Variable work schedules: an emerging trend to complement the traditional eight-to-five schedule.

ABSTRACT

With the growing diversity in the workplace, there is an increased demand for greater variety in scheduling to meet the needs of diverse groups such as those of the knowledge workers, those of the dual-career family or the single head of household, those of the growing number of seniors desiring part-time work, those of the two new "moms" wanting to share one job, those of the older baby boomers with aged parents for whom they must care, and many other groups. Innovative companies have adopted many types of flexible scheduling programs including job sharing, telecommuting all or part time, compressed workweeks, flexibility in the eight-hour day which allows employees to work their eight hours at varying times, the paid time off bank (PTO), the increased use of part-time workers who retain benefits, and other programs. However, with all of these changes, there is more demand for flexibility in scheduling work than is currently taking place.

1. INTRODUCTION

Many forces are contributing to the rapid growth of the variable work schedules. Among these are the impending retirement of the large baby boom population who will begin to reach age 65 by 2010; the knowledge worker, i.e., the computer expert; the need to motivate employees with varying needs, i.e., the generation X'ers; the need to find new ways to compete for the best qualified workforce possible; the widening diversity in the workforce; the need to address needs of the family; and many other forces.

The way innovative corporations are addressing these forces for change is through many types of variable work schedules. Several of these schedules designed for specific groups are discussed below. There are many populations in the United States workforce who prefer flexible work schedules. These include the temporary worker, the older worker retired from a permanent job, the two new "moms" who want to share a job, the knowledge worker, the overburdened worker, the older baby boomer who must care for aging parents, the person who likes the adventure of working for a temporary agency, and other groups with unique needs.

2. THE TEMPORARY WORKER

The temporary worker has a unique set of needs traditionally. They want "to get new and different work experiences and develop new skills" (Cuesta, 2002). Research conducted by the American Staffing Association found that 90 percent of staffing firms offer free skills training to employees; this includes free training and tutorials on the latest popular software programs. Therefore, this opportunity for training becomes a major appeal and meets the needs of the temporary worker. This need is the major one that motivates a worker to opt to go to work for a temporary help agency where he/she will be assigned to a variety of companies rather than taking a full-time job with one company. Therefore, when a company hires a temp, many times the company acquires an employee who loves continuous training and would be a perfect match for the "learning" organization.

In addition, people at certain stages in their lives prefer to work for a temporary help agency. Students and women with children were two groups who chose temporary work because of the greater schedule flexibility (Vekker, 2001).

3. THE OLDER "RETIRED" WORKER

The older retired worker also has unique needs for which flexible scheduling provides. These older temporary workers value having time for individual development as opposed to professional development (Wellner, 2002). In addition, with the retirement age for those born in 1960 or later rising to 67, those who have not saved for early retirement may have to work during "retirement" (Wellner, 2002). Further, with the increased life expectancy, this group of retirees will need to fund more years of retirement. In fact, the human relations firm, Drake Beam Morin, found that only one percent of workers over 65 listed a raise as a main motivator. Incentives to motivate the older part-time worker will be flexible work schedules, extra vacation time, personal versus professional development opportunities, etc. The Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, D.C. reports that 60 percent of older boomers and approximately two-thirds of boomers now 38 to 47 expect to work during "retirement." These workers may want to "downshift" from senior-level positions to lower-level jobs with reduced work hours and pay (Prince, 2002).

One company capitalizing on the older "retired" worker is MITRE Corp. This corporation of 5,000 employees provides technology research and development centers for the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service. MITRE enables the older employees to remain in the workforce through phased retirement, part-time work and sabbaticals, and a program named "Reserves at the Ready." This program provides for employees with at least ten years of service to become part-time on-call employees staffing projects throughout the corporation; thus, the older employees can mentor younger workers. Most programs such as these are targeted at those employees with special expertise, key relationships or hard-to-replace skills (Rappaport, 2001). With the labor drain that retirement of baby boomers will generate and the threat to many companies' economic prospects and competitiveness, redefining traditional retirement will continue at progressive corporations.

In addition, companies in an expansion mode such as Wal-Mart are targeting the older workers to fill vacancies. Wal-Mart, one of the biggest employers of older Americans, must turn increasingly to older workers as they expand operations in a tight labor market (Carey, 2002).

Pounds states that employees who are aged 50 or older want to continue working more than ever (Pounds, 2002). A new AARP study of the older worker found that flexible working and other innovative ideas help retain the older worker. Baptist Health South Florida was named one of the "Best Companies for Over 50," according to the AARP study. "Baptist offers flextime, job sharing, telecommuting and compressed work schedules where employees work longer shifts but fewer days in a week" (Pounds, 2002). The proof of their success is in the number of the company's older employees; Baptist has 114 employees between ages 65 and 70, 53 who are between 70 and 80, and three over 80. Baptist's chief executive officer says the key to their success in retaining their older worker is flexibility (Pounds, 2002). Wiscombe says that the semi-retired workers "aren't as driven by money as they are by the sheer pleasure of the job, the people, and the place" (Wiscombe, 2002).

