Effects of Flextime on Employee Productivity

This research examines the effects on organizations of the application of the flextime concept to operational management. Over the past two decades flexible work scheduling increasingly has been introduced into organizational environments (Galen, Palmer, Cuneo, and Maremont, 1993, p. 81). Flexible work scheduling includes such concepts as flextime, the four-day week, and job sharing, among others. Organizations developed and implemented such initiatives as one means of developing structures and systems that would permit them to integrate often conflicting demands. One set of often conflicting demands pits employee pressures for changes in the standard 40-hour per week, eight-hour per day work week against organizational demands for productivity increases. A change in the standard work week, however, need not lead to productivity reductions. The effect of such a change on productivity will depend largely on the structure of the new system, and how well the characteristics of the new system meshes with organizational requirements. An ill considered, hasty change could, potentially, cause a serious deterioration in productivity to occur, while a well planned change in system might not only maintain productivity levels, but could conceivably lead to improvements in productivity.

In an historical context, the hours of work issue has been couched in terms of t

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night shifts, 0.7 percent work split shifts, and 1.9 percent work some other type of shift. Among the health assessment and treating occupations, 31.3 percent of workers are assigned to shift work--more than double the national average for all occupations (Mellor, 1986, p. 17). Within the context of shift work, 8.3 percent of health assessment and treatment workers work evening shifts (one-third higher than the average for all occupations), 12.1 percent work rotating shifts (2.9 times the average for all occupations), 8.3 percent work night shifts (3.1 times the average for all occupations), 0.1 percent work split shifts (one-seventh the average for all occupations, and 2.6 percent (37 percent greater than the average for all occupations) work some other type of shift. Shift work is more prevalent among the health assessment and treating occupations than among any other occupational groups other than service workers. A wide variety of problems are reported by workers engaged in shift work (Jamal, 1989, p. 114). Some researchers argue that these problems are attributable to the fact that shift workers find themselves out of line with established physiological and social rhythms (Jamal, 1989, p. 114). Nurses engaged in rotati
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Altonji Paxson, Summary Conclusion, Thomas Thomas, Cuneo Maremont, Fiedor Keys, Kahn Lang, Speizer Czeisler, Absenteeism Absenteeism, Sommer Malina, United Organizational, rotating shifts, nurses rotating, nurses rotating shifts, job satisfaction, shifts reported incidence, rotating shifts reported, shifts reported, reported incidence, nurses schedule, 1992 pp, flexible schedules, employee productivity, 1990 pp, lang 1992 pp, 1992 pp 661-678,
Approximate Word count = 3990
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)

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