Chapter 06: Flexibility of Work

Principles for Utilisation of Staff

To ensure a successful and sustainable assignment of employees to the necessary
tasks and responsibilities of an organisation, every employer needs to recognise the
basic principles for staff utilisation.
Every employment implies an expenditure, so seeking return on investment strives for
an:
- optimised ratio of staff costs and business performance,
- steadiness of the workforce is a pre-requisite for reliable and consistent
outcomes during a broader period of time,
- transparency and acceptance requires that staff members are aware of and
aligned with their responsibilities,
- flexibility within the workforce is essential according to changing operational
requirements.

Working Time Management

Working time management takes place when:
 adjustments are made to meet market requirements for avoiding competitive
disadvantages
o optimised alignment of length, assignment, and distribution of
employees' working hours to operational requirements.
  Emplyers want to achieve:
o an optimum balance between working and business hours
o dis-aggregation individual working time and times of operation
o staff costs might be reduced and potential employee separation can be
avoided.

Working Hours
European legislation states that
 Within a period of 24h an employee is entitled to get a rest period of 11
continuous hours.
 After 6 hours of working a break has to be taken.
 Within a period of 7 days there has to be a 24h break.
 The weekly maximum working time of 48 hours including overtime is not
allowed to be exceeded.
These time limitations can be extended if clearing takes place within given time
horizon. Exemptions are possible by using the opt-out-rule or labour agreements.
 The minimum for paid vacation is 4 weeks per year.
There are, however, special regulations for specific industries like:
 transportation,
 off-shoring,
 fishing,
 security and time-bounded services (carers, farming, hospitality).
EU Directives have to be transferred into national legislation by all member states.

For Germany, federal law states

 the daily working time should not exceed 8 hours per day
 A prolongation is possible up to 10h,
 extension must be balanced to a daily average of 8 working hours within
a period of 6 months resp. 24 weeks.
 If an employee works more than 6 but less than 9 hours,
 the rest period has to be at least 30 minutes.
 If the employee works more than 9 hours,
 the rest period has to be at least 45 minutes. This can be split in multiple
intervals with a duration of 15 minutes each.
After completion of the daily working hours:
o nonstop rest period of 11 hours.
o In special cases, this rest period may be deducted by 1 hour.
Night shifts
o must be limited to 8 hours per night in average within a balancing period of 4
weeks.
 o The daily work time may be prolonged to 10 hours even for night shifts.

On Sundays or public holidays

 there is basically no work.
 German legislation allows 16 elements of exception
 regional authorities may grant permissions in addition.
If employees work on Sunday or on a public holiday, they are:
 entitled for a substitute rest day.
 For Sundays the substitute rest day has to be within 2 weeks,
 for public holidays it has to be within 8 weeks.
At least 15 Sundays per year must be without employment.

Flexibility of Work
Flexibility of work can take place in a temporal, functional, numeric, or local manner.
In its broadest scope, it is stated by labour legislation (collective labour law) and
applies to everyone. Industrial agreements point out special determinations for
dedicated industries, while company agreements applies only for the employees of a
specific employer. Last, but not least special arrangements for an individual employee
are fixed within their contract of employment (individual labour law) or by other
case-to-case agreements, e.g. days off on short-term notice or releases on personal
requests.
Temporal Flexibility of Work
Chronological flexibility occurs when the regular working time of employees is
assigned and distributed (designed) differently within the organisation.
In using shift work, organisations expand their operating hours. It is common e.g. to
optimising utilisation in capital-intensive workplaces, where interruptions of
operational processes would be expensive or difficult. Additionally, changing
seasonal demands, specific customers’ requirements and specific kinds of businesses
like public transportation require extended operating hours.

Options to work in shifts are working in two or more shift systems and the length of
the shifts can vary.

Flexitime was
 initially used to avoid bottlenecks in business operations,
 now it balances the change of the working time demand.
Basis
 An employee’s individual working hours are recorded,
 balanced towards the contractual working time.
 The start and end of the work may be determined by employees themselves.
This ensures operational capability via the core working hours and/or team
building.
Band-models is another form of flexible working time.
 The weekly working time is determined e.g. to 38 hours.
 The actual working time may be chosen within a band e.g. between 32 to 48
hours.
 The balance towards the contractual working time must be met within a given
period e.g. a quarter, half-year, or year.
In cafeteria systems,
 the employer determines time modules.
 The employees may choose a certain module to fix their individual working
hours.
The basic idea of flexible wage accounts is that
  the work time is not fixed per day or week but assigned to a longer period of
time.
The basis is the calendar year.
 The employee is allowed to assign their working hours in terms of duration and
positioning within a predefined framework. The balance towards the
contractual working time must be within the calendar year.
As an enhancement, this model may be used for the time worked within a lifetime.
 It refers to wage accounts as accruals of working hours to be “paid” for earlier
retirement.
 Sometimes employers provide additional pension plans and insurance for
protection against insolvency.

Independent working hours mean:

 the employee can perform a job in a self-organised manner
 no recording of working hours
 individual design of work time is being done by the employee.
 complex project management
 field force/sales rep tasks
Chronometric flexibility refers to the extent of time the work is performed.

Part-Time work is each type of employment where the individual working hours are
below the company-regular full-time working hours.
 The legal situation in German is stated in the Part-Time and Fixed Work Act.
 This requests that employees working in companies employing at least 15 FTE
have a claim for pat-time work.
 Part-time work may only be rejected for operational requirements.

Job sharing means that two or more employees perform one job.

Pre-requisites are:
o both employees have comparable skills,
o working hours can be aligned
 o work styles and personalities may suit.
Although, there are some crucial factors for management
o Leadership can`t be shared,
o high temporal burden for management roles,
o same managers calling for work-life-balance.
As a potential option, a special category called rolling systems allows multiple
employees share the same workplace at various times.

Marginal employment 
 specific category of employment (in Germany “520€ jobber”), or temps.
 When employees earn only up to a fixed maximum compensation per year, this
allows them and their employers to gather benefits in taxation and social
contribution.
 A monthly extension is possible on a temporary basis as far as the employee
does not exceed the annual average of wage.
Pre-retirement part-time work splits
 the transition process into retirement step-by-step, taking into account age-
related decreases in performance.
Once the employee achieves the obligatory age (mostly 60 years of age),
 they can decide whether to reduce their remaining working time by 50%
until their statutory retirement age or to divide their remaining working time in
two blocs.
Here, they work within:
 the first block still for 100% working time
 the second bloc for 0% working time.
As pre-retirement part-time working means a salary cut for an employee, employers
mostly offer additional payments like:
o coverage of social contribution
o salary allowances.

Sabbaticals are
 period of non-working within prevailing employment (long-time off resp. long-
time vacation).
Options
 fully paid, partly paid or unpaid. In a fully paid sabbatical the employees use
collected overtime and this overtime is being accrued into the entitlement for
long-time spare time.
 partly paid sabbatical combines paid holidays and leaves on an unpaid special
leave.
unpaid, this is a special leave without remuneration but an ongoing
employment.
Functional Flexibility
Functional flexibility
 increased opportunities for the utilisation of staff.
Approaches
1. Job enlargement - quantitative extension of already performed tasks.
2. Job enrichment - qualitative extension towards higher skilled tasks.
This results in an increased level of responsibility.

Functional flexibility might result in less pressure for staff separation, building a
reserve of performing employees and it may also be suitable to reduce staff costs. In
opposite, it requires an increased coordination within the organisation and may lead to
disturbance within the workforce.

Numeric Flexibility
The numeric flexibility: adjustment of the workforce size.

1) Temporary work 
 intended as an alternative to traditional employment and contains three
parties. A service provider is the legal employer of a temporary
 worker who is performing his / her work with a customer company. The
customer company pays a service fee for utilising the temporary
worker, and the legal employer has the obligation to pay salaries and
social contribution.
Temporary or contract work allows organisations a fast recruitment of
employees, e.g. when balancing order peaks or filling open positions on
short notice. The employer has no enduring obligation, so it might reduce
their expenditures and may check the temporary worker regarding
eligibility for take-over when appropriate. Organisation need to be
aware, that this may create disturbance within the organisation and the
temporary workers might get viewed upon as lower-class employees.
2) Fixed employment occurs due to the nature of employment
o Educational occupation like apprenticeship,
o trainee programmes,
o secondment for maternity leaves,
o seasonal or temporal demand for work are all limited and do not allow
enduring labour contracts.
 The demand for fixed employment is increasing, about 8-10% of all labour
contracts are at first fixed employments.
 There are some prohibitions of constant following fixed labour contracts as
“contract chains”.
3) The re-assignment of tasks to external service provider, e.g. personnel
administration, trainer and coaches, is called outsourcing. It is also an option to
transfer these tasks to employees who have been terminated. Outsourcing
enables employers for saving costs, while indirectly assuring knowledge. On
the other hand, there is always a loss of influence and an increasing effort for
coordination.

Local flexibility
Tele work is each kind of job that is performed out of employer’s facilities by using
of communication media.
o Homework allows to performing the work at the private home.
 o In alternating tele work, an employee is working partly at home and partly in
the corporate facility, e.g. to ensure family duties or to reduce commuting.
o Mobile tele work involves changing work locations.
o Satellite or neighbourhood offices means the scheduled usage of remote offices.

Offering local flexibility, an employer may attract employees who want to balance job
and family duties or to reduce the burden of commuting. It is an approach to retain
high-skilled employees (specifically in less attractive areas) and supports an increase
in motivation and productivity. On the other hand, employers may face additional
costs for equipment, a more complex communication with team members, increasing
effort for data protection. Special challenges occurs for employees, as their daily
structure has to be changed and they feel a loss of social contacts, less integration in
corporate set-up and less opportunities for promotion.
Virtual teams (or even virtual organisations) arise by connecting team members at
locally dispersed locations. They require robust and reliable communication media
and face additional challenges due to cultural differences of team members or
different time zones. They are common in trans-national companies and
organisations.
The Negative Impact of Flexibility
When using fixed labour contracts, marginal employment, or increased (false) self-
employment, flexibility may create precarious employment. This ends up in reduced
wages, decreased social security etc. and results in increased income variances.
Employees might be exchangeable quite easy, and the workforce becomes more and
more divided in two groups of employees: a core workforce and a peripheral
workforce – the latter facing non-regulated types of work time extensions, uncertainty
in ensuring employability, consequences to certain societal groups (e.g., women) and
patchwork careers.
Consequences of Flexibility
Due to flexibility of work, the core workforce comprehends full-time permanent
employees, who are paid by regular salaries & benefits, having defined career paths
and an exposure to training and development for promotion opportunities. This
contains those employees who possess the key skills to the organisation. In opposite,
part-time and temporary employees compose the peripheral workforce, as their skills
are usually non-essential, with less opportunity to advancement within the
organisation. These employees have usually a higher turnover.