or her own time record manually. Under this approach, employees fill out time sheets or time cards which are collected at the end of the week or work period. Either system will work but one may be preferable to the other in a given agency, depending on the attitude of workers toward management and vice versa. Alternative work schedules are on the increase, bolstered by studies made over the past few years which report more positive than negative effects. Although some companies have reported failures, most authorities believe these failures are a result of a mismatch between the work environment and the schedule used, rather than failure of the concept itself.