Flexible Work Arrangements

This is something that we need to move towards.

I have a flexible work schedule now, and I wouldn't work anywhere that doesn't allow me one.

I want to work in a progressive environment. Employers who don't offer this need to have specific reasons not to.

I get every Friday off, and I work from home 2-3 days a week. When I do go into the office, it's only for a few hours.

 

I think there is a good way and a bad way. You have to have parameters. In my previous job, it was simply get your work done, do it well, make us money, and then the rest of the time is yours. If you needed to go to the doctor, were sick, had a sick child, wanted to take a day off to go shopping, you weren't docked pay or vacation/sick time as long as you were a good employee.

No matter what, people will push the boundaries. You've got to have people with excellent time management skills.

 

I have the same thing.....plus a small amount of regional travel. I could perhaps make more money elsewhere, but quality of life is too important. I have a bad back too, so sitting for a long time in pretty much any chair starts to hurt after a while. I can't say enough about working on my laptop laying in bed in my underwear. Love it.

 

This is just the thing we are discussing in my Organizational Behavior class. I think this is something we definitely need to move toward. I work in a very flexible environment and I am afraid I won't be able to find the same thing once I graduate. I get every Friday off, work from 12-5, can take off any day I want to, and can change my schedule anytime I want to. In fact, I may have to give this job up if I get an internship sometime this fall for school.

 

I currently work 4 10-hour days to cut down on commuting out to lovely Greenville, TX five days a week. The flex schedule is the only way I was able to attend class every other weekend for the past 22 months. I think more and more employers recognize the value of saving on long commutes by either working 4 days or allowing workers to telecommute. This is especially true when they try to recruite workers out of college. I know that there's nothing I can do in the office that I wouldn't be able to do from home.

I know Lockheed works 9/80 where you get every other Friday off. When I was working in Garland (rather than Greenville), I worked nine hours Monday through Thursday and a half day on Friday. That was a beautiful thing

 

I used to work 9/80 when I worked at the J. Paul Getty Trust in LA.

I miss it.

We need to move forward with flexibile work arrangements. It cuts down on traffic & pollution. I'm with coma...I want to work in a progressive environment. Unfortunately, I do not at the present time.

 

I think this is the wave of the future, or at least, the wave of the entrepreneur. I don't know if mainstream publically-owned companies will allow this sort of thing on a large scale any time soon, but entrepreneurs in America have already started to take advantage of this line of thinking. Their thought-process goes something like this: "Why be forced to sit around at your desk for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? If you can deliver that same level of output, or possibly even increase your efficiency, in less hours, then do it. After you're done, go home, enjoy life, and come back ready to work your ass of again."

I know I'm not alone when I say that I've taken a 1 hour project and stretched it to 2-3 hours just because I didn't have much else to do on a given day and I didn't want to sit around looking "not busy". Think Office Space: "Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour. Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work."

I always wondered where the 9-5, 5 days a week, workweek came from. Pretty big coincidence that majority of industries necessitate the exact same schedule and # of hours in their workweek...

 

Guilty

 

This is a necessary trend that is being driven by the marketplace. It is one of the ways that helps keep America more competitive in the world because it helps productivity. I have a flexible arrangement that benefits both me and the company.

 

I think it depends on the strategy and the culture of the company. It probably helps compete for high-end workers, but companies using a lot of drones may not be so well served by it and would open themselves up to abuse of the lattitude. On the flipside, flexible schedules somewhat reduce the interaction of workers, and may end up reducing the creative output and cooperation of high-end workers.

I think the trend is driving that way simply because businesses and people are more able to be flexible because of technology. But, there is still value in working with people and talking face-to-face, so there is a natural upper limit to how far this can go. Probably some companies will go too far in that direction and will have to tighten up again. A balance needs to be struck between efficiency and quality of life.

 

Depends on the industry and job requirements. Meetings could be a pain to coordinate. I know Sabre used to do this in the past where you could work a 5/40 week or 4/40 week. If you worked a 4/40 week, you had the choice of taking any day you wanted off during that week. Talk about nightmares trying to get anything done with people on the same project off at different times during the week... but that was back during Y2K and Dot Com fun - dunno if they're still doing that.

 

We have two schedules at the investment firm I work at. Regular 5/40 and 9/80. I am the only person in my department who works a regular schedule. I just can't work a second past 8 hours in a day, and with 9/80 I would have to stay back at least a half hour everyday.

 

lil pun do you mind me asking where u work and if there hiring cause im looking for a job before going back to college station for school

 

no f'n kidding. i have an option for 4/40 but i can't stand staying in the office more than a half hour past 8 hours a day.