Flexible Workplace Essay

1129 Words3 Pages

1. Employers should provide a flexible working environment for their employees. Certain employees have the right to request flexible working arrangements. Employers can only refuse these requests on reasonable business grounds.A flexible workplace is one where employers and employees work together to decide on working arrangements such as hours of work, work location and the way work is carried out. It means thinking creatively about how working lives can be planned to match individual and business needs. Benefits of flexible work practices Flexible workplaces can help you and your employees improve the way your workplace operates. Creating a flexible workplace is good for business and has a number of advantages: improves your ability to …show more content…

Understand your options by thinking about the range of flexible work practices available as well as those which are already in place in your organisation. Flexible working hours These may include flexible start and finish times, part time work, job sharing and consulting employees about rostering and compressed hours. Offer make-up time to allow employees to make up hours if they need to attend medical or other appointments. Match tasks to your employees’ varying capacities Offer employees multi-skilling and job rotation, training and transfer opportunities to meet workplace needs. If an employee is finding it hard to do a task, give it to another person. When an employee returns after extended leave, provide support and appropriate training. Flexibility with sick, carer and other types of leave Give employees flexibility with their leave. This could include taking leave in single days, taking leave without pay, and extended or special leave. You may also consider hiring casuals to temporarily replace employees on extended …show more content…

After agreeing on arrangements you may like to draft a workplace policy on flexible work practices. This will clearly communicate rights and responsibilities on flexible work arrangements and steps for putting them into place. To find out more information on flexible working arrangements visit the Fair Work Ombudsman - see Related Links . Alternatively you can call the Fair Work Ombudsman on 13 13 94. Step 4—Implementation When adopting flexible work practices, think about: a trial period to ‘test drive’ how the arrangement works in practice regular discussion of issues with employees and other co-workers reviewing the arrangement to if it has been successful. This could be once in the first week, then once a month for three months, then after six months. Step 5—Monitoring and evaluation It is not always possible to tell what impact increased flexibility will have on business outcomes and on other team members. Monitoring and evaluating the effect of flexible work arrangements means you can track progress and make changes as needed. Plan to evaluate the flexible work practices on a regular basis,

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