【正确答案】Keeping Flexible Hours Under Control
According to a market research survey of personnel managers, over 70 percent have studied flexible hours in detail yet are waiting for staff to take the initiative. Their reluctance is based on their fear of being unable to control people's movements.
The main ingredient of a successful transfer from fixed hours is good staff consultation. In this process the first step is to find out if, in fact, the staff are generally in favor of a flexitime system. The next issue to ascertain is the beginning and the end of the "core time". This is the time when the company would expect all employees to be available and is usually around six hours. As a starting point find out what employees' existing patterns of work are, their starting and finishing times. Employers are usually concerned that communication is difficult outside this core period. In fact, communication usually improves with telephone calls and visits restricted to the core periods leaving the flexible periods free for more concentrated individual work. To find out the extent of the flexible hours, employees would need to give the times they would be prepared to start work at the earliest and finish work at the latest. Given-that flexitime is most productive when work goes in peaks and troughs, then it also has to be established that employees are willing to do overtime if necessary. Management is easier with a workforce who are willing to stay on to finish a job when they know that time can be taken off in lieu.
Having found out which times suit staff best in terms of core time, the other variable to be decided is the best way of organizing lunch hours. Again the starting point is the existing practice and, having established what time people normally take their lunch, they should be offered the three options, deciding which is their first preference. These are for everybody to take their lunch break at the same time, for a two hour break to be designated with staff opting for an hour within that time or for lunch-to-be taken when it suits each person. The first will depend very much on the type of business. With front line services, the hour at the same time for all may not be an option of the public expecting a certain level of service.
In any consultation, it is wise to remember that staff may know better than the management and foresee problems not immediately transparent. Always ask if they have any other suggestions. Real consultation will mean that the introduction of flexitime has a greater chance of success and management fears are unfounded. In virtually all cases studied, staff do not react to flexitime by arriving and leaving at all manner of odd times. They, in fact, keep more or less to their old times and keep flexibility for emergencies such as peak workload or children's birthdays.