7. Flexitime scheme and its advantages and disadvantages.

Under flexi time, there is normally a core period of the day when employees must  be at work , whilst the rest of the working day is "flexi time", in which staff can choose when they work, subject to achieving total daily, weekly or monthly hours.  An employee must work between the basic core hours and has the flexibility to clock in / out between the other hours.

Most of professionals start working flextime scheme to create solutions in their lives. They have young children, want to continue to study, need to care for aging parents. Unfortunately, not everyone knows what this scheme means. Some people think that working according to the flextime scheme means working less than other employees or workers, but they are mistaken.

In every company there is a standard according to which all members of the staff have to work for certain hours each week. The only difference is that the flextime scheme makes it possible to begin and to finish work when they like. But still all office staff has to be at their desks for certain hours every day.

As any other methods flextime scheme has its pros and cons.

Employees begin to feel more responsible as management treats them as mature people. Besides it produces greater staff morale. This results in staff’s satisfaction with their working process and hence in increase of productivity.

Also, the flexitime scheme improves the relations between supervisors and employees.

However, flexitime scheme creates as many problems as it solves. For instance, such scheme could lead to working more hours than have been intended or could damage relationships with colleagues as they can suppose that flexitime means working less hours than other employees.

Moreover, when clients come to the office they have to be served in the best manner. This eliminates absenteeism of some members of the staff, so the flexitime scheme is appropriate for just a part of employees. Furthermore, if the scheme is not monitored properly, there is potential for employees to abuse the system.  For example if time is recorded on paper or spreadsheets by staff they can easily fabricate their time. 

To conclude, I’d like to say that application of the flexitime scheme in practice really produces results: relations between supervisors and staff improve; the opportunity to work according to individual schedules increases productivity and enhances the employees’ loyalty and respect for company.

10. The open door policy, its advantages and disadvantages.

The open door policy is rather popular in many corporate cultures as it is one of the ways to create good working conditions for company’s employees and build up employee-manager relations. An open door policy means that staff can go into a supervisor’s office, usually without an appointment, to discuss anything that concerns them. The purpose of the open door policy is to encourage open communication, feedback, and discussion about any matter of importance to an employee.

The Open Door Policy implies several advantages. To begin with, it provides regulate updates to supervisors and workers on the status of various projects and encourages regular staff meetings to review progress toward goals. Also, It builds a sense of trust within the organization that allows it to deal with office politics in an open, honest and respectful way. However it means that Management must listen to employees and puts itself in the employees’ position if it wants to create a culture of trust and understanding within organization. The successful performing of policy will lead to increase of productivity, managers’ awareness of subordinates’ life and, that is crucial, to employee’s satisfaction.

But sometimes the policy doesn’t work well, it is usually because:

• The policy isn’t clear.

• The policy isn’t being followed consistently across the leadership team.

• Some staff members establish a pattern of entering managers’ offices to discuss just anything, but not important concerns.

• It becomes a method of venting or sharing gossip (слухи) without identifying real problems or solutions.

Therefore, the main disadvantage of this practice is that managers spend a lot of time listening to all employees who are not satisfied and then solving their problems. So managers are distracted (отвлекать) from their main functions.