Hi,
My work place already has a very good (in my opinion) flexitime scheme where we have core hours and 'flexi bandwidths' where we can build up hours to take back at a later date. To manage the scheme employees currently clock in and out and their flexi balance is record on out T&A system. I've been asked to look at the possibility of not ask employees to clock at all and therefore not track the times people are actually coming in and leaving.
Would be interested to know other people's thoughts on this and if anyone can give me an idea of what you do in your organisation (particularly in manufacturing) that would be great.
Thanks
Sophie
Replies
Hi,Sophie.
In my opinion and based on what I have implemented in our company, flexitime is not monitored but biometric time in/out is required for security and emergency purposes - so we know who are in the building or premises at nytime in case something happens to the facility. It is part of the Business Continuity Plan provision.
It is not recorded as part of attendance and punctuality monitoring because alternative work arrangements like flexitime presupposes an output-driven performance expectation. Amount and quality of work done is based on outcome versus committed.
Morning Sophie
Your business is proposing an interesting approach, (for a manufacturing environment). As with most things it is all about the context.
I guess it boils down to the culture which the organisation is trying to create. Is this 'the way the organisation does things around here' in all aspects of its interactions with employees? Or is it a stand alone initiative that managers have landed on as the answer to building trust and employee engagement?
This was part of a talk I attended recently by Glenn Elliott on how to build employee engagement. Basically he was saying that it has to be something which pervades all aspects of the employer / employee relationship and that companies should seek not to play around the edges with one off iniatives. Some of the suggestions he was making as an HR professional I think would only work in certain contexts e.g. the suggestion that the employment contract gets the employer relationship off to a bad start and therefore should be about what the employee can do as opposed should not.
In terms of the manufacturing clients we deal with many adopt a similar T&A system, and lateness and absence is an issue for some but not all. At the very least I would want to understand how line managers and employees feel about this and also pilot it to start off within a typical area. Who knows it could be self-policing where peers enforce this to ensure one off employees do not abuse this. I guess you will never know until you try it.
You can read more about this here:
https://glennelliott.me/
Does anyone else have any interesting ways in which flextime is managed?
I do hope this helps
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Thanks very much for your response, I think it provides some good questions to start asking our senior managers - we are potentially looking at an entire cultural shift as opposed to changing a stand alone benefit. I should have also said I work with in FMCG so the flexi time benefit only applies to our office based staff at the moment (as opposed to the factory).