Flexible Working?

[Peartreehouse]

Good afternoon all,

We are considering introducing flexible working to our employees and wondered what experiences you may have had? Suggestions we are considering so far are compressed hours (working four longer days to get a half day off) and adjusting start and end times by an hour each way for those who want to either start earlier and finish earlier, or start later and finish later.

If you have introduced this in your workplace, what have you introduced, and has this had any impact, either positive or negative?

Look forward to some helpful responses

 

[Frank the Insurance guy]

working four longer days to get a half day off

I have only come across this (at my wife's work) where four longer days are used to get a whole day off. In that scenario the issue is the length of the longer days - if they are too long productivity drops significantly towards the end of the day!

adjusting start and end times by an hour each way for those who want to either start earlier and finish earlier, or start later and finish later.

This is a great idea and see little issue as long as you are not in a business that needs somewhere there at all times - what if everyone started early and left early, so no one about at the end of the day?

 

[Peartreehouse]

I have only come across this (at my wife's work) where four longer days are used to get a whole day off. In that scenario the issue is the length of the longer days - if they are too long productivity drops significantly towards the end of the day!



This is a great idea and see little issue as long as you are not in a business that needs somewhere there at all times - what if everyone started early and left early, so no one about at the end of the day?

Hi - many thanks for your reply! We considered this and we will most likely have to put a rota in place for each department, possibly on a month by month basis, so half will start early and half will start late then alternate. It's possibly going to take a lot of policing though...

 

[Deleted member 59730]

I introduced this when I found that my mainly female staff were always asking for a few hours off for domestic matters. Washing machine repair man, child's dental appt, their own dental appt. etc etc. Giving a day off each week made their lives a lot easier to manage. This coincided with 2 of them moving from finishing at three to finishing at five. The arrangement worked perfectly,

 

[Peartreehouse]

I introduced this when I found that my mainly female staff were always asking for a few hours off for domestic matters. Washing machine repair man, child's dental appt, their own dental appt. etc etc. Giving a day off each week made their lives a lot easier to manage. This coincided with 2 of them moving from finishing at three to finishing at five. The arrangement worked perfectly,

That’s really useful to know, thank you. We lose a lot of time for appointments etc. so this could be easier to manage.

 

[Ryan Paul]

How many hours does a full time employee work in a week?
How much annual leave do they receive?
How long do employees get for lunch?
What are your start and finish times?

 

[Peartreehouse]

How many hours does a full time employee work in a week?
How much annual leave do they receive?
How long do employees get for lunch?
What are your start and finish times?

 

[Peartreehouse]

Hi Ryan, we currently work Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5.00pm. We get 32 days leave (incl. BH’s) and 45 minutes for lunch.

 

[Ryan Paul]

I think you need to set the parameters to begin with such as earliest and latest start times.
You don't want a member of staff starting at 6:30 - finishing at 6:30 and accruing 3.5hrs in one day - unless there is a business advantage or requirement that would facilitate those hours.
Also health and safety or insurance might not cover this.
Are you happy for staff to reduce lunch to 30 mins and potentially gaining an hour each week?
Over a 4wk period that would be enough for a half day every 4th Friday.

Would you be willing to accommodate staff accruing enough hours over the year so that they can increase their annual leave? If so, how many days?

I think flexible working hours are good. You retain staff and become preferential to new applicants. It empowers your employees and lets them manage workload and home life.

When you have outlined the parameters, including the hours you need cover to. Eg, at least two members of staff up to 5pm and not 2 inexperienced members together, or there always has to be a supervisor present , then let the staff manage it themselves.
If you or others feel that some employees are not being treated fairly then only get involved and introduce a rota.

 

[Peartreehouse]

I think you need to set the parameters to begin with such as earliest and latest start times.
You don't want a member of staff starting at 6:30 - finishing at 6:30 and accruing 3.5hrs in one day - unless there is a business advantage or requirement that would facilitate those hours.
Also health and safety or insurance might not cover this.
Are you happy for staff to reduce lunch to 30 mins and potentially gaining an hour each week?
Over a 4wk period that would be enough for a half day every 4th Friday.

Would you be willing to accommodate staff accruing enough hours over the year so that they can increase their annual leave? If so, how many days?

I think flexible working hours are good. You retain staff and become preferential to new applicants. It empowers your employees and lets them manage workload and home life.

