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Flex those hours

By: Roger Whitehead, Director, Office Futures
Published: 13th October 2006
Copyright Office Futures © 2006

National Commute Smart Day

Work Wise UK — October 11, 2006
National Commute Smart Day will be on Wednesday 1 November 2006. With the clocks having gone back the previous Sunday, many commuters will be faced with travelling both to and from work in the dark.

Commute Smart Day will highlight the possibilities of averting despondency felt by workers during the winter months by encouraging employers to adopt smarter working practices such as flexible working times, staggered journeys and part home working.

The call on the day will be for employers to try out smarter working practices for themselves over this winter. Not only will this benefit staff, it will have knock on effects of reducing traffic congestion and public transport over-crowding by extending the rush hour, reducing peak demand.

Being a night-owl, I can vouch for the benefits and pleasures of home working, etc., but there are many workers unable to participate fully in such schemes. The list is long of those occupations where there is a requirement to attend and at set hours. Shop workers, security staff, railway guards, postmen, lorry drivers and gardeners, for example, all have little scope for flexibility in their time and place of working. What can be done for these employees’ “work-life” balance, I wonder?