Can You Make Flexible Work Arrangements "Work" for You? (3/11)

Flexible work schedules like flextime, compressed workweeks, and telecommuting are attractive to employees looking for creative ways to get "more" out of their days.  How can you make these schedules work in your organization?

No matter what your employees’ circumstances – dual earner with children, caregiver for elderly parents, triathlete in training – difficulty balancing work and personal responsibilities is likely to be a major complaint.  So what can employers do to help?  One popular solution is flexible work arrangements.  From flextime to telecommuting, work schedule flexibility allows employees to customize their work hours to fit their personal needs and goals.  To be effective, these schedules must be implemented correctly.  They require careful planning, strong alignment with business objectives, and continuous support.  Below is an explanation of the different types of arrangements you can use and seven tips for implementing them in your workplace. Why Bother with Flexible Work? During the last two plus years of the economic recession, many employers were reluctant to implement flexible schedules for employees and tended to cut some of these jobs, particularly part-time workers and job sharers, to avoid wider layoffs.  So why bother with flexible work arrangements now?  There are several arguments for implementing flexible work arrangements.         First, your employees still want them.  In a 2008 survey conducted by the Families and Work Institute, fully 87% of the almost 2,800 employees who responded indicated that having flexibility to manage their work and personal or family life would be “extremely” or “highly” important if they were looking for a new job.  Further, 42% of respondents reported that their work and family interfered with each other, and only 36% felt that they had control over their schedules.  A more recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) echoes these sentiments.  In the SHRM 2010 Job Satisfaction Survey, 46% of surveyed employees indicated that flexibility to balance their work/life issues was a very important contributor to job satisfaction.  Even with the recession, employees’ have the same challenges to balance their work, family, and lifestyle issues.        Second, offering the schedules will help you compete for new employees and retain current ones since a growing number of employers already provide these benefits.  According to the Society for Human Resource Management 2010 Employee Benefits Survey, 49% of the participating HR professionals indicated their organizations provide flextime schedules, 44% offer telecommuting on an “ad hoc” or intermittent basis, 34% offer compressed workweeks, and 13% offer job sharing.        Third, if business necessity requires your employees to work longer hours without increased benefits, flexible work arrangements may make the requirement more palatable.  Fourth, there is anecdotal evident that flexible work arrangements increase productivity, decrease absenteeism, and improve retention rates.  And, finally, you may even save on office expenses such as decreased rent and real estate costs (assuming you need less office space), electricity use, and other related expenses.  Types of Flexible Work Arrangements Flexible work arrangements generally fall into one of five categories:   •  Flextime.  Organizations that provide flextime schedules typically allow employees to choose their starting and finishing times, within certain limits or “bands.”  All employees must be present during a defined central or “core” time in the middle of the workday and typically work a standard eight-hour day.  This approach gives employees greater flexibility in taking care of their personal needs at the beginning and end of the day.       Flextime schedules are most effective for positions that are not time-sensitive or where several employees provide the same functions.  For example, a receptionist could not perform effectively by working from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. if visitors begin arriving or calling at 8:30 a.m.  In addition, flextime can be a valuable tool for stretching staff resources.  Customer service positions can be staffed from early morning to the late evening if some employees opt to come in and leave early while others choose to arrive and depart late.        Flextime scheduling also can be considered a reasonable accommodation for employees protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act or can be used for those needing leave on a reduced or intermittent schedule under the Family and Medical Leave Act.  However, regardless of the reason for the flextime schedule, flextime schedules must be managed carefully to prevent problems with employee supervision, workflow, and customer relations.  To impose practical limits, you can restrict the starting and ending times rather than giving employees complete freedom to choose their work hours.   •  Compressed workweeks.  The most common compressed workweek schedule is the 10-hour, four-day week that results in a three-day weekend.  Another alternative is the 12-hour, three-day workweek with four days off.  A third possible schedule is the nine-hour, four-day week plus a half-day (4 hours) worked on the fifth day.  Employees like compressed workweeks because they get time off during the normal workweek to take care of personal obligations and still have the weekend to spend time with friends and family.      Compressed workweeks are appropriate in situations where employees do not have to keep pace with incoming work on a daily basis or where several employees do the same job.  For example, the administrative assistant to an executive may not be able to work a compressed workweek if the executive needs the assistant every workday.  But, a bank may allow tellers to work a compressed workweek if it has enough tellers to cover the hours and days the bank is open.        For employers, the trickiest parts of compressed workweeks are ensuring adequate coverage and maintaining productivity during the latter part of the longer workday.  Holiday pay for nonexempt employees presents another potential problem area, and specifically whether employees should receive paid holidays only if they would be scheduled to work on the particular holiday.  Further, if you operate in a state that requires payment of daily overtime for certain occupations (such as California), you should consult state overtime regulations to determine whether using the compressed workweek schedule will trigger overtime requirements. •  Job sharing.  In a job-sharing situation, two employees share the same position, splitting responsibility for the work between them.  Typically, one works in the morning and the other in the afternoon or they alternate days.        Job sharing works best if the two individuals involved have complementary skill sets.  They also must be skillful negotiators who communicate well with each other since job sharing often fails unless the parties involved are committed to performing the job together.      One major drawback to the arrangement, however, is the difficulty management may have evaluating the performance of the individual employees sharing the job.  This disadvantage may be overcome by assigning certain specific areas of responsibility to each of the workers and setting clear performance standards for each employee.  The employees also should be cross-trained to perform all the duties of the position. •  Telecommuting.  Telecommuting (sometimes called “telework”) refers to employees working at a remote location (usually at home) via a computer that can access your organization’s databases.  This arrangement is probably the most flexible of all of the alternative work schedules since employees have significant control over setting their own schedules.  In addition, it can save employers office rental costs.  However, because the employees are offsite, it also may be the most difficult for monitoring work and maintaining interpersonal communications.  Some of these difficulties can be overcome by requiring regular meetings in the main office or allowing telecommuting only two or three days a week.      Not every job is well-suited for telecommuting.  Employers have to determine which jobs are eligible by considering the nature of the jobs and whether they can be done effectively away from the office environment.  For example, jobs that require special security precautions, confidentiality, or on-site customer service may not be well-suited for telecommuting.  Further, not all employees have the temperament to be good telecommuters. You have to take into consideration the nature of the job and the employees’ performance and work habits.  Generally, the best telecommuters are those employees who work well with little supervision, meet deadlines consistently, and communicate effectively.  Telecommuting typically is not offered to new hires since these employees frequently need face-to-face training and contact with colleagues and supervisors.   •  Part-time work.  Part-time workers generally are employed on an ongoing basis and typically receive some benefits but work fewer hours than the normal full-time schedule.  Given the opportunity, some employees may prefer to work fewer hours in exchange for a lower salary and reduced benefits.  For example, employees with dependent care responsibilities, students, and workers nearing retirement age may find that part-time work allows them to remain productively in the workforce while still meeting objectives and obligations.  Employers with special needs, such as those that operate more than eight hours a day or more than five days a week, also rely on part-time employees to provide the staff they need at a reasonable cost.      As with compressed workweeks, ensuring adequate coverage is a potential issue with part-time workers.  In addition, part-time workers can feel “squeezed” if they are asked to work more hours than originally agreed to, particularly if their pay is not also increased.  Therefore, you should evaluate the positions being considered for par-time scheduling and develop a plan for accomplishing extra work. Seven Tips to Make Flexibility Work To succeed, flexible work arrangements must be carefully constructed and executed.  Consider the following seven tips to help you implement these options: 1.     Base decisions on business needs.  While flexible scheduling typically is initiated because of employee need, it also must support your business goals.  Flexible arrangements can have a direct impact on the organization’s bottom line by increasing productivity, improving retention rates, and attracting new hires. 2.     Get managers’ support.  Flexible work arrangements require managers to change their attitudes about how jobs get done and need their support to be effective.  For this reason, take the time to determine which schedules will work most effectively and which jobs are best suited for flexible scheduling.  Solicit input on these issues from both managers and employees. 3.     Start slowly; see what works.  Implement the plan gradually by offering only one or two flexible options, then add to them as you see what works.  Evaluate the plans on a regular basis and retool them as necessary. 4.     Consider flexible work options for all jobs.  Many employers limit flexible schedules to white-collar and exempt employees, even though blue-collar and hourly employees have the same needs.  This approach can result in complaints of unfairness and cause employee relations problems.  When you are evaluating flexible work requests, focus not on the employee’s classification but instead on the end result, i.e., whether the flexible option will allow the employee to perform the job effectively.  So, for example, while not all jobs are compatible with telecommuting, many may work with flextime schedules. 5.     Keep accurate time records for nonexempt employees.  If you do offer flexible work arrangements to nonexempt employees (see # 4, above), make sure you are keeping accurate records of their working hours to ensure proper payment.  This accounting is particularly challenging when nonexempt employees work from home or other remote locations. 6.     Ask involved employees to help solve problems.  Make it clear that while management supports these alternative arrangements, employees must help come up with solutions whenever problems arise with the schedules.   7.     Be flexible about flexibility.  Do not view these work arrangements as “one size fits all.”  The whole point of flexible work arrangements is to find solutions that work for both you and your employees.  In some cases, this may mean blending several options together, such as allowing a telecommuting employee to work flextime hours.

