Flexible Working

The opportunity to have flexible working hours has always been around because sometimes unpredictable circumstances arise that requires employees to take leave or change their shift pattern. But now flexible working is becoming more and more popular and more people are seeking flexible working hours in their jobs. This gives them the chance to do other things, such as looking after relatives young or old, having extended holiday leave and taking a break from their working career. (Stredwick and Ellis, 2005)

More employers are now offering their staff flexible working as the normal nine to five routine is becoming less popular. Employers offer their staff flexible working in the form of job sharing, annualised hours, term time and home working, extended leave and short-term working and other ways that increase the flexibility of the employee. This gives their employees more flexibility between their working and private life. (Stredwick and Ellis, 2005)

John Lewis
John Lewis gives their employees the opportunity to take a 12 month leave from work. This gives the employees the chance to have a break from their career and have a secured job when they return after their 12 month leave. (BITCDiversity, n.d.)

This benefits the employee as they can take a year break from their career to do other things in the knowledge that their job is secured for them when they return to work. This means that the employee can either take a long holiday and relax for a year before continuing with their career or move on to do other things. (BITCDiversity, n.d.)

This benefits John Lewis because they believe that after their 12 month leave, the employee will be more motivated when they return. This would increase their productivity and help them become better at their job.


McDonald's
McDonald's run a family flexibility scheme. This is where family members, working at the same McDonald's restaurant, can switch shifts with one another without prior notice. (BITCDiversity, n.d.)

This benefits the employees of McDonald's because it allows them to switch with another family member if they need time off. This increases their flexibility and allows them to have the ability to fit in their private life as well as their working life. (BITCDiversity, n.d.)

This scheme benefits McDonald's because they would see a reduction in the amount of absentees within the workplace because employees can swap with other family members without prior notice.


BT

British Telecom offers teleworking. Teleworking is where you can work from the comfort of your own home. This means that you can work from home and fit your work life arround your private life. (BT, n.d.)

This scheme benefits the employee because it gives them a chance to plan their work life around their family/private life. Working from home would, for example, mean that mothers or fathers can pick their children up from school and save money on childcare and students would be able to plan arround deadlines.

This would also benefit British Telecom becuase they would see a reduction in the amount of time off their employees would require; increasing their productivity. This would mean that BT wouldn't have to find as many new staff to cover for people when they need time off.

Forms of Flexibility

Numerical Flexibility
This is where a company or organisation increases or decreases its headcount to meet customer needs. This is most common in retail as companys tend to employ more temporary staff before christmas to deal with the increase of customers. (Reilly, 2001)

Advantages to Employer	Advantages to Employee
The employer can reduce the number of employees when they're not needed; Helping to reduce costs. Gives the employer the ability to employ more staff during peak times to help with an increase of business.	More flexible working for example, students, as they can be employed out of term time and then return to their studies.

One disadvantage of numerical flexibility is that constantly increasing and decreasing head count means that the recruitment costs are increased because the employer is contantly looking for new temporary staff. This could be very expensive for the business.

Another challenge caused by numerical flexibility is that the line manager will have an increased work load as they will have to organise the increasing and decreasing work force and plan ahead to make sure the business is runng effectively.


Functional Flexibility
This is where employers train their staff so that they are multi-skilled and can switch between jobs. This is also common at supermarkets where employees may be require to fill up stocks, work on the tills and other jobs that are required.

(Reilly, 2001)

Advantages to Employer	Advantages to Employee
The employer can employ less staff because their current staff can undertake a variety of different jobs; this will save the employer money. If someone is off sick, or on holiday, the employer would have a wider range of employees to ask to cover the required shifts as each employee has a variety of skills.	The employee will have more job satidfaction as they will be able to complete various different tasks and will be highly trained.

One disadvantage of functional flexibility is that training costs could be quite high as every employee needs to be trained to do a variety of different jobs. This could lead to very high recruitment costs.

Another challenge that line managers would have to overcome would be the work overload. By reducing the amount off staff and increasing the jobs that staff members can complete may cause employees to become overworked. This would reduce their productivity.


Financial flexibility
This is where the pay and rewards employees receive differs between groups. For example, part time workers may not get the same benefit packages or pay as full time workers. This can also be in the form of performance related pay.

(Reilly, 2001)

Advantages to Employer	Advantages to Employee
The employer could save money by not offering the same benefits package to all employees.	Employees could receive a benefits package that is more suited to their needs rather than having the same benefit package as all the other members of staff.

One challenge that might arise from financial flexiblity is a split between the workforce. The workforce might split between different pay and might not get on with each other. This means that they wont work as well as a team as they might have disputes between one another.

Another challenge that faces the line manager is how he splits his workforce. He will have to work out a way to split his workforce to make sure everyone is treated fairly and to make sure that everyone gets the benefits they require to maintain their motivation.


Locational Flexibility
This is where employees are employed to work in one place but can be asked to work in a different location. This can also include homeworking; where employees can work from home. (Reilly, 2001)

Advantages to Employer

Advantages to Employee

The employer can choose which location they want their employees to work in. This would enable the employer to delegate his workforce to locations that require more staff due to increased business and away from locations where all the staff arent always required. The employer wouldn't have to employ as many staff because they can just relocate some staff from other areas of the business. This would reduce recruitment and training costs.

The employee benefits from locational flexibility because they can have the option to work from home. This helps the employee with their work/life balance. THe employee would also be able to apply to work in a location closer to their home. This would reduce the employees commuting costs.

One challenge the line manager might face when using locational flexiblity is that employees might not want to change their work location because it maybe unsuitable for them or it might increase their commuting time/costs.

Another challenge that line managers might face would be that staff begin to feel isolated. Especially when working from home, staff can feel isolated from other work colleagues due to the lack of face to face communication. This may reduce the employee's productivity.


Temporal Flexibility
Temporal flexibility is where employers alter the work hours of their employees to enable more efficient use of their labour force. This can be done by increasing or decreasing their current staff hours on a temporary basis to deal with an increase or decrease in business. (Reilly, 2001)

Advantages to Employer	Advantages to Employee
The employer can save money by asking their staff to work longer hours instead of recruiting more temporary staff to cover the work load. They have the ability to deal with an increase in business with little organisation.	The employee can have the opportunity to increase their working hours.

One challenge that may arise from using temporal flexibility is that staff might not want to increase or decrease their working hours. This means that the employers would have to find someone else to cover the workload; costing them time and money.


Problems that may arise
One challenge that effects the line manager with any of the different forms of flexibility is the increased work load for the line manager. Whatever form of flexibility a line manager chooses to implicate with its workforce, will result in an increased workload for themselves. Organising any form of flexibility would take a great deal of organisation from the line manager.

The line manager would also have to deal with the day to day issues that are caused by the different forms of flexible working; increasing their workload further.

Bibliography

BITCDiversity (n.d.) Flexible Working John Lewis Partnership [online]. BITCDiversity. Available from: http://www.bitcdiversity.org.uk/best_practice/exemplar_employers/flexible_working/case_studies/jlp.html [Accessed: 23rd February 2012].

BITCDiversity (n.d.) Flexible Working McDonalds Restaurants Ltd [online]. BITCDiversity. Available from: http://www.bitcdiversity.org.uk/best_practice/exemplar_employers/flexible_working/case_studies/mcdonalds.html [Accessed: 23rd February 2012].

BT (n.d.) Benefits [online]. BT. Available from: http://www.btplc.com/Careercentre/WhyjoinBT/Benefits/Benefits.htm [Accessed: 21st February 2012].

Reilly, P.A. (2001) Flexibility at work: balancing the interests of employer and employee.

Stredwick, J. and Ellis, S. (2005) Flexible Working. 2nd ed.