Flexible hours
Flexible hours are one of the most established and popular forms of flexible work options in use. It is a way of adjusting hours within the ordinary working day to better accommodate the needs of the business and the needs of the employees.
Flexible working hours allow the employee flexibility in distributing their working hours over a day, a week or, more commonly, over a month. It generally involves spreading the normal operating hours of an organisation to increase flexibility of start, finish and meal break times. For instance, instead of staff working a mandatory 9am-5pm schedule, the spread of hours can be increased from 6am-6pm, Monday to Friday. The spread of hours will vary between organisations.
It should be noted that in some organisations changes to the spread of hours can only be changed after consultation with employees and unions.
Links
Department of Employment and Industrial Relations work-life balance kit*
Related information
- Manager guidelines (PDF**, 150KB)
- Manager checklist (PDF**, 107KB)
- Participant guidelines (PDF**, 170KB)
- Frequently asked questions (PDF**, 123KB)
- Step by step process (flowchart) (PDF**, 208KB)
- Definitions (PDF**, 98KB)
- Poster — pilot program (PDF**, 363KB)
- Poster — forum (PDF**, 238KB)
- Further reading (PDF**, 136KB)
Related links
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Last updated 21 August 2009
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