Making Flexible Work Schedules Work

Schmitt, E. (2010). Making flexible work schedules work. Retrieved April 12, 2010 from: http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/07/flexible-scheduling-policies-leadership-careers-balance.html?feed=rss_home

This article, published on the Forbes.com Web site, discusses a program that many companies are implementing to benefit their employees and thereby benefiting the company as well. Flexible work schedules are used in many different forms by various companies and many managers believe that this type of benefit makes their employees more productive. A flexible schedule allows certain employees to adjust the times and, in some cases, the locations that they perform their job duties. Some employees may need to come in later in the morning so they can take their children to school and work later in the day to make up the time. Some are able to work from home at least part of the week or compress their week into four workdays. Employees that have control of their schedule, often have less stress because they are better able to manage their life away from work. The author quotes a recent study done at Georgetown University that found that employee stress from trying to find time for their children correlates with decreased productivity and increased absenteeism, so if a flex schedule can take away some of this stress, they believe they can decrease absenteeism and increase productivity. However, not everyone agrees that flex scheduling is a good practice because it can cause some friction between the employees that are allowed flex scheduling and those that are not allowed the same program. This article discusses an important subject managers should be familiar with because with today’s technology, it is much easier for some workers to perform their job duties from home or other remote locations and many jobs can be done with flexible hours as opposed to nine-to-five every day. If a firm can manage this type of schedule, it makes sense to consider it because if the company can help keep their employees in a less stressful environment, they can get better performance from their employees. Additionally, from a competitive standpoint, some firms will need to offer this benefit in order to retain their best employees.