Work time
Flexibility is perceived by many employees as attractive. But it also gives the employees a lot of individual responsibility for their own balance between work and private life.
Information on European regulations of work time, home offices etc.:
Flexible working hours
Flexible working hours can be used as a measure to increase employees’ opportunities to adjust to the needs of private life. For instance, with flexible working hours it is easier for the employees to pick up their children from kindergarten or to stay home a bit longer with the kids in the morning before they go to school.
In order to use flexible working hours as a functional measure to improve men’s work-life balance it should be monitored carefully, and it must be a voluntary measure. Another important point is that this arrangement is only suitable in certain sectors of work life.
Limiting overtime
Different modes of flexible work time arrangements are the basis of the work-life balance. However, it is important to limit the working hours to the regular working week (according to your national legislation).
Employers should recognize the drawbacks of workaholism, such as low productivity, burn-outs, low self-care etc. In order to prevent workaholism, it is necessary to raise awareness regarding these issues and to promote a good work-life balance.
Time of meetings
Activities such as meetings and seminars should be framed within the regular working time and not late in the afternoon, early in the morning or on weekends.
Íslenska álfélagið
This aluminium plant is one of the largest private firms in Iceland. They have a very strict “no overtime” policy. If an employee often works overtime the human resource executive has a talk with him or her in order to find out why this is so and to find a way to solve the issue, because it is regarded as a problem.
Shorter working weeks – A French experiment
There have already been some experiments with shorter working weeks in France. In January 2000 all French companies with more than 20 workers reduced their work week to 35 hours. The government subsidized the increase in employee remuneration per hour by lowering employers’ social security contributions and by providing funds for active employment policies. The shorter work week has been accompanied by more flexible work schedules.
Evaluation shows that 80 % of workers polled felt that their lives had improved with the reduced work schedule. They said they feel more rested, they have more time for family and feel more enthusiastic about work. (Rifkin, J., 2004, The End of Work, Penguin Group Inc., New York, p. xxviii, xxix.)
Otto Walter
The official schedule of this Spanish human resources consultancy is from 8:30 to 17:30 and Fridays from 8:30 to 15 h. It is mandatory to finish work at this time.
MRW
In the Spanish delivery company MRW, 70% of the employees have chosen the intensive working day: from 8 to 16 h. (with 30 minutes for lunch). This allows men to take care of children in the afternoon. The intensive working day model is still unusual in Spain. The working day in Spain has traditionally been organised with a long lunch break/siesta in the middle, and thus the working day has been stretched into the evenings.
Norlandia hotels
The Norwegian Norlandia hotels have many male employees who have shared custody for their children. Their children live with them every second week. In order to make it easier for these men to take care of their children, the hotel chain has given them shorter working hours in the weeks when the children live with them. This means that they work longer hours in the weeks when their children do not live with them.
UBA
All departments in the German Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) have to provide public and in-house availability by a minimum of one person from 9-16.00h (Friday 9-15.30). This gives employees the opportunity to collectively decide on individual working times. Individual employees get a greater flexibility and self-determination, which enables parents to spend more time with their families, and in particular gives men better opportunities for parenting.
NRK
Most employees in the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK) work shifts. This may be difficult to combine with picking up the kids in kindergarten and so on. In order to make it easier for the employees they have so-called adjusted shifts. This means that the employee can arrange with his superior that he can leave an hour earlier for instance to take his child to soccer practice. The employee then has to start the working day one hour earlier, or work an extra hour one of the other days that week.
REPSOL YPF
In order to offer reduced working hours for their employees without a big salary reduction, this petrol company allows employees to work 2/3 of the working day, but pays 4/5 of their regular salaries.
FOCUS
The project Fostering Caring Masculinities is an EU-sponsored project with five partners; Germany, Iceland, Norway, Slovenia and Spain. The project has aimed to examine and improve men’s opportunities for balancing work and private/family life in order to encourage the preparedness of men to take over caring tasks. To reach this goal the project has focused on companies' framework conditions to perceive and include men as actors and target groups in equality policies.
Each partner has carried out studies in two different companies, one private and one public. The guidelines presented here are based on these work place studies and examples of existing practices from other companies.
Fostering Caring Masculinities