The shortage of workers is not simply a U.S. problem. For example, "Since 1999, 62 federally sponsored pilot projects have been underway to look at how Canadian organizations can keep people in the labor force (Brown, 2002). The Canadian Initiative, New Opportunities for Older Workers, is educating employers concerning the use of the older workers. Eric Lofgren, global director of the benefits consulting group for Watson Wyatt Worldwide, stated that we will have a shrinking workforce unless employers make better contact with older employees (Prince, 2002).

4. THE FAMILY-NEEDS WORKER

Flexibility is needed for the working moms and others with heavy family responsibilities. One attempt to provide flexibility to meet the needs of families is through job sharing. When two women in the Royal Bank Financial Group's Vancouver office experienced growing pressures of raising children and maintaining a full-time job, they appealed to their management at Royal Bank to be allowed to share a job. Fortunately, the bank was open to the idea (Wong, 1999). This initial request became so popular with the employees at the bank that Royal Bank's management officially launched the program as one of several work-family-life" initiatives. Today, "the number of job-sharing employees at Royal Bank has grown to approximately 1,100--the largest number of job-share arrangements of any one organization in North America" (Wong, 1999).

In addition, with longevity continuing due to healthier lifestyles and improved health care, the aging baby boomers may also have the responsibility of caring for aging parents. Another type of flexible scheduling, telecommuting, could accommodate these needs. However, the institution of telecommuting as an option has been slow in developing. For example, "Despite a 3-year effort by the President's Management Council to encourage more federal employees to telecommute, today only about 25,000 federal workers telecommute from their homes ... a figure that falls well short of the goal of 60,000 telecommuters the council wanted to reach by the end of fiscal 1998" (Haubold, 2000).

There are some professions that have not been as ready to provide flexibility for "moms" and others with needs for flexible scheduling. The legal profession, according to Kleiman, expected a female lawyer to have her baby on a Friday and be back at work on Monday and continue to draft legal papers while timing contractions (Kleiman, 2002). Deborah Rhode, Chairwoman of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, recently released a study entitled "Balanced Lives: Changing the Culture of the Legal Profession." This report, according to Kleiman, included a sample policy for employers to introduce alternate work schedules. The suggestions included

   ... All lawyers are eligible to request an alternative work
   arrangement after they have been employed one year ... individuals
   should have wide latitude in creating their own arrangements, but
   must work at 50 percent of their annual hours, be available to staff
   and clients, and be flexible to accommodate highly concentrated
   temporary periods of work ... Progress toward partnership status
   shall not be affected if an associate works for the equivalent of
   one cumulative year or less on an alternate work schedule ... The
   firm shall appoint an adviser to assist lawyers on alternative
   schedules (Kleiman, 2002).

It will be interesting to see how many legal firm adopt these suggestions; currently only16 percent of U.S. law firms have female partners.

Universities are another group that has done little in the way of flexible scheduling. However, one university, the University of California-Davis, has become known as "the diamond among gems in the University of California system" for its work/life benefits program. In addition to the usual flextime, alternative work schedules, and broad family leave policies, the university administration allows for individual small types of flexibility. For example, one supervisor allows her assistant to work out for an hour and a half during the lunch hour. The employee makes up the time by arriving at work a half hour earlier in the morning (Poe, 2002).

Many professions lend themselves to telecommuting and the flexible scheduling. For example, public relations practitioners don't punch a time clock. As an author in a public relations periodical recently stated

   We often are empowered to set our own schedules around the work we
   need to accomplish--we're results-driven and accountable for those
   results. For many of us, it doesn't matter where or how a project is
   completed, but only that it gets done (Anonymous 2000).

What has been discussed in the public relations field also holds true for executive, administrative, and managerial occupations as opposed to fields such as sales, teaching, certain manufacturing operations, etc. Therefore, "Jobs with higher frequencies of flexible hours are those in which work can be conducted efficiently, regardless of the workers' start and end times" (Beers, 2000).

Another type of flexibility that is offered that is especially beneficial to families is the combining of vacation and sick days into a pool called a paid time off (PTO) bank, allowing three weeks off after one year of service. According to the Hewitt study, 81 percent of employers are establishing these PTO banks (Erickson, 2002). This would allow for a newly returning "mom" to join the family for an extended vacation even though she had just returned to work.

5. THE KNOWLEDGE WORKER

The knowledge worker in the fields of accounting, computer information systems, consulting, etc., can to recruited and retained with the use of alternative work arrangements. These workers desire to work for companies who value their performance over simple adherence to set work hours. One accounting and consulting firm, Sisterson & Company, was finding it increasingly difficult to attract and retain talent. The company devised a way to meet employees' scheduling needs while making sure the change didn't interfere with its ability to meet clients' accounting and consulting requirements. Employees can work under one of the following structures:

* Flexible work arrangements. Employees can vary their schedules from day to day, choosing either to begin or end their workdays earlier or later than standard times, as long as they are on the job during the core hours of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

* Staggered hours. Employees commit to a fixed schedule each day, say 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. This works well for administrative employees who need to be available to others in the firm at predictable times.

