Examples of flexi-hours for full time working parents

I work for quite a large organisation and I am FT, 35 hours a week flexi.

Our policy is that we must be working between core hours which are 10-12 and 2-3 we can then make up our hours any time we like.

I generally start work at 9.30 once the DC's are in school and finish at 3.30 to collect them. I then make up my hours in the evening when they are in bed. We also have the option to take days off providing we work all our hours that week, which works well when it comes to Christmas concerts etc.

Core hours between 10am and 4pm, as long as they do their weekly hours they can arrive before 10am and leave after 4pm. Any hours over and above their weekly contracted hours can be added together each month and a maximum of one day can be taken off per month in lieu

Flexible start and finish times between eg 7am-7pm, with core hours eg 10am12 noon; 2pm-3pm. Hours either add up every day, or over a week/fortnight/month.

Accumulate and carry over flexi time, up to to a day a month time off in lieu.

9 day fortnight - 10 days worth of hours in 9 days, alternate Fridays (or day of choice) off.

We have flexi working which means that we must be working the core hours which are 10-12 and 2-4 and then work whenever we want around those as long as we are fulfilling our contracted hours.

We can go under our contracted monthly hours by 4hours as long as we make it up in the next month.
Conversely up to 4 extra hours can be taken as time off in the next month.

You may want to check the legality of only offering it to parents.

This policy is purely for working parents at the moment. I don’t feel the need to roll it out across the business as the main driver is to work around dependants. A general flexible working policy isn’t something we currently view as being necessary

I think you would be setting yourself up for a fall if you say this is for those with dependents only. It's unfair to treat staff differently like this. I'm a working parent to youngsters myself, so it's not like I'm looking at this from a dependent-free viewpoint.

We have a (complex) timesheet where we put in our start/ finish/lunch times and it works out it all out.
It mostly is based on trust but our line manager can see them at any time, will check them when we request any time off, and we have regular random audits.

alternating earlies and lates so (assuming 9-5 is default) can do 8-3.15 on Tue&Thur and 9:30-6 M,W&F.

or 4 very long days and 1 day off, if you can be sure that 5 normal days of work can be done in 4 long.

Core hours I agree is good but be careful of saying dependents only = children. I have another dependent, my elderly mother who I care for which is why Flexi working is fab for me. Good luck

We have always had very flexible working, based around core hours, flexible start/finish and accumulated flexi days.

It is largely based on trust, with daily hours recorded in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is stored on an office drive, so theoretically your line manager could look at it at any time.

Our flexi policy applies to all staff though. Even as a working parent, I feel that it would be rather unfair on the non-parents not to benefit from it.

Please do check. We brought in some extra flexibility during Covid and deliberately didn’t make it for parents only. Even if it’s legal I think you might p*ss off non-parents.

things that I either want as a parent or was asked for as a manager:

full working hours over 4 days
late starts, early finishes and hours made up in the evening
mix of short days and long days
long lunch- ie up to 2 hours to enable exercise
part time employees working extra hours in term time and taking it as toil in school holidays (in theory this could be full time as well but the request came from a part time employee)
An interesting one is skipping lunch. We don’t allow it. I’m not sure on the legalities as HR suggested we should be ensuring everyone had the chance of lunch and we should be encouraging everyone to take a break. But I don’t know if that was legal or for welfare. Personally I think most people do end up taking a bit of a break even just to make a sandwich so it should be structured into the day.

I absolutely agree that someone can’t work and look after young children but think about if you’d be happy for them to say collect from school and do another hour whilst the child is having a snack in front of the TV. And also allowing flexibility if a child is ill or other exceptional circumstances (eg strikes).

Oh and on hours we did timesheets anyway as we bill different project hours so needed to keep track of it anyway.
As a line manager you’d see who was online and who wasn’t.

My company doesn’t have set hours, they just ask that we be reasonably consistent and transparent with our schedule. Outlook needs to stay updated. They can’t set core hours because we have people on too many time zones. Flexibility works both ways . If you need people to take meetings at odd hours, they are much more accepting of that fact when the company is flexible in return.