For information on alternative work schedules, see Hours of Work, Chapter 207, note 3. Also see, Families and Work Institute 2008 National Study of the Changing Workplace: Time and Work Flexibility, available online at http://www.familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/time_work_flex.pdf.  

Pay As Discipline When Time Cards Are Late  (3/11)

We have several nonexempt employees whose time cards are chronically late or incomplete.  May we discipline them by holding their pay until they follow our rules properly?

It is often very frustrating to get nonexempt employees to fill out time records accurately and in a timely manner.  As a result, you may be tempted to tie receipt of their pay to the proper completion of these records.  Unfortunately, most states do not allow this type of disciplinary action.        Almost every state requires employers to pay employees on regularly scheduled paydays.  Therefore, if you hold an employee’s pay beyond the required payday, you may violate state law requiring timely wage payment.  (Interestingly, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not specify when wages must be paid or include a specific payday requirement.  However, courts generally have interpreted the FLSA to require the prompt payment of wages.)      For example, California, Illinois, Michigan, and New Jersey all specify a minimum of biweekly or semimonthly pay for most categories of employees and require payment within a period ranging from 10 to 15 days after the close of each pay period.   In addition, some states have special requirements for weekly pay, while others allow for monthly payment.  For example, New York specifies weekly payments for manual laborers.  Colorado, Wisconsin, and Washington require only monthly payments to employees.  (Note, too, that most states, including California, Connecticut, Illinois, and New York require you to give employees advance notice of their payday.)      To ensure compliance with state wage payment laws when discipline is called for, you should follow your normal progressive disciplinary procedures and rely on nonmonetary actions, such as written warnings or even suspensions for repeat offenders.  To go further and withhold the paycheck may look effective on the surface, but it will also expose you to legal problems.