Across Oklahoma, school is out in the next few weeks and employees are facing the reality of summer childcare needs, transportation difficulties associated with their children’s summer activities, and their desire to just hang out and enjoy time with the kiddos while they are on summer break. Is your workplace prepared? And even more importantly, are you attractive to parents in a fiercely competitive market for talent?
Employers who utilize remote workers may already be ahead of the curve since parents working from home can minimize the costs associated with summer childcare and can usually arrange schedules to accommodate the summertime “kid taxi” requirements, but does productivity suffer during the summer? How can you ensure that it doesn’t? And maybe remote work isn’t realistic for all employees, what then?
To address the risk of reduced work hours and/or productivity from remote workers, employers need to consider their expectations – is it hours worked, or is it results achieved? Don’t micro-manage the hours if your concern is really on results…but be sure your hours tracking and pay practice aligns with your expectations! Communicate to remote workers if you are willing to accommodate their modest changes to schedule as long as minimum hours are logged or if you require strict adherence to standard schedules. If results are the focus, address whether you need to modify status call frequency so that you can ensure progress is on track and expectations will be met despite summertime distractions.
If remote work is not practical, one option employers often adopt is a flex-time program for the summer months. It may sound complex, but it’s not terribly difficult to administer as long as the policy is well-defined and communicated. Consider how you define summer hours, whether the whole company will adopt a consistent hours change or employees will have the option to adopt summer hours or continue standard hours. If the flexibility is at the employee level