The benefits of flexi-hours – for both employers and employees

This is not for all employees; some people have to be micromanaged and almost controlled.  However, some employees are far, far better employees who offer the company far more, when flexi-hours are implemented.

A typical example:

Sarah would have to chair a site meeting for a rather big project – a school – on a Thursday afternoon at 14:00.  When the meeting ended at around 16:00 she would be tired and allow the last hour at the office to pass inefficiently as she would not have the capacity to use the time better.

She would then get to the office on a Friday, with the office closing early she finishes up the work of the week and actions on the most urgent matters from the previous day’s site meeting, while starting with the minutes of the meeting.  On Monday morning she would have to try to finish the minutes, but also do the necessary preparations for the other big project she was working on, as the site meeting was scheduled for the Tuesday.

The minutes for the school project would then eventually be circulated on the Wednesday, almost a full week after the meeting.  This is not because she is a bad employee, but merely because she has to operate in normal working hours.

If, however, she could go home after the site meeting on a Thursday, at 16:00, she could then do the minutes later that evening, once she has recuperated.  Because she would have worked for 3-4 hours that evening, she would have made up the one hour lost earlier that day and buy herself until 11:00 the next morning, to do as she pleases.

The benefit to the company is that Friday morning at 8:00 when everyone (colleagues, other consultants and even the client) gets to theirs offices and switches on their computers, their actions would be summarised in the completed set of minutes which had already been circulated.

This example does not even touch on the efficiency at which the minutes can be compiled as doing it from home, at night implies that there are no interruptions.

Another example:

Gordon has to produce sketch plan designs to a client before the end of the week – that is by far his priority.  He should have enough time to finish the designs and compile the presentation, however the project architect on one of his other projects keep on interrupting him, asking for area schedules for another council application.

He ends up staying in the office until after 11:00 PM three nights in a row.  In total he worked 18 hours over-time.

Gordon’s boss was really please with the presentation and thanked Gordon for his dedication.  Being a sensible boss, who understands that happy employees create great companies – his boss gave him two additional leave days.  Gordon will obviously walk the extra mile for the company again in the future.

Flexi-time is definitely the way all workers will be working in the future.  The sooner individuals and companies can develop systems to effectively manage and evaluate flexi-hours the sooner they can start benefiting from it.

Other benefits of flexi-time employees

• The rarely sit in traffic and are therefore less irritable when they arrive at work.
• There is far less ‘buffer-time’ between arriving at work and actually working effectively
• People who work flexi-hours take better control of their time management and planning.
• They are more responsible
• They often produce work ‘overnight’

Oh - I wrote this blog in 2018 ;-)

You can watch our: "Architects Working from Home online training, for more details and examples of how YOU can start working flexi-time.