Staff standard hours at the place that gives me a paycheck have become a sore spot for all parties involved. The millennials want flextime. Gen Xers can’t figure out why the millennials think they can have flextime. The boomers can’t figure out why everyone doesn’t just shut up and work 8 to 5 like they are supposed to. The mom’s don’t care because parents are the only ones who get flextime. And executive staff is just praying this HR nightmare goes away.
Sadly for executive staff, it won’t go away. Staff standard hours are 8 to 5 with an hour lunch. And no one likes those hours, except for maybe the executive staff. As a result, countless hours are wasted where everyone tries to come to some sort of agreement that could benefit the company as a whole but no headway is being made.
As an attempt to buy some time (before a revolt could be organized), a survey was circulated to the staff. It proposed that the standard hours be changed to 7:30 to 4:30. It also suggested the adoption of summer hours where staff would work four 10 hour days and have either Monday or Friday off each week (beginning at the Fourth of July and ending on Labor Day). Staff was asked to rank statements about how they felt on the proposed changes and then write about how it would impact their lives.
The moment the survey ended up in my hands, I went to Human Resources. Was this survey merely a waste of our time to fill out or would our feedback be seriously considered? Was there really hope that there could be flexible hours?
The answer? “It will be taken under consideration”. A coworker who overheard this exchange then wanted to know why bother if the majority didn’t matter. If executive staff would do as they pleased regardless, filling out the survey wasn’t going to make staff feel as if their opinions had been heard.
There is no perfect answer to this situation. Not everyone is going to be happy. At this point, the survey was not the way to go. By circulating this survey, executive staff is setting the stage for frustration on the team. How could this situation be better handled? Some suggestions:
Department Meetings – Instead of random surveys being dropped on staff desks, what if each department manager met with their team to update? Since we are a small company, the largest department consists of six people. The meetings could be manageable with a set agenda and give every employee an opportunity to ask questions. Asking staff to fill out the survey at the conclusion of the meeting makes sure everyone is on the same page as they consider the ideas.
Skip the survey – What happened when the survey was passed out? Rumors flew through the office. Some staff was terrified at the changes proposed. Some staff set their hopes high for changes to occur. Time was spent speculating. Chances are most of the changes suggested won’t ever come to fruition. A survey does not replace the need for face to face conversations with the staff.
Create Flex Time for All – At the end of the day, most of the suggestions proposed in the survey is an attempt to avoid formally offering flextime. But more importantly, staff continues to ask for flextime and threatens to leave without it. If flextime is the direction the company will head towards in a year or two anyway, is there really a benefit to putting it off? The solutions proposed sound like a nightmare for Human Resource to handle. Putting a band-aid on the problem won’t make it go away. And it probably won’t silence the requests for more than a month anyway.
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