Advantages for employers and employees exist when the employer allows employees to work flexible schedules.
Advantages of Flexible Work Schedules for Employees
With flexible work schedules, employees experience these benefits:
- Flexibility to meet family needs, personal obligations, and life responsibilities conveniently.
- Reduced consumption of employee commuting time and fuel costs.
- Avoids traffic and the stresses of commuting during rush hours.
- Increased feeling of personal control over schedule and work environment.
- Reduces employee burnout due to overload.
- Allows people to work when they accomplish most, feel freshest, and enjoy working. (eg. morning person vs. night person).
- Depending on the flexible work schedule chosen, may decrease external childcare hours and costs.
Advantages of Flexible Work Schedules for Employers
With flexible work schedules, employers experience these benefits:
- Increased employee morale, engagement, and commitment to the organization.
- Reduced absenteeism and tardiness.
- Increased ability to recruit outstanding employees.
- Reduced turnover of valued staff.
- Allows people to work when they accomplish most, feel freshest, and enjoy working. (eg. morning person vs. night person).
- Extended hours of operation for departments such as customer service.
- Develops image as an employer of choice with family friendly flexible work schedules.
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These are great reasons why employers should pursue flexibility in the workplace. It truely is a great option to both increase convenience and reduce spending. Unfortunately, it is difficult to make flexibility an option for full time hourly workers. The private sector is still not allowed to give their employees the option of having comp time in lieu of overtime pay, even though the government extended this option to its hourly employees in 1978. Whats wrong with that picture? Considering 63% of women are hourly workers, and they are the ones who need flexibility most because of family demands, we should be fighting for equal amounts of flexibility in the public and private sector. http://www.familyissues.ncpa.org
I recommend that an employee have a strong and needed niche that an employee finds very valuable to the organization. Then it is much, much easier to request and negotiate flexible work hours. I have been working from my home for over 10 years and my family treasures it. However, one must be dedicated, dependable and disciplined to maintain such type of work. If not, it won’t work.
Michael,
Who do you work for? I want to do that!!!
I have a terrible work schedule and am looking to leave partly due to that but also due to the stressors of the job and being a superviser and not being able to depend on other workers showing up, which becomes my problem to deal with.
I have a 10-hr work day Monday-Thurs. which sounds nice to others until you have to do it. I can do nothing during those days when I get home–I leave too early in the morning to see my daughter and get home just in time to eat dinner and go to bed. I commute and hour a day so that adds on to it. I miss all of my daughter’s after school events unless I take off work for 2 hrs. or more to make it in time.
I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome so I struggle walking in the morning and never get enough sleep. A shorter workday would be best for my health situation. Even though I am one of the sickest people at my worksite, I have never missed a day of work since I started and am the most reliable and hardworking person on staff but I suffer for it with the unflexible hours and long workdays.