What are the advantages of flexible working hours for employees?
Flexibility helps employees adapt their working hours to certain constraints. For others, this policy offers the opportunity to gain greater autonomy to achieve their goals. But these are not the only benefits they enjoy.
A better work-life balance
Apart from the salary, the most important aspect for an employee is the work-lifebalance offered by his or her job. For many people, this is crucial, as it allows them to devote time to their family or to the activities they enjoy.
Workers with flexible working hours suffer less stress and are much more relaxed than those with fixed working hours. Flexible schedules help prevent burnout, which can be caused by overwork. Flexibility is necessary for profiles such as students or young parents.
Improved standard of living and reduced travel costs
Flexible working hours or working from home can be invaluable. Employees who telecommute save money on transportation. They take advantage of the time they need to get from home to work, so they can get on with their tasks or stay with loved ones.
Flexibility at work (especially telecommuting) allows employees to buy or rent more affordable accommodation without worrying about whether or not they are close to the office. As an employee, however, you need to reduce your energy consumption when telecommuting to avoid an increase in your electricity bill.
Why should companies adopt flexible working hours?
According to a study published on March 19, 2020 in the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, job satisfaction can increase significantly when a company helps its employees work from home or on a flexible schedule. A happy employee is likely to keep his or her job in the long term. However, job satisfaction is not the only reason why your company should adopt flexible working hours.
When you want to get your business off the ground, you're looking for competent staff. Some profiles, however, such as designers, developers, marketing experts or translators, prefer to work in an environment with flexible working hours. By ruling out this possibility, you're putting off a large part of the talent pool and reducing your chances of finding the rare pearl when recruiting.
There are a number of steps you need to take to set up your own business. The first is toregister your company with the Registre du Commerce et des Sociétés (RCS) to legalize its activities. Once you've opened a bank account, set up your accounts and completed the obligatory personnel registers, you can start thinking about a flexible working policy for all your employees.
Before embarking on such a project, your company needs to determine the needs of its employees. To achieve this, you can conduct a survey to ensure that the responses are representative of the diversity of your employees in terms of the jobs they do, their family situation, where they live... This also provides an opportunity to highlight their fears and find solutions.
During the survey period, it's a good idea to anticipate any difficulties that may arise from the introduction of a flexible working hours policy. If you are proposing shorter working hours, make sure that your customers are able to contact you every day of the week. You should also think about the task planning and monitoring tools you'll need to make your new policy effective.
You may no longer have the traditional team meeting at the beginning of the week. As a result, you'll need to find another way of passing on tasks to your staff. Last but not least, your company needs to make sure that it stays within the framework of labor law, particularly as regards articles L3111-1 to L3172-2, which deal with working hours, rest and vacations.
What are the challenges of flexible working hours?
Flexible working hours can raise many questions and concerns among managers. It is therefore essential to establish clear rules for this practice. Above all, you need to set up specific training courses to address managers' concerns, but also to facilitate the sharing of best practices. The benefits of flexible working hours can be lost if managers start to monitor team members more closely.
Another challenge is to ensure good collaboration and communication within the team. Finally, it's essential to operate on a "test and learn" basis. This enables you to adapt your policy as you go along, rather than considering it a failure as soon as you encounter a difficulty.
Flexible working hours: watch out for abuses
While projects such as switching to flexible working hours have only advantages on paper, they can lead to certain abuses. Employees may take advantage of the flexibility of the system to work only part of their hours, or to cheat on the hours they have worked.
On the other hand, such a policy calls for more rigorous organization, since an unforeseen absence or a mistake in the schedule can have serious repercussions on the smooth running of the company. That's why you need to equip yourself withscheduling and time control tools. When your employees don't have the opportunity to see and coordinate with each other, flexible working can lead to a lack of cohesion.
Written by our editorial expert
December 26, 2023
