Question

Hi HR practitioners,

Companies are encouraged to offer flexible work hours and arrangements. Now it has resulted in staff working back for their lateness and getting too cumbersome to keep track of what is owed is being 'repaid'

Please advise alternatives to do away with such taking for granted.

Carina

Reply 1

Fully agree that with the flexi-work arrangement, there is a handful of staff who would take full advantage of it, by clocking fewer hours as a result – as it’s difficult to track. I’ve faced similar problems previously, and note that in one of the companies I work in, where we have rather flexible work hours where attendance is mandatory for the core hours (eg. 9.30 am to 4 pm) but we require almost all employees (less top management staff) to clock it. In this instance, cases of employees not clocking requisite hours in the month is just 1 to 2 cases. We track the attendance hours by calendar month, an employee will receive an email with a copy extended to their supervisor should they not meet requisite monthly hours. They will repay the hours accordingly the following month and worst scenario, have their salary deducted accordingly. So far, none had their salary deducted.  We also have the HR system programmed to generate names of those violating the core hours, and they are almost similarly managed. Hope this helps.

EG

Reply 2

Our employees choose a flexible timing (eg 9.30am-6.30 pm) and stick to it till they request to change to different timing. We have an electronic attendance system to verify the timings.

AL

Reply 3

In my opinion, flexible working hours are about flexibility given to employees without the need to report to office 9 – 5. The measurement should be the ability to meet KPI or complete assignment without any issues. Should the employee unable to fulfill the requirement yet taking advantage of flexible working hours, the company can always stop it.

AT

Reply 4

I guess you meant cumbersome for HR to track? Because it should not be the case for the staff. They want the flexibility, they should track. There are a few ways to tackle this for HR.

1. This system is built on trust; or

2. Have a fixed flexible hours register. This would mean if your start/end time is 9 am to 6 pm, someone working from 8 am to 5 pm is fixed and put in a register for everyone to know. This has an advantage that people looking for him/her will be able to tell from the register; or

3. Have the policy to beep in/out of the office. It is like a clock in/out. Normally left to the staff to work an honest fixed hours but if there is abuse, the clocking system helps to prove.

RC

Reply 5

You may wish to introduce fix flexible time. e.g. staff could choose between working from 2 schemes, 8 am to 5 pm or 9 am to 6 pm. Once staff selected the scheme, they will stick to it till they request for a change in scheme.

Dan

Reply 6

Sometimes HR is not a big bunch of people, especially SME only two or one headcount.
No payroll system is good to track these owe and repay timeslots. Years back, NSL micro-manage even executives need to write hourly job accomplishment. In MNCs, executives are measured by selected and agreed on KPIs and don’t need to clock time attendance. But under the manufacturing environment, blue-collar crews are gathered at the same time zone to produce/pack goods at minute yield machines where flexible hours is not even possible. At most, they can swop their shift time-slots.

Dksw

Reply 7

Increasingly, agility, collaboration, and innovation have become the essential competencies for organisations to survive and thrive in the fourth industrial revolution. HR practitioners hold the key to this change in strategy from recruitment to culture and policies. This requires a fundamental change from a "command and control" style of management to a collaborative organisation where employees can participate with freedom and responsibility.

Rather than filling every hour with structure, exploration and flexible practices have allowed my organisation to gain new knowledge and attune to the new way of work.

Jonathan