Which flexible work-scheduling options can improve employee motivation and satisfaction?

"Work-Scheduling Options As companies try to meet the needs of a diverse workforce and retain quality employees while remaining competitive and financially prosperous, managers are challenged to find new ways to keep workers motivated and satisfied. Increasingly popular are alternatives to the traditional work schedule, such as flextime, compressed workweek, four-day workweek, telecommuting, and job sharing. One option for employees who want an adjustable schedule is flextime, in use at 57 percent of U.S. companies. Flextime allows employees to decide what their work hours will be. Employees are generally expected to work a certain number of hours per week but have some discretion as to when they arrive at work and when they leave for the day. Another option for employees who want to maximize their leisure hours, indulge in three-day weekends, and avoid commuting during morning and evening rush hours is the compressed workweek. Employees work the traditional 40 hours, but fit those hours into a shorter workweek. Most common is the 4-40 schedule, where employees work four 10-hour days a week. Organizations that offer this option claim benefits ranging from increased motivation and productivity to reduced absenteeism and turnover. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 29 percent of U.S. companies offered employees a compressed workweek in 2017, down from 35 percent in 2013. One of the reasons for the downward trend may be the increasing popularity of a four-day workweek. In 2017 the Society for Human Resource Management began tracking the popularity of a four-day workweek, offered in 13 percent of U.S. companies. In this option, employees work only four days a week, the same as a compressed workweek, but work 32 hours or less. The year before, Amazon announced a pilot project that allows some tech teams in its human resources department to work fewer hours for 75 percent of pay but retain the same benefits as full-time employees. In contrast, Tower Paddle Boards made permanent its pilot of reducing the workday to only five hours for the entire company. Employees retain the same pay and obligations as before so are challenged to be more productive in less time. In addition, the company started a 5 percent profit-sharing plan. Founder Stephan Aarstol says he expected to lose some revenue for a bit, but that didn’t happen. Revenue the first year was up 40 percent. Telecommuting is a work-scheduling option that allows employees to work from home via a computer that is linked with their office, headquarters, or colleagues. Often employers will use a mix of these scheduling options depending on the situation. Jacqueline Pawela-Crew was a group leader in Intel’s management engineering unit who worked a compressed schedule. She worked Monday through Thursday, and on two of those days she telecommuted from her home. On the other two days, she worked a flexible schedule, sometimes getting to the office at 6 a.m., so she could be home when her children came home from school. Her former manager, Dan Enloe, was a U.S. Navy reservist and divorced dad, so he also used Intel’s flexible schedule to meet his military and family needs. He sees the flexible scheduling as a key motivator for Intel’s employees. “I’ve had workers tell me flat out, they were going to leave Intel if they didn’t have the option of some flexibility with their schedules,” he says. Ricardo Semler, CEO of Semco, a Brazilian conglomerate with 3,000 employees, sums up flexible work schedules this way: “The essence to us [at Semco] was that people who are free people, who [can act] based on self-interest, who can balance their own lives, are much happier, more productive people. If you take a business call on a Sunday afternoon, for instance, why not go to the movies on a Monday?” Semco’s employees not only choose their own schedules, they often choose which part of the business to work for and even how much they’ll be paid. Job sharing is a scheduling option that allows two individuals to split the tasks, responsibilities, and work hours of one 40-hour-per-week job. Though used less frequently than flextime and the compressed workweek, this option can also provide employees with job flexibility. The primary benefit to the company is that it gets “two for the price of one”—the company can draw on two sets of skills and abilities to accomplish one set of job objectives. Mary Kaye Stuart is an account executive at a broadcasting company in Austin, Texas. After her doctor warned her that the stress of her 100-mile commute could shorten her life, she pursued job sharing. She teamed up with a former coworker, and each works three days a week, working together on Wednesdays. “Job sharing is a great solution to keeping people from burning out and preventing turnover,” says Melissa Nicholson. She believes in the power of job sharing so much that, after years of doing it herself, she founded Work Muse to help companies set up job-share arrangements. Not all partnerships have been successful, she admits, but when they are, she loves having the ability to be flexible and for the workers to cover each other and support each other. “I’m able to just not think about email or work for four days a week,” she said. “That’s just an impossibility for most people.” Although each of these work-scheduling options may have some drawbacks for the sponsoring organizations, the benefits far outweigh the problems. The number of companies offering flexible work options has grown, and the trend is expected to continue."