When you have outlined the parameters, including the hours you need cover to. Eg, at least two members of staff up to 5pm and not 2 inexperienced members together, or there always has to be a supervisor present , then let the staff manage it themselves.
If you or others feel that some employees are not being treated fairly then only get involved and introduce a rota.

Thank you so much for your advice, it’s really appreciated. You’ve definitely given us food for thought.

 

[Ryan Paul]

In terms of accruing hours for holidays, as an, example, if an employee worked an additional half hour every single day they will accrued 13 or 14 additional holidays. It will be difficult to manage staff levels and workload with those days.
Capping this at a manageable number would be wise. And making sure staff have worked their expected 165 hours over the course of 4wks unless agreed otherwise .

 

[Peartreehouse]

In terms of accruing hours for holidays, as an, example, if an employee worked an additional half hour every single day they will accrued 13 or 14 additional holidays. It will be difficult to manage staff levels and workload with those days.
Capping this at a manageable number would be wise. And making sure staff have worked their expected 165 hours over the course of 4wks unless agreed otherwise .

Absolutely! Very good point. That number of additional days would indeed be hard to cover for us…

 

[ChrisGoodfellow]

@Peartreehouse Thanks for posting about flexible working, it's great to see the practical tips and ideas that are being shared.

We've written an article on the subject sharing quotes from the thread and additional advice. Just click "Overview" at the top of the page to view it. Hope it helps!

 

[Peartreehouse]

@Peartreehouse Thanks for posting about flexible working, it's great to see the practical tips and ideas that are being shared.

We've written an article on the subject sharing quotes from the thread and additional advice. Just click "Overview" at the top of the page to view it. Hope it helps!

Hi Chris, I can't see 'Overview' anywhere?

 

[ChrisGoodfellow]

Hi Chris, I can't see 'Overview' anywhere?

It's just under the banner image. It might be worth hitting F5 to refresh the page as your browser might have loaded an old version

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

I think you need to be careful that by trying to be more flexible you don't end up over complicating things with people accruing hours or a fixed rota of who can be flexible when because you always need certain people in at certain times etc. You could give yourself a major headache.

Our head office works in the following way;

1. Staff can clock in at any time between 7.30am and 9am
2. They can leave at lunch for as long or as short as they want between 11am and 2pm
3. They can clock out anytime between 4.30pm and 6.30pm

However, they must work a minimum of 8 hours in a day. So if somebody wants to come in at 7.30 and leave at 4.00, they can do, or they can come in at 9 and leave at 5 - but they can only take 30 minutes for lunch. But if they want, they can come in at 7.30, if they have errands to do they can take 3 hours for lunch, but then they then can't leave until 6.30pm to make sure they do the full 8 hours.

It also means that everybody is there at the latest at 9am and not leaving before 4.30pm - those are our official office and phone line opening times so people are there during our opening hours to the customer.

Hours can't be rolled over or anything like that, people just get the flexibility within each day.

Don't know if that would work for you?

 

[Ryan Paul]

I think you need to be careful that by trying to be more flexible you don't end up over complicating things with people accruing hours or a fixed rota of who can be flexible when because you always need certain people in at certain times etc. You could give yourself a major headache.

Our head office works in the following way;

1. Staff can clock in at any time between 7.30am and 9am
2. They can leave at lunch for as long or as short as they want between 11am and 2pm
3. They can clock out anytime between 4.30pm and 6.30pm

However, they must work a minimum of 8 hours in a day. So if somebody wants to come in at 7.30 and leave at 4.00, they can do, or they can come in at 9 and leave at 5 - but they can only take 30 minutes for lunch. But if they want, they can come in at 7.30, if they have errands to do they can take 3 hours for lunch, but then they then can't leave until 6.30pm to make sure they do the full 8 hours.

It also means that everybody is there at the latest at 9am and not leaving before 4.30pm - those are our official office and phone line opening times so people are there during our opening hours to the customer.

Hours can't be rolled over or anything like that, people just get the flexibility within each day.

Don't know if that would work for you?

This is a good template although having to work the minimum 8hrs a day is a bit restrictive imo - I appreciate that it works for your business.
I think if there's an opportunity for someone to start at half 9 so they can do the morning school run will really help parents / guardians and also broadens your talent pool when recruiting.

