Are we flexible enough for flexible working hours?

Flexible working hours means free access to working hours. It means that you don’t have 8 hours a day at your disposal, but you have deadlines. Therefore, in this concept, the emphasis is on the result, not on the time and process of work. In some cases, when the work allows, the place where the work is done doesn’t have to be important either, so you can walk to the park and work outside.

There are also variations on this topic, so some decide that half of the working time is fixed (due to the necessary contacts with clients who do not have such coordinated working hours, for example), and the other half is flexible.

What could we improve?

Flexible working hours give freedom to employees to perform work tasks in the moments when they think it is best, also, this is a great help for parents because they can coordinate their business obligations with private or family ones (taking care of sick children, driving or following school children, for example).

The length of overtime work does not necessarily have to be a measure of success, because it can happen that the employee, on the one hand, performs the work more slowly and is unproductive. On the other hand, if high productivity exists, overtime means more commitment and ambition. Therefore, in both cases, the results of the work are important.

Some of the employers who started to implement this way of working found that flexible working hours have a positive effect on the attitude of the employees.

What are the disadvantages of this approach?

Although this way of working seems very tempting, for certain work profiles it can be completely unproductive. Jobs that are related to sales or constant contact with clients cannot be trusted to bring results because the question is who they will find and when. Clients who rely on you will not be able to find you, and therefore the results will be weaker.

What can be a big problem inside the office is that every employee with flexible working hours will potentially lose sight of the “big picture” of the company, because the lack of communication within the company will contribute to not knowing who is working and what the plans are for the next period. In the same way, all those small arrangements “on the way” will pass you by because you are not present and you will slightly lose step with the rest of the team. Another disadvantage is the lack of synergy, which mostly happens “along the way” and is rarely planned.

Flexible working hours can have an impact on your private life as well, you usually don’t wait until you get home from work and are finally free, because you’re constantly working on something. In this way, you can disrupt your private obligations because you are always (in some way) at work, and the level of stress you experience will therefore be higher.

We can look at both advantages and disadvantages from several angles, and it all boils down to your needs, the needs of the job position and the needs of the company you work for.

Source: https://poslovi.infostud.com