This is continued from part one of this article series. Please read that before you read this article. All employees are required to be at their jobs during the common core period, but they are allowed to accumulate their other two hours before and/or after the core time. Some flextime programs allow extra hours to be accumulated and turned into a free day off each month."



Flextime program has been becoming a popular option in organizations around the world. "Approximately 43 percent of the U.S. full-time workforce now has flexibility in daily arrival and departure times. And this is not just a U.S. Phenomenon. In Germany, for instance, 29 percent of businesses have flextime for their employees" (Robbins and Judge, 2008, p.95). Companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems, Ernst & Young, etc. have adopted flextime work arrangements since many years and they have been successful at it. Sometimes flextime programs are offered with a mix of telecommuting and part-time job-sharing to give more flexibility to the employees.

Flextime programs are mainly of two types:

1. Rigid flextime program:

In this program, an employee has fixed work timings. Example: the employee may come in to work at 6:00 AM and leave at 3:00 PM every day till changes are made to his or her schedule after a meeting with the management.

2. Daily flextime program:

In this type of flextime program, the employee has more autonomy and can choose his or her daily work timings. The employee could opt to come to work at 6:00 AM on one day and on 9:00 AM on some other day. The employee does not need to ask the management for his or her daily work timings. But the employee must keep his or her manager and colleagues informed about the next days work timings.

There are some questions to be answered by the organization before it can take up a flextime program. Lets study those in the next part in this series.

Questions to be answered by the organization before it can adopt the flextime program:

An organization must take care of few things and ask itself some questions before and while making a decision about implementing the flextime program in the company. The most important questions that an organization must answer are listed below.

1. Is the company or department large enough in size (number of employees)? Can the problem of inadequate staffing crop up?

2. Will the flextime program improve employee job satisfaction and increase their productivity?Will it help increase the employee retention ratio?

3. Will the flextime program help the clients of the organization with the extended office hours? Will it improve the customer service?

4. Will employees be able to gain a better balance between their personal lives and professional lives?

5. Can all the jobs in the organization really be included in the flextime program? Are there any jobs where the traditional 9-5 work day schedule is required to be followed?

6. Will the flextime program reduce absenteeism and tardiness?

7. Are the managers ready to deal with the new work timings of their subordinates and associates? Do they think that they will be able to do proper supervision?

8. Will the organization see a change in work productivity? Will it be negative or positive?

9. Can the managers handle coordination between junior employees so that work efficiency is maintained?

Please read further in part three of this article series.