Are Flexible Hours Good for My Company?

Flextime, where employees work a flexible schedule, is starting to become more and more desirable in today's marketplace.

Why?  Well it offers a number of benefits to both the employee and the employer.

If your business is thinking about flextime, here are some things to consider:

What is Flextime?

Flextime is a flexible schedule that should be well outlined in the employee handbook at the HR department. Some schedules have included weekends, earlier arrivals, or later stays. It is definitely flexible, depending greatly on your business and how it is conducted. Flextime typically works best in situations that aren't customer-driven, such as industry or production.

Work-Life Balance

This comes up a lot when the discussion turns to flextime. Employees are said to state there is a better work-life balance when offered flextime, that they are not slaves to the job and feel that it consumes all their quality time during the day. Flextime can be extremely helpful when it comes to medical leave and childcare.

Work Incentive

Flextime offers a tremendous work incentive for the employees. They have been shown in studies to be happier at the job than those in jobs that are not offering flextime. The supervision and job description had no effect on this study, it was based solely on the offering of flextime. It also drives down the amount of time off taken when employees just need a day to de-stress.

Lowered Commutes

Flextime can get your employees out of the hectic rush-hour traffic. This contributes to an employee that is coming to work in a better mood after a shorter time in traffic, as well as brings an employee back to his/her family quicker at night. This is a great perk to keep employees happy and keep them with the company.

Drive Down Medical Costs

Believe it or not, flextime can keep your company's medical costs if they offer insurance to their employees. Flextime workers have an average of 30 percent less stress and work-burnout than other employees. This keeps medical costs down for the employee as well as employer. There is less time off due to these stress-related conditions. Less stress can have an impact on every aspect of the business and should be viewed as one of the most important benefits of the flextime program.

Flextime can be a great thing if your business is ready for that. Some businesses will run better on the standard employee work schedule, while others may see a real change after converting to flextime.

Have you and your HR department sit down for a real meeting to cover all the pros and cons of flextime to see if it is right for your business.