Work/Life Balance

Setting Guidelines For Flex Schedules

By Tom Ladendecker

Changing demographics, working parents, employee fulfillment, and elder care are just a few reasons why employees are demanding more flexible work schedules. Giving employees more options increases their satisfaction, improves morale, and may allow you to keep a valuable employee who may otherwise leave.

Our operation faced this situation last year. We had two long-term experienced employees who, for different reasons, needed to reduce their workload. Our management staff held a meeting to discuss the pros and cons of allowing part-time schedules. Some concerns voiced were: how would this affect workloads; would there be employee resentment; what sort of restrictions should be in place? After much discussion, it was decided the benefits outweighed the costs. 

Establish Guidelines

Before implementing a flexible schedule, it is very important to establish guidelines up front so each employee understands the rules and expectations. This will also avoid conflicts and accusations of favoritism. There is also the possibility that not every employee is eligible for part time. By establishing a policy, you can head off unwarranted requests.

The first set of guidelines should address employee performance. Part-time schedules are a benefit awarded to employees, and should require a certain level of performance for consideration. Marginal employees may abuse this privilege and can create resentment from their peers. 

Criteria For Part-Time Scheduling

The idea is to establish criteria to ensure dependable, trusted, and dedicated employees can take advantage of the reduced schedule. Employees with a history of absenteeism, tardiness, or poor evaluations are not good candidates. Establishing guidelines can enhance employee performance and ensures fairness to everyone. You can actually gain a productivity lift as marginal employees improve their performance to take advantage of this benefit.

Other criteria you may want to consider:

• Where conflicts exist, give preference to employees with the most seniority
• Flextime schedules should not place undue burden on other team members
• Personal business should be attended to on the employees day off
• Increasing carry-over work to accommodate work schedules cannot affect customers
• Employees should be flexible regarding work assignments
• Employees need to provide a plan for phone/e-mail coverage for days off

Each business may have specific considerations that can place additional restrictions on their program. Seasonality, fluctuations in work, and specific customer demands must be considered. 

Other Considerations

In our operation, Mondays are particularly heavy, therefore, we require all part-time employees to work on Mondays. (We also try to avoid Friday, as this is a popular vacation day). Employees under consideration are asked to be flexible in the event they are asked to work on their days off. (We have never asked an employee to work on their day off but we want to be upfront that it could happen in an emergency). Each employee’s situation can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and are subject to management approval and workload scheduling.

Finally, consideration should be given to how you will handle benefits. Our company had established guidelines based on the number of hours worked. Below are some examples of how you may want to arrange your benefits:

• Medical/Dental – You may want to take into consideration the medical/dental benefits costs. In our organization, a cutoff is established for employees working 30 or more hours a week. They pay the same cost as those working full-time. Anyone working less than 30 hours per week pays a set percentage of the total cost of the program. 

• Other Benefits – Check with your benefits department as your program may contain certain minimum hours for eligibility. Many programs such as 401ks or pensions require employees to work a specific numbers of hours per year to be eligible. You may be able to give employees’ life insurance or disability but at reduced coverage due to the lower salary.   

• Tuition Reimbursement – You may want to cap reimbursement based on the hours worked or by some other formula.

• Time Off
  • Vacation/Sick Time/Personal Days - Prorated by reduction in hours, i.e., an employee who works three days per week gets 60% of the regular amount, etc.
  • Holidays – only paid if the employee regularly works that day.

The key is to establish your guidelines up front so everyone knows the rules of the game. Try to be fair to all employees, while taking customer needs into consideration. We currently have six of our 55 employees taking advantage of part-time hours and have had no issues to date.