Formalized Flextime: The Perk That Brings Productivity - includes flextime web resources

Workforce, Feb, 2001 by Sarah Fister Gale

HP leaves flextime scheduling solutions largely up to employees and their managers, under the assumption that they will devise plans that best fit their needs. Schedules might include staggered start times, or working four 10-hour days or 80 hours in nine days. "Employees redistribute their 40 hours in their own way. It's between them and their managers and work groups," says Burke.

She believes that giving employees the freedom and power to create schedules that accommodate their work/life balance issues makes them more productive. "HP employees face a lot of stress on the job," she says. "Giving them flextime options allows them to meet their personal commitments while staying committed."

Jill Casner Lotto, vice president of the Work in America Institute, a national nonprofit organization based in Scarsdale, New York, agrees. She researched Hewlett Packard's program as part of a flextime policy report she authored, called "Holding a Job, Having a Life: Strategies for Change."

"Flextime is not just a company perk or a negotiation for time off," she says. "It's a strategic business tool that improves productivity and quality of life for employees."

Casner Lotto cites a group of field technicians at HP whose own initiative to read just their team schedule reduced stress and saved money. The technicians were required to meet customer requests within a two-hour turnaround time while operating on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week schedule, she says. "There were morale problems, people were leaving the department, and overtime costs were breaking the budget."

To solve it, the team collaboratively redesigned the work schedule. Some members volunteered to work 12-hour shifts Friday through Sunday and a 4-hour shift on Monday, in exchange for reducing their workweek to three and a half days. The rest of the team worked five-day weeks but got their weekends off.

Overtime costs for that team dropped 36 percent, says Casner Lotto, and they were able to accommodate growing customer needs with the same staff while reducing the stress of a round-the-clock job scenario. "It gave employees greater flexibility and predictability in their work hours, making it easier to arrange child care and transportation. It also provided employees--many of them first-time job holders out of welfare-to-work programs--with increased pay and training in business and team decision-making."

PricewaterhouseCoopers' policy guides employees

"A formal policy for tracking and guidance is essential for a flexible work arrangement," says Ray Lewis, director of communications at PricewaterhouseCoopers and manager of the PWC At Home program. "However, the policy has to be flexible, too."

PWC has a 28-page document on planning and implementing flexible work arrangements that includes approval guidelines, discussion tools, compensation adjustment information, types of plans, and tips from other flextimers at PWC.

"It's written with core success factors in mind," says Jennifer Duras, coordinator of flextime arrangements at PWC.