Flexible working hours:

Hard work is where the heart is

by Aditha Dissanayake

I write to make a living. This is how I earn my bread and butter, or rather my rice and curry, and on a good day, a bit of jam, as well. This is the only job I know and so I try to get it right. But how good it would be, if I did not have to stick to the rigid eight-to-five office routine.

Yet, the relationship we have here in Sri Lanka, with flexible working hours is a love hate one. If its working for you, you'll arouse a combination of jealousy and suspicion among your colleagues, as well as admiration and awe. After all, who doesn't want more time for their life outside work? But at the same time, who wants to cover for colleagues who insist on clocking off at 4 p.m. sharp and are unavailable on Fridays?

Brunt of the blame

Society, as usual should take the brunt of the blame. It is society that makes us workaholics, society that demands that in order to be a good person you must work, society that makes your identity synonymous with your profession... ever noticed the differences in the response of acquaintances whenever you mention your profession? If you say you have been promoted there will be a little more energy in their smiles.

If you say you were sacked they will pretend not to see you the next time your paths cross. Could it be that the less we work the more invisible we become in the eyes of our peers?

Moral barriers apart, most businessmen seem to be against flexible working hours. "A lot of managers don't like it because it means they have to be able to set objectives very clearly and find a way to monitor people who are not in the office all the time. They think, 'how can I call a meeting if X is at home and Y is looking after a sick aunt?" then there are worries and jealousies too. All the work will be dumped on me." says I. Pathirana, a Director of an IT company in Kelaniya.

Despite this, any employer who is willing to take the plunge, can surely tap those who are in their late fifties or early sixties who do not want to work full-time but are willing to render their services on a part time basis. When employers can't afford to pay them full-time getting their experiences and expertise on a part time basis is surely the ideal solution.

Examples

Anyone looking for examples should study the United States where flexible working hours have been taken to extremes.

In a 2000 poll of more than 3,500 company executives in the U.S.A 61 per cent of the participants believed the 9-to-5 workday will disappear in the next 10 years.

According to a 1998 study by the Employment Policy Foundation, 18 per cent of the U.S. workforce breaks the traditional Monday-through-Friday workweek, and the 9-to-5 workday. Part-timers cut their workweek short for various reasons, including tending to family (children and the elderly); pursuing personal hobbies; volunteering in community service; caring for health conditions; and many others.

Their motto is "work when you like". Take a look at Best Buy, a Minneapolis-based electronics retailer where out of the 100,000 employees, more than 2,000 are said to choose their own hours, day or night, home or office. 'They work whenever and wherever they want". As long as the work gets done there are no work schedules, nobody counts the hours".

Yet, to consider the other side of the coin, in most workplaces, even if you are given the freedom to work at your own space, there will always be someone competing against you who will work 24 hours, who will stay up drinking with the right people at the right time, who won't go home to their family or a dying relative or an evening class on Business Management. And why shouldn't that person reap the rewards for their hard work?

Who has the answer? Experts say the only solution is to admit that full-time work has drastic effects on our mental well-being which is at an all time low, in spite of all the technology and time-saving methods around us.

If a remedy is sought to maintain the all important Work-Life-Balance, part-time work should be accepted by legislation as well as society, here in Sri Lanka, too.

Imagine a day in the future when you will be given the choice to decide when to work and from where... Imagine a day when you will be offered a job and then asked "So what hours would you like to work?" Keep your fingers crossed.

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Flexi-time yet to be recognized

According to sources at the Department of Labour, there are no special laws regarding part-time workers in Sri Lanka. "The 38 Wage Laws in existence at the moment apply to the part-time workers too". said a spokesman. "They should be paid EPF and their pay should not be lower than the minimum wage ascribed to each sector".

Explaining why part-time work is not popular in Sri Lanka he said this could be because unlike in countries like Holland, people in Sri Lanka are not paid for the number of hours worked. Meanwhile a spokesperson at the Wages Board explained that so far there is little data on part-time workers because they have not become an issue in the country, yet.