 

[Peartreehouse]

I think you need to be careful that by trying to be more flexible you don't end up over complicating things with people accruing hours or a fixed rota of who can be flexible when because you always need certain people in at certain times etc. You could give yourself a major headache.

Our head office works in the following way;

1. Staff can clock in at any time between 7.30am and 9am
2. They can leave at lunch for as long or as short as they want between 11am and 2pm
3. They can clock out anytime between 4.30pm and 6.30pm

However, they must work a minimum of 8 hours in a day. So if somebody wants to come in at 7.30 and leave at 4.00, they can do, or they can come in at 9 and leave at 5 - but they can only take 30 minutes for lunch. But if they want, they can come in at 7.30, if they have errands to do they can take 3 hours for lunch, but then they then can't leave until 6.30pm to make sure they do the full 8 hours.

It also means that everybody is there at the latest at 9am and not leaving before 4.30pm - those are our official office and phone line opening times so people are there during our opening hours to the customer.

Hours can't be rolled over or anything like that, people just get the flexibility within each day.

Don't know if that would work for you?

This is really interesting and something we hadn't fully considered. We too have fixed customer hours so we are in a similar situation to you. Many thanks for your input, very much appreciated and lots to consider!

 

[Peartreehouse]

This is a good template although having to work the minimum 8hrs a day is a bit restrictive imo - I appreciate that it works for your business.
I think if there's an opportunity for someone to start at half 9 so they can do the morning school run will really help parents / guardians and also broadens your talent pool when recruiting.

We also take on part time staff who can work shorter hours per day, as you say this enables the school runs and school pick ups to be done for that employee. It's the full time workers we need to consider, and we have set hours of 8.5hrs per day. I think we will definitely consider earlier starts and late finishes, and vice versa, we just need to ensure it can be applied to all the departments. Many thanks for your input, much appreciated.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

You seem to be ignoring other ways of working. I used to print books and postcards in the UK. I have also printed in Spain until I switched to Italy. I spent about £100k per annum. I spent a lot of time researching different suppliers, their strengths and weaknesses. One just has to ask why deliveries from Italy took less days than deliveries from Weston-Super-Mare? One has to ask why the quality was better and the prices were lower in Italy.

 

[SillyBill]

We used to be more flexible, I found it led to ever more demands to be even more flexible and for a small employer it was getting out of hand. But ours wasn't by design (which in hindsight was our downfall) rather mission creep of being an accommodating employer and generally agreeing to special requests. They add up over time when you have a settled workforce. You agree some hours for someone and then naturally 5 minutes later someone else walks into your office and also asks if it was good for her it can be good for him too. I ended up doing a 360 and putting some core expectations in place on hours/starts/finishes etc. after I'd had enough of everyone but me doing as they pleased. Lesson learned. Part of our issue was with flexi-time that the owners (i.e me and business partner) also run the business as managers, if we say any time between 6am-6pm say (we used to do this) then by consequence we are working minimum 12 hour days to cover the site operationally. And not every day did we want to do that...It wasn't until we realised that everyone elses convenience was keeping us even more locked into the business that we changed it. So horses for courses, depends on resource obviously too for cover.

 

[Peartreehouse]

We used to be more flexible, I found it led to ever more demands to be even more flexible and for a small employer it was getting out of hand. But ours wasn't by design (which in hindsight was our downfall) rather mission creep of being an accommodating employer and generally agreeing to special requests. They add up over time when you have a settled workforce. You agree some hours for someone and then naturally 5 minutes later someone else walks into your office and also asks if it was good for her it can be good for him too. I ended up doing a 360 and putting some core expectations in place on hours/starts/finishes etc. after I'd had enough of everyone but me doing as they pleased. Lesson learned. Part of our issue was with flexi-time that the owners (i.e me and business partner) also run the business as managers, if we say any time between 6am-6pm say (we used to do this) then by consequence we are working minimum 12 hour days to cover the site operationally. And not every day did we want to do that...It wasn't until we realised that everyone elses convenience was keeping us even more locked into the business that we changed it. So horses for courses, depends on resource obviously too for cover.

This has been a concern of ours too, having to accommodate requests from different departments when it won't be physically able to accommodate them all. Whilst we want what is best for our employees, we also need to ensure the business is not affected. I hope yours has settled for you now. Many thanks for your input, very much appreciated.