Flexible working hours

Flextime (also spelled flexitime [British English], flex-time) is a flexible hours schedule that allows workers to alter workday start and finish times. In contrast to traditionalwork arrangements that require employees to work a standard 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. day, flextime typically involves a "core" period of the day during which employees are required to be at work (e.g., between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.), and a "bandwidth" period within which all required hours must worked (e.g., between 5:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.). The working day outside of the "core" period is "flexible time", in which employees can choose when they work, subject to achieving total daily, weekly or monthly hours within the "bandwidth" period set by employers, and subject to the necessary work being done. The total working time required of employees on flextime schedules is the same as that required under traditional work schedules. A flextime policy allows staff to determine when they will work, while a flexplace policy allows staff to determine where they will work. Advantages include allowing employees to coordinate their work hours with public transport schedules, with the schedules of their children, and with daily traffic patterns to avoid high congestion times such as rush hour. Some claim that flexible working will change the nature of the way we work.

The industrial perspective of flexible working emphasizes on the practical definition of flexibility. Employees being allowed to work from many different places as long as their level of production is maintained if not increased. Moreover, research reports gave quantitative interpretation backed by statistical evidences showing the changing attitude of organisations in different countries and especially the UK toward flexible working. For example, 50% of companies in the UK started to consider flexible working as a common practice and 73% of the managers in the survey showed an ultimate support to it. On the other hand, employees showed great preference to flexible working to the point that 40% of workers in the UK choose it over salary. Also, greater focus was put to explain the increased demand for such arrangements by both stakeholders which was clarified by their advantages of contributing to high quality of output results while creating the perfect working conditions for workers.

Additionally, as seen recently, most business organisations have started to introduce flexible working patterns for their employee as a way to increase their productivity level, increasing profitability. Flexible working is also seen as a family-friendly policy, which leads to a good work life balance for employees. Some examples of organisations with flexible working arrangement include Agilent technologies, NetApp, Qualcomm Inc.

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