· The Bandwidth timeframe includes the earliest and latest times in a day that employees can record and accrue time – say, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
· Core Time is the main part of the day when everyone must be in attendance.
· Flexible Time encompasses the beginning and end of the day, and often lunchtime, when staff can choose their hours of arrival and departure (within the constraints of agreed-upon rules).
· Flex Days can allow employees who have accrued extra hours over the cycle to take half or full days off.
These times periods are arranged into a cycle of days in the agreed flex period. Often, the set cycle lasts one month, but companies can opt for longer or shorter periods. Companies also designate a carry forward allowance – the amount of time, often one day, that can be accrued during the cycle.
The Benefits of Flexible Work
FlexTime turned to research to consider the psychology of what leads to well-being in the workplace. The company's job control study with City University London involved over 1,000 users of FlexTime's system. After accepting that many earlier studies had found that flexible working can lead to reductions in absenteeism, employee turnover and overtime, FlexTime focused on why such reductions happen.
The research revealed two key findings: 1) flexible working offers the employee a greater control over his/her job and 2) employees respond favorably if provided with a greater control over their jobs.
In addition, research suggests that job control predicts lower stress-related outcomes – both in the psychological sense (e.g. anxiety, burnout) as well as with physical symptoms (e.g. coronary heart disease). Other evidence also shows that job control predicts job satisfaction.