The Three Flavors of Flex/Telework

Fellows, founder and president of WorkLife Performance, Inc. says that there are three common “flavors” of flex/telework. She offered her tips at a recent webinar sponsored by BLR and HR Hero.

Flavor #1—Flexible Hours

This is the opportunity to begin and end each workday at an approved time outside the standard (or “core”) working hours while still completing the minimum required workday. Variations:

• Set start/end hours each day
• Start/end each day, within a specific “window” (usually 1 hour)
• Start/end each day according to the specific day (or week, or cycle of time)

This time flexibility gives employees the opportunity to manage life-stages—parenting, retiring, etc.

Typically the business benefits also, for example by having longer hours for customers in different time zones.

Make sure that you are fair and business-based, says Fellows. If you have hours where you need people on the job, you have to make that inflexible.

Flavor #2—Compressed Work Schedules
(aka “Alternate Work Schedule” or “AWS”)

Compressed work schedules offer the opportunity to work longer hours on certain days in order to complete the work in fewer days and have “earned time off” on other days. Variations:

• 9 longer days at work, then 1 day off*
• 4 longer days on, 1 day off each week
• 8 9-hour days, 1 8-hour day, 1 day off each pay period*
• 4.5 days or 9.5 days on, half-day off*
•  “Any 80” (any 80 hours in a two-week period)*
• 4 10 hour days per week

* with any of these systems be wary of overtime which must be calculated on 40-hour weeks.

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Flavor #3—Telework or Telecommuting

Telecommuting offers employees the opportunity to complete regular job responsibilities on certain days from an approved alternate work site.  Make sure that your definition isn’t “working at home,” says Fellows. It’s “doing your job at an alternate worksite.” Variations:

• Regular: Teleworking the same scheduled day(s) each pay period
• Ad hoc/situational/intermittent: Teleworking as needed, based on work or workplace circumstances For example, says Fellows, certain tasks demand that you be in the office, (for example, if you need to use certain equipment) but other tasks, like writing or research, might be better accomplished off-site.
• Medical: With physician’s approval, temporary full-or part-time at-home work may be appropriate during medical situation where the employee can’t travel to the office but can work at home. But this is not a substitute for sick leave, warns Fellows. No teleworking before the employee is ready to return to work.
• Unscheduled: In response to weather or network outages or other circumstances that impact the workplace, it may be appropriate to ask people to work offsite. For example, if there’s snow or hurricane—stay home and keep the railroad running.

Flextime and telework, no matter what the flavor, makes it just that much harder to make sure that policies are followed and procedures adhered to. That increases legal risks, but, unfortunately, the infractions are not obvious. There’s really only one way you can be sure that your systems are operating according to policy—regular audits. The rub is that for most HR managers, it’s hard to get started auditing—where do you begin?

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