Flexible Work Schedule Concerns

annelise

The law firm I work for employs approximately 45 non-exempt staff. Hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. We have several legal assistants who have requested flexible work schedules (all due to childcare issues). These individuals are loyal, long-term, high quality employees and the partners want to approve their requests. All requested to leave earlier than 5:30 by working a short lunch hour and/or coming in earlier.

We cannot offer the option of flexible work schedules to all our non-exempt employees without a negative impact on firm operations. Once word spreads that several staff members are working 'adjusted' schedules, I expect to receive more requests.

Can we create a policy that is not discriminatory and yet meets the needs of these staff members? Am I overlooking other issues? I welcome your comments and recommendations. Thank you.

Margaret Morford

Why don't you start with how many you need at each half hour. Two to come in at 7:00 am, two more at 7:30am, etc. until you have enough coverage on all hours. I wouldn't permit staff to work a shortened lunch hour on a regular basis. It never works out. The lunch half hour always creeps to a lunch hour. Then allow everyone to express a preference for hours. If the requests are unevenly spread out, you can select who gets the hours based on service time, with the longest tenured employees getting first choice. Otherwise, select based on a lottery drawing.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

Rockie

This is very difficult as these types of issues get into employee morale. If you wanted to blanket offer flexible hours, then you could approach it from the fact that these are the hours that have to be covered and someone has to be available to work these hours. As stated before you could offer staggered starting and leaving times and let employees decide what they would like to do. Many employees do not like to come in early, so those would probably be your later comers - the child care issues would probably want to come in early. I would definitely not change the lunch times - as stated before it is easy for a half hour to turn into an hour (unless you bring your lunch into the office, it is difficult to go out in under an hour for lunch). Also, be wary of people who are supposed to come in early - it, too, tends to start being a few minutes late here and a few minutes late there and soon they are coming in a half hour later than they stated they would.

These are complex issues when you start deviating from normal work hours. The less people you have in a firm, the harder it is to offer these type things.

Good luck!

Theresa Gegen TX

My lawfirm does that by section (department). The individual section head can set the work hours for the paralegals. My experience as an attorney tells me that support staff is always needed more in the afternoon (I'm in employment litigation). My section would have trouble with people starting and leaving earlier. Other sections may find that the support staff is needed more heavily in the morning, and may not have an issue, or may even prefer the earlier start. I personally think that the business needs should determine the work schedule. So before you make any policy changes, make sure that the attorneys are on board with the work schedule changes (you know how we attorneys can be).

One final thought: I have seen staff people go on these schedules and then start an 1 1/2 earlier than everyone else in the section. For the first 1 1/2 hours, the person is at the office unsupervised. Unless that staff person is really a very responsible person, there may be a strong temptation for them to goof off before others get there.

These are just my personal thoughts on it.

Good Luck!

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