* Part time. Employees can choose to work fewer than 40 hours a week.

* Variable schedules. Some employees work full time during busy periods and part time during slow times. (Marano, 1999).

Flex time allows a company to take advantage of a person who has a skill set that may not be available on a full-time basis (Matzek, 2003).

6. THE GENERATION X'ERS

Generation X'ers prefer audio, visual, and computer to print media making them perfect candidates to telecommute. When it comes to training, let them learn on their own. Simply "agree on the learning objectives and a timetable for achieving them, then provide X'ers with multiple sources of the information they need and let them go at it" (Minerd, 1999). Generation X'ers are intensely self confident making them great candidates for working from home. Because "their parents were more likely to be divorced, both working, or more permissive than parents of previous generations, X'ers have learned to do things for themselves and to handle problems alone" (Minerd, 1999). In addition, the current college graduates "are looking for more control; they ask if companies have the flexible work initiate and work-life balance (Eljas, 2001).

7. THE OVERBURDENED WORKERS

Control of scheduling through allowing for flexibility can also benefit workers on extremely tight, very productive schedules. For example, veteran brokers typically create their own tight, productive schedules. Most of these veteran brokers block out specific times at which time they accomplish the things on their focused agendas--prospecting, for instance. The best time to prospect for new clients may occur in the evenings or weekends. They then fill in the rest of the week and stick to the schedule. (Evans, 2002). In dealing with products, veteran brokers concentrate in one area for a particular month--retirement plans, rollovers, annuities, or insurance planning, for instance. This flexibility in scheduling is what marks the veteran broker from the rookies (Evans, 2002). One human resource person commented, "We don't even track actual start and stop times. We don't really care. Every employee has different needs and as long as their meeting business needs, we're fine with it" (Blassingame, 2003).

8. CONCLUSION

Flexibility is the key to becoming one of the best corporations in the eyes of employees. The options are limitless with such examples as expanded office hours from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., allowing employees flexibility in when they work their eight hours; working four, 10-hour days with Fridays off; working four, 9-hour days with half-day Friday off; or even allowing two people to share a job. In addition, flexibility is provided through allowing telecommuting on a full- or part-time basis; allowing employees to have a two-hour lunch hour so that they can workout or run errands with the option of arriving early or staying late to make up the time; or the granting of sabbaticals. Also, flexibility is allowed by many companies through extra vacation time provided through PTO banks which allow vacation time and paid sick leave to be combined and used for vacation if desired. In addition, many employees are allowed to work part time and maintain benefits.

Of course, the move to flexible scheduling must be profitable for the corporation. For example, when Prudential Life employees in the tax department changed to flex time, there was a 33% reduction in turnover and a 45 reduction in departures by associates (Eljas, 2001). Also, in a J. P. Morgan Chase & Company department in Pittsburgh, the deposit support department who changed to a four-day week had an increase in efficiency. The workers turned around loan confirmations in half the time--five days rather than the usual ten (Eljas, 2001). The employees worked longer days but were evidently motivated by having the extra day off.

However, there is more demand for flexibility in work than is currently in place. Golden maintains that "provision of flexibility in the timing of work is not keeping pace with the demand" (Golden, 2001). He further states that there is much disparity in access to schedule flexibility by workers' demographic, work and job characteristics. Although 29 million full-time wage and salary workers have schedules that allow them to vary the time they begin or end their day while working 40 hours weekly, this represents only 29 percent of the workers, according to the U. S. Labor Department (Matzek, 2003). With the continuing increase in the diversity of the workforce due to delayed retirement increasing the number of older workers, due to immigration and globalization, and due to the shortage of qualified workers in many knowledge fields, flexibility in many forms will be the answer to meeting these varied needs. Flex time seems to be a win/win situation. It is a benefit for employees because it helps balance their personal and professional life and it benefits companies because it creates employees who are happy, loyal and productive and have less absenteeism. Also, senior managers, "traditionally some of the most office-bound of employees, perform much better if they are allowed to work flexibly" (People Management. 2001). A study reported by the British Psychological Society of 195 executives revealed that reduced hours, job-sharing and working from home can significantly improve effectiveness. Seventy percent were found to be more productive than colleagues who worked more traditional hours. The flexible workers also scored more highly or resilience, leadership, and commitment (People Management, 2001). It seems that flex time can not only benefit the employees but has many benefits for the executives, as well.

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Author Profile

Gayle Webb White, Jean McFadden Turner Professor of Management at Southern Arkansas University, earned her Ed. D. at the University of Mississippi. Dr. White served as Dean of the School of Business Administration from 1980-1994 at Southern Arkansas University. Post graduate study: Harvard University and the University of Illinios.