to ask why some employers are so inflexible?

[lessonsintightropes]

And yes this might be fred about a fred but...

I am a Director of a charity which employs a lot of people from different people from different circumstances, in different jobs. We are a homeless charity and try wherever possible to employ 'experts by experience', people who have moved on from living in our hostels, and can help our customers/clients from a place of real credibility as they've done it in terms of becoming successfully off benefits/away from drug addiction etc. We also always employ people on the living wage or above unless they are in a time limited apprentice/trainee role which is above NMW and with paid time off to study.

This means that we employ some people who have some issues sticking to some fixed rules, and we are very clear about those - for example, people working on shifts need to be there at a fixed time, and there's not a lot we can do apart from looking at shift patterns. However, if our head office staff have out of work commitments, as long as they are delivering the fundraising income they need to or other work priorities we are pretty flexible about when and how they do it, if they are meeting deadlines. It means there are different rules for different teams in terms of flexi time etc but everyone seems alright with that from our staff survey, and understand why rules are different in other parts of the organisation.

If you are a stickler for getting your staff in at a particular time and it has no impact on your customer's experience, or what is delivered, I'd love to know why?

I've

It can't see how being able to pretty much wander in and our when you want can possibly be non-impacting to everyone.

There are so many reasons why you may want staff in on time. For consistency. So customers know when that person/service is available. So colleagues or managers know when they are available, increasing time effectiveness and reducing wasted time in chasing people. To enable proper forward planning. To prevent feelings of resentment among staff due to such different approaches as to how certain employees are treated. To increase productivity amongst staff...ime even the most driven of people usually do better with some rules/sla's to achieve.

I could go on...

Only ever worked in areas where it would impact on the customer eg no one to answer the phone/open the shop/ deliver the service.

It's not about wandering in and out with impugnity, and if you've read my thread that way, think you might be deliberately misreading it Chestnuts. It's about making sure the customer, first and foremost, is taken care of, but in roles which are not customer-facing, having some flexibility about how things are achieved.

And if my team don't achieve their income generation targets they'd be sacked, it's about how we create the conditions for those targets to be achieved DirtyDancing.

I've recently advertised for an admin role - 9 till 5,30. It's 9 because that's when the phones start ringing, and 5.30 because the mail needs taken to the PO at 5pm. Every single candidate I interviewed (six, from over 300 applications) asked to start later or finish earlier. If the role was flexible, it would have stated it in the advert.

I too work for a charity, my staff team work across a variety of hours including late nights, overnight and at weekends as well as regular office hours. I need them to be where they should when they should so that I know at any time what resources are available for planning meetings, ad hoc service delivery, volunteer support etc.

There has been a fair amount of resentment in the team when colleagues regularly turn up late for whatever reason because it usually means there are fewer people to share particular tasks. These can be time sensitive pieces of work that come at short notice but that needs to be shared equally. If I have four staff due to be in the office at 9 and only three are there those three pick up an unequal share of the workload because I often can't wait until X decides to turn up. The same applies to people who consistently leave early. I'm very open to agreeing flexible working arrangements and accommodating emergencies from time to time but I do expect my people to be where they say they will when they say they will. I struggle to see why that's unreasonable.

Am wondering if anyone actually read my original post or other clarifications? Of course the team has to meet deadlines and pretty ambitious targets, and there are some things that are unmissable, in my original example the person who has a lot of flexibility on a day to day basis has some very unmissable things and she arranges cover for those; but don't people think in general that a more flexible approach is better for both staff and outcomes? I've (unwillingly) led fundraising teams without hours flex before and they bring in on average 25% less that those with it. So there's a business benefit for me. Is this unusual?

If it works for you then it's not unreasonable, it wouldn't work for me in my setting because the work can be unpredictable and we often need all hands on deck at short notice. The workload becomes a burden on a select few if folk in the team don't turn up on time or if they aren't where they say they will be. I'm happy to agree structured changes to working hours but expect my staff to keep to those agreements once made, not to assume its ok to come in early or leave late or arrange their own cover etc because I've agreed arrangements based on the resources I need at any given time and I'm accountable for resourcing.

I did mean come in late or leave early of course...

Thanks Tiglette - the way it works for us (mainly Trust, Foundation and Stat fundraising) is not dependent on timings in the way your team is, and I completely understand the alternative - as it is with our customer-facing ops people. Do you think it forments bad feeling though that different teams have different expectations? Our Ops teams generally work shifts and go home, our fundraising team works whenever is needed to meet deadlines, which means weekend and evening working from home on a not-irregular basis.

I don't think so as long as there are clear operational needs rather than it being a case of "because they can".

By way of example, I have an operational team who have a very flexible work pattern in that they work a variety of hours across a range of shifts - they can by and large manage their diaries within certain parameters but once they've agreed their schedule they need to stick with it because that's what I base resourcing on. I also have an administrative team who need to work more fixed hours with much less flexibility because they need to be available during office hours. Again I'll agree a structured flexible working agreement but within that their hours are pretty much fixed. Different needs for different groups of staff based on operational need rather than personal circumstance.

I would struggle to justify treating two employees in the same team differently though eg agreeing flexibility with one while asking the others to stick to a fixed schedule unless for a short period of time to deal with a particular issue, eg family sickness.

I don't think any if us deliberately misread your post

I simply explained that I personally have only ever worked in environments where fixed hours were a necessity.

I work in a professional finance environment and we work flexi time between a 7am and 7pm bandwith, although this is flexed as necessary. I've worked beyond midnight before now as have my colleagues but only when there has been an absolute emergency.

Although we are customer facing it is internal customers only, and we are rarely needed to be on immediate call as the nature of our work doesn't require that. At the moment I only have one member of staff who generally works from 7am until about 2.30pm. I generally work from about 9.30ish to 5.30ish. Although sometimes I finish at 3.30 I will more often than not log on at home and put in another few hours from the comfort of my house. As I see it as long as we are getting the work done and meeting our customers' needs I don't care when people come or go. As a manager it is my job to make sure that my staff are doing their job, as it is my manager's job to have oversight that I am.

Nor does it affect forward planning or anything like that. Requirements to attend meetings are flagged up in advance so there's no problem. And as we all work flexi time there are no resentment issues. We have enough KPIs and measurement indicators without throwing rigid starting and finish times into the mix.

And I do appreciate that some employers have to have rigid start and finish times but probably not so many as those that impose them.

DH's company, for all their faults (and there are many) do offer flexitime, simply insisting on core hours of 10-12 and 2-4. DH engineers this to work 8-4, which fits in with family obligations (both boys have severe/complex SN, so even in KS2, we have a serious witching hour or so and need to have dinner reasonably early to minimise its impact) and misses the worst of local traffic congestion. Clients know of this and, as such, get told to lump it when they leave it until almost 4pm to phone in about a complaint that they've known about for several days already.

I work in an organisation that delivers 24/7 service but it also accommodates flexible workers who can fit in around peak times. In reality the flexible workers are actually inflexible and are lumped together in one particular role. It limits their development and doesn't really add to the service we should be providing. For my particular organisation, flexible working is a box ticking excercise that doesn't really add to the organisation's needs.

Most office work is not time dependent and people have a task to do and a deadline - as long as the task is completed in the deadline, I have no issues about flexibilty.
With moblies and broadband, most tasks can be done at home, but most people do not trust their staff enough and invent reasons for staff to be at the desk at certain times.

My boss was moved sideways to head up my team but has no real understanding of the work we do or how well we are doing this. Because of this his performance management tends to rely on looking at start times, tea breaks, monitoring any conversation you may have with colleagues that's not about work etc.

I don't understand it either.

One place I worked had some staff starting at 8 or 8.30 and others starting at 9. One young employee could only get in by train, the trains were once an hour and arrived on the hour, she then had a 5 min walk to work. So she came in every day at 8.05 to start work at 9. The primary part of her role was answering the phones and working on the switchboard. But there were people doing that from 8am so I don't see why she couldn't work 9.10-5.10, or even start at 8.30. But no her job was advertised as 9-5 so that is what she had to work.

hombre and caroldecker have it right IME.

Because, in practice, so-called flexibility causes a great deal of resentment - no-one can remember which rules apply to whom, and plenty of people appear to come and go exactly as they please. I find that the biggest advocates of 'flexibility' are those that take the piss and exploit the goodwill of others. And whether it impacts on the customer is often a very subjective concept.

I don't understand it either. I employ adults who have huge autonomy over big decisions. I trust them to manage their work.

5.30 is a late end to the day.

Even in non-customer facing roles, routine can be important. Teams that establish a shared Rhythm tend to be more effective in my experience. Members of the team arriving at different times can be distracting and disruptive, which can impact productivity.