

Also, they deliver evidence of the significant amount and the ongoing increase in the use of flexible working in many countries. A descriptive background of the evolution of the concept of flexibility as well as highlighting the main factors contributed to its growth were the main focus of academic studies. įor four decades, academic papers have contributed to the increased knowledge and interest in flexible working. Empirical evidence įlexible working was academically introduced in 1970 ( Google Ngram Viewer) and since then this topic continues to be the interest of many research papers. While both employees and employers acknowledge the benefits of flexible working, drawbacks might include extra expenses and responsibilities the organization could incur in order to provide these arrangements and the decreased benefits offered to employee in accordance to their reduced working hours. įlexible working arrangements may be a way for organisations to expand and increase their operations nationally and internationally at lower cost, in comparison to permanent or non-flexible working arrangements. Some examples of organisations with flexible working arrangement include Agilent technologies, NetApp, Qualcomm Inc. Flexible working is also seen as a family-friendly policy, which leads to a good work–life balance for employees. Also, greater focus was put to explain the increased demand for such arrangements by both stakeholders which was clarified by their advantages of contributing to high quality of output results while creating the perfect working conditions for workers.Īdditionally, as seen recently, most business organisations have started to introduce flexible working patterns for their employee as a way to increase their productivity level, increasing profitability. On the other hand, employees showed great preference to flexible working to the point that 40% of workers in the UK choose it over salary. For example, 50% of companies in the UK started to consider flexible working as a common practice and 73% of the managers in the survey showed an ultimate support to it. Moreover, research reports gave quantitative interpretation backed by statistical evidences showing the changing attitude of organisations in different countries and especially the UK toward flexible working. Employees being allowed to work from many different places as long as their level of production is maintained if not increased. The industrial perspective of flexible working emphasizes the practical definition of flexibility. The World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization estimate that over 745,000 people die from ischemic heart disease or stroke annually worldwide because they have worked 55 hours or more per week, making long working hours the occupational hazard with the largest disease burden. The idea of flextime was invented by Christel Kammerer and Wilhelm Haller. Some claim that flexible working will change the nature of the way we work. Advantages include allowing employees to coordinate their work hours with public transport schedules, with the schedules of their children, and with daily traffic patterns to avoid high congestion times such as rush hour. Ī flextime policy allows staff to determine when they will work, while a flexplace policy allows staff to determine where they will work.

The total working time required of employees on flextime schedules is the same as that required under traditional work schedules. The working day outside of the "core" period is "flexible time", in which employees can choose when they work, subject to achieving total daily, weekly or monthly hours within the "bandwidth" period set by employers, and subject to the necessary work being done. and 3 p.m.), and a "bandwidth" period within which all required hours must be worked (e.g., between 5:30 a.m. day, flextime typically involves a "core" period of the day during which employees are required to be at work (e.g., between 11 a.m. In contrast to traditional work arrangements that require employees to work a standard 9 a.m. ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)įlextime (also spelled flexitime ( BE) or flex-time) is a flexible hours schedule that allows workers to alter their workday and decide/adjust their start and finish times. ( March 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia.