Anecdotal and nothing to do with an office setting, but I work “child friendly” hours on my ward (I’m an HCP). I do FT hours, over four fixed days a week, which cover the hours my youngest is in wraparound care. When XH left 4yrs ago, I asked for the changed shifts. They trialled it for about 6-8 weeks to make sure it was working well for the ward, and then allowed me to continue it. I’m so grateful they’ve allowed it. I’ve been there for 10yrs and plan to stay there for as long as they want me.

Once my youngest is in secondary school (and able to get herself to/from school), I’ll be able to go back to working day shifts. Once she’s old enough to be left home at night, I can do night shifts.

From a single working parent point of view, it means that this has enabled me to continue doing a job I love, and it also means that they have me on set days at core hours. I do extra hours whenever I can, and help out whenever I can. So I guess it promotes loyalty to workplace too!

We have core hours 10-3 and people work them and around them as necessary for childcare / life needs! You clock your hours (based on trust mostly but they also definitely track productivity/activity and other metrics) and can accumulate flexi balances or just stay within the normal working hours. It's fab I love to start at 7 and finish at 3 on days I need to power through, it feels like I get a better work balance for doing it.

Agree with PP on the point of it only being offered to people who are working parents, I think if you're a business offering flexi working (as my company does) it's for everyone or for no one. I think if you have half the staff on flexi time and the other half not, it would create a bad culture in the office (especially basing it on something like having children!) and also mean that staff patterns wouldn't match up - someone on flexi working at 7pm who's been offline since 3, when the rest of the team aren't allowed to work flexibly and logged off at five isn't going to work for a team or team planning imo.

my neighbours work compressed hours.

one does 3x12 hours the other 4x10.

A 5 day working week condensed into 4 days makes it possible to be still considered a 'full time' employee with all the benefits that come with it for example full salary and full leave entitlement. It means you get paid for the work you actually do too because more people work more than the 9-5 even if that is what they are contracted to do.

I imagine 4 days over 3 works well too.

We work by billable hours so have to fill out an electronic timesheet anyway.

I'm planning to return to work in a flexi-time role. 9.30 to 2.30, then I can cover 2 hours when I can in the evening. However, my role rarely requires my full attention for those hours, and as I sort of work for my husband he'll adjust the work so I can get everything done in the main block, and use the extra 2 hours for rare catch up bits. Other staff members work according to school hours, then catch up in the afternoon/evening. One member of staff starts later and finishes later and another vice versa. One changes her hours day-to-day and we make it work

And if the employee who requested this happened to be female, would you engineer a policy that prevented men from applying?

As a very senior HR person, I would run a mile from an MD who wanted to implement a policy like you’re suggesting. It’s naïve at best.

My workplace has unofficial flexi working. For the most part it works but it's difficult to police piss takers. My colleague has two children and leaves at three to do the school pick up then works later in the evening than those of us who work in the office. She's an absolute workhorse and easily works more than she should. She's flexible when the job requires it and will be in the office when needed. Her husband covers on those rare occasions (he's a uni lecturer so it's not easy).

We also have someone who leaves early because one of her parents picks her up (in her 30s, no children, not young and inexperienced but can't drive or walk to our rural workplace and won't take the bus). I'm not convinced she works much after going home. She also tends to avoid working in the office on her usual days. She regularly pleads anxiety and refuses to come in on key days when there are events happening. So far our managers tolerate it but it's creating an angry atmosphere in the team. We're all fed up of the emergency rush to figure out what's going on and cover for her.

Our organization has core hours 9-12 then 2-4. Outside of that we are free to make up our 40 hours however we see fit to complete our work load. Very family friendly

Just a word of caution. It's lovely you want to be flexible for parents but don't let that be at the expense of your other employees. I worked somewhere where I couldn't ever get any school holidays (including between Christmas and new year) off, tried to get agreed holidays cancelled because teachers called a strike, and I had to always work the 3-6pm of the supposed flexi hours every day because my kids were over 16, despite my dd having additional needs bizarrely.