HRSINGAPORE | Flexi Working Hours

HRSINGAPORE Community Discussions

Flexi Working Hours - Update 1 (Replies)

QUESTION

Hi HR practitioners,

Companies are encouraged to offer flexi work hours and arrangements. Now it has resulted in staff working back for their lateness and getting too cumbersome to keep track if what is owed is being 'repaid'

Please advise alternatives to do away with such taking for granted.

Carina

REPLY 1

Fully agree that with flexi-work arrangement, there are a handful of staff who would take full advantage of it, by clocking less hours as a result – as it’s difficult to track. I’ve faced similar problems previously, and note that in one of the company I work in, where we have a rather flexible work hours where attendance is mandatory for the core hours (eg. 9.30 am to 4pm) but we require almost all employees (less top management staff) to clock it. In this instance, cases of employees not clocking requisite hours in the month is just 1 to 2 cases. We track the attendance hours by calendar month, and employee will receive an email with a copy extended to their supervisor should they not meet requisite monthly hours. They will repay the hours accordingly the following month and worst scenario, have their salary deducted accordingly. So far, none had their salary deducted. We also have the HR system programmed to generate names of those violating the core hours, and they are almost similarly managed. Hope this helps.

REPLY 2

Our employees choose a flexi timing (eg 9.30am-6 30pm) and stick to it till they request to change to a different timing. We have electronic attendance system to verify the timings.

REPLY 3

In my opinion, flexi working hours is about flexibility given to employees without need to report to office 9 – 5. The measurement should be the ability to meet KPI or complete assignment without any issues. Should the employee unable to fulfill the requirement yet taking advantage of flexi working hours, the company can always stop it.

REPLY 4

I guess you meant cumbersome for HR to track? Because it should not be the case for the staff. They want the flexibility, they should track. There are a few ways to tackle this for HR.

1. This system is built on trust; or

2. Have a fixed flexi hours register. This would mean if your start/end time is 9am to 6pm, someone working from 8am to 5pm is fixed and put in a register for everyone to know. This has an advantage that people looking for him/her will be able to tell from the register; or

3. Have a policy to beep in/out of the office. It is like a clock in/out. Normally left to the staff to be work an honest fixed hours but if there is abuse, the clocking system helps to prove.

REPLY 5

You may wish to introduce fix flexible time. e.g. staff could choose between working from 2 schemes, 8 am to 5 pm or 9 am to 6 pm. Once staff selected the scheme, they will stick to it till they request for change in scheme.

Dan

REPLY 6

Sometimes HR is not a big bunch of people, especially SME only two or one headcount.
No payroll system is good to track these owe and repay timeslots. Years back, NSL micro-manage even executives need to write hourly job accomplishment. In MNCs, executives are measured by selected and agreed KPIs and don’t need to clock time attendance. But under manufacturing environment, blue-collar crews are gathered at same time zone to produce/pack goods at minute yield machines where flexi hours is not even possible. At most, they can swop their shift time-slots.

Dksw

REPLY 7

Increasingly, agility, collaboration, and innovation has become the essential competencies for organisations to survive and thrive in the fourth industrial revolution. HR practitioners hold the key to this change in strategy from recruitment to culture and policies. This requires a fundamental change from "command and control" style of management to a collaborative organisation where employees can participate with freedom and responsibility.

Rather than filling every hour with structure, exploration and flexible practices have allowed my organisation to gain new knowledge and attune to the new way of work.

Jonathan

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