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Flexible work hours/plans are a great source to attract employees. Every employee looks for some non-monetary perks and an ideal work-life balance. By making flexible work arrangements, employers enjoy high disposition of employees and quality work, whereas employees enjoy the freedom of creativity, space and time. But it is not a cake walk and has its own share of problems.

Small scale organizations usually offer flexible plans as a favorable hiring tactic. This gives them an edge over the bigger organizations as they offer a higher package and other benefits but can ask their employees to go with the traditional work schedule.

Flexible work arrangements have the following benefits for both employees and employers:

• Enhanced job satisfaction levels
• High employee morale and enhanced productivity
• Reduction in employee absenteeism
• Minimal stress
• High levels of energy and ingenuity
• Improved employee retention and hiring
• Better work-life balance

The most well-known flex work plans include:

• Flexibility in work timings: Employees today are offered flex work timings where they can decide for their time between a range of starting and ending times for the workday.
• Squeezed working weeks: Under this arrangement, the employees usually work for 40 hours in less than 5 days. A system of 10-hour and a 4-day week is the most commonly used structure. Another option is to work 9 days out of 10 days for a 2-week roster.
• Work from home: Employees who find it difficult to commute to the office daily are given the privilege to work from home or remote location, adhering to a fixed schedule of working hours/slot.
• Working part-time or sharing job: Under this system, the employees work for lesser hours or the job is shared between two employees, where they share the same role and distribute the work among themselves.

Complications in flexible work arrangements and quick fixes for them:

The organizations can make sure that both employees and the organizations can gain from flex work plans by addressing a few complications and issues affiliated with these arrangements.

#Lack of employee participation during the planning phase

This is a false move that most of the organizations take knowingly or unknowingly. The lack of communication with workers during the planning stage of flex working arrangements gives birth to troubles later.

Fix: Always welcome the inputs of your employees and consider their requirements while formulating flex work plans. Evaluate whether your work plan is suitable for the work type of employees. Make sure to determine whether the new work plan will affect the functionality or productivity of the employees. Ensure to formulate a plan that takes care of the personal and professional needs of the employees in collaboration with the requirements of your organization. This way you can be assured of quality outputs.

#Unable to figure out the positions/employees not favorable for flex work system

Not all job roles would be the best fit for flexible work timing and thus getting everyone under this umbrella won’t result in favorable outputs.

Fix: Assess well. Figure out whether these plans would hinder in ensuring office coverage. Will making such plans give birth to customer grievances about to the availability? Make sure that the flex work arrangements are not overriding your costs.

An employee who has been frequently unable to perform better individually then he would not be an ideal choice for work from home or working from remote locations. You need to evaluate your resources well and figure out your situation before making any arrangements to avoid any future problems.

#Dwindling communication

When employees work from home or remote locations, it leads to a lack of proper and frequent communication, most of the times. The destitution in business and social conversations and contact with subordinates and seniors can lead to a chaotic situation and ultimately result in lack of work efficiency and poor-quality outputs.

Fix: Try to include the work-from-home employees in the meetings so that they don’t miss out on any vital information or update. Employees working from home/remote locations should contact other employees and their supervisors not just through mails but also telephonic conversations.

#Congenial guidelines leading to deviation and unfairness

If the guidelines are not clear and too casual then they can lead to cynicism, lack of employee morale, loss of workers and even legal troubles.

Fix: Formulate proper and formal guidelines associated with a flexible working schedule. Mention every possible detail, away from bias or any other sort of discrimination. The clearer you are with your plan of action, the better the results you get.

#Inability to supervise, evaluate and refurbish flex work plans

Continuity is required when enforcing flex work plans. Organizations fail to modify the plan as and when needed and adapt to various situations and need of the time.

Fix: Once a flexible working plan has been enforced, the assessment of its success takes time. With time you can analyze whether it has helped you achieve your goal and what changes, or alterations can be made to it to make it more effective. Stay open to employee feedback and suggestions in order to improve. Set a specific time frame within which the plan would be functional and shall be assessed. Keep your employees informed about the fact that if the flex work plan doesn’t work as expected, they might have to switch back to the traditional work schedule.

#Impedance of managers

The management is not always enthusiastic to cut loose the direct surveillance of on-site staff where they can prominently evaluate the work process of the employees.

Fix: The management should work on changing their mindset. Trust and respect should be the basis of the system and they should manage these aspects. They should focus on the results rather than on the work procedure.

#Judicial trap

Many-a-times organizations fall into the legal trap due to flex time exploitation issues. Most cases associated with flex time are of misallocation of employees as being excluded from overtime. The threat of any employee getting injured while performing the tasks of organization is also hovering over flex time arrangement, resulting in prosecution.

Fix: The organization should clearly state the employees who are exempted or non-exempted. The employees who are excluded are bound to get paid for overtime inclusive of the 40-hour duty in any working week. These employees should submit their total working hours along with the necessary documents.

Putting flexible work plan into effect might be time consuming and involves a lot of planning, the ultimate benefits of the same are great for smaller organizations. By successfully carrying out the flexible work arrangement, organizations can expect an increase in the job satisfaction level of employees along with enhanced loyalty and reduced absenteeism.

Turacoz Workforce Solutions, being a firm involved in staffing and recruitment services, knows that work-life balance is very crucial to employees these days and the organizations too, look for better productivity and creativity from their employees.

Flexible work plans help in achieving this target of organization, especially smaller ones. Turacoz Workforce Solutions offers medical staffing solutions to the firms in Canada and US region and provide services like temporary hiring, permanent hiring and temporary to permanent hiring.

To know more about us and avail our services, write to us at hello@turacoz.in

April 26, 2019 By Aakanksha Pareek