Flextime - Definition & Meaning

What is Flextime?

Flextime or Flexitime is a non-traditional approach to work hour scheduling. This allows employees to select their working hours on their own. There is, however, a particular core time period for which all employees have to be present at work. The rest of the work hours can be adjusted as per the employee’s convenience.

 

Example:

Let for company X:

Total work hour per week is: 40

Total work hour per day: 8

 

Traditional Timing: 9am-6pm / 8am-5pm; 5days a week

 

Flextime: core hours: 12AM-4PM

 

An example of felxtime can be as given below:

Day	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Time	11AM-7PM (8hrs)	12AM-8PM (8hrs)	8AM-10PM & 12AM-7PM (2hrs+7hrs)	11AM-4PM & 6PM-8PM (5hrs+2hrs)	11AM-7PM (8hrs)

Advantages of Flextime:

Employers:

• Employee retention: Flexible timings result in increased employee satisfaction thereby lowering turnover.

• Higher productivity: Allowing employees to choose their work hours strengthens commitment towards the organization goal which in turn boosts productivity

• Larger window of client communication: With different team members coming in at different time it becomes easier to communicate with clients at different time zones

• Lesser work pressure: Dividing the time according to the employee’s wish keeps their morale boosted, which helps in dealing with stress

• Decreasing presentism and absenteeism

• Increasing employee loyalty

 

Employees:

• Time management: Having a flexible work schedule means better division of professional and personal time.

• Lesser travel time: Avoiding the peak traffic hours results in saving time and keeps energy high.

 

Disadvantages of Flextime:

Employers:

• Communication among team members: When all members have different timings its tough to fit in meetings that suits all.

• Unsuitable for all industries: Flextime is a probable solution for the service industry, but is not at all feasible for employees of manufacturing industry. Example, workers if an assembly line have to be present at the same time as it is a chained process

• Employee specific: Every employee may not look at flex timing as a benefit provided. Thus strong supervision is necessary from management to make the effort successful.

 

Employees:

• Lack of team communication: As the whole team spends little time together, team dynamics are not very strong and may result in lack of communication

Hence, this concludes the definition of Flextime along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

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