To hire and retain very good talent is a challenge for any organization. The costs of finding and hiring new employees are very high both in terms of time and money, especially when it comes to top talent. In this scenario, alternative work arrangements like flextime are becoming very popular in today's workplace. The advances in technology have made alternative work arrangements more possible and successful than ever before. The results from flextime work arrangements have been highly encouraging. There have been increases in productivity, employee satisfaction and job loyalty. The attrition rate is lower when flexible work scheduling is used in organizations. There are opposing views about this non-traditional work arrangement, but the benefits of flextime outweigh the criticisms.

The major types of alternative work arrangements are flextime, job sharing, telecommuting and compressed work week.

1) Flextime: The term flextime is a short form of "flexible work time" or "flexible work hours". It allows employees to choose their own working hours within some limits.

2) Job sharing: It is an arrangement in which two or more employees share the responsibility of a full-time work position. This is a type of part-time work arrangement.

3) Telecommuting: Telecommuting or flex-place is an arrangement where employees do not travel to the office, but do their work from any other place like their home, etc., via the use of technology.

4) Compressed work week: In this work arrangement, employees complete their work obligations of 40 hours per week in lesser number of days instead of the standard five or six.

Some other alternative work arrangements include compensatory time off, annualized hours, temporary work and gradual retirement.

Alternative work arrangements are used to accommodate unique preferences and requirements of employees when they are unable to cope up with the traditional 40 hours work week. A new work arrangement is implemented after a plan is worked out between the employees and the senior management. Apart from the job sharing arrangement, the total time worked and work responsibilities remain the same in case of the other three major arrangements.

Increased productivity, reduced absenteeism, lower attrition rate, better employee-management relations, lower tardiness, higher employee morale, etc., are some of the benefits to the company as a result of alternative work arrangements. Lower stress, greater job satisfaction, less traveling problems, increased energy and creativity, better balance between family life and work life, etc., are some of the benefits to the employees. A company will have a recruiting advantage over its competitors if it offers alternative work arrangements to new employees. The individual benefits, drawbacks and more information about flextime are discussed in the article ahead.

Flextime:

Flextime as explained earlier refers to flexible work timings. An employee has to work for a fixed number of hours per week but is allowed to fix his own starting and stopping work times within certain limits. As per Robbins and Judge (2008, p.94), "exclusive of a one-hour lunch break, the core may be 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM with the office actually opening at 6:00 AM and closing at 6:00 PM. Please read further in part two of this article series.