Over the past 30 years, FlexTime has carried out periodic research into the subject of flexible working arrangements and flexitime/flextime.

We believe that the studies which we have initiated have had a three-fold benefit:

A. Being of value to our customer base and for any organisation looking into the subject

B. They also provide a sound base on which to inform FlexTime in terms of advising customers, mainly their HR function, on the many facets of the subject.

C. They provide some direction for our technical team in terms of developing web-oriented software programmes for our user base. This includes improving our ability to supply innovative utilities for use by employees at hardware devices and mobile phones.

Each of our studies has been done in tandem with universities or other reputable bodies. For research material, the studies have always involved employees who are using our flexible working system, and across multiple workplace sectors, both public and private. In one study over 1,000 employees joined the survey.

Over future blogs, I will share with you some of the outcomes and impressions from the studies. Overwhelmingly, the results have been positive for the subject of flexible working hours. Apart from our own research, there have also been many other studies carried out by others. Overall, again, the flexitime/flextime concept has been shown to be a significant contributor to many facets of workplace harmony.

Research conducted by FlexTime with over 1,000 VisionTime Flexible Working users was done in conjunction with City University, London. Results show that flexible working provides the employee with enhanced job control.

Where employees experience greater job control, it leads to reduced workplace stress. Indeed, many of the advantages listed previously and which are associated with flexible working hours can be ascribed to this single factor – the employee’s feeling of having greater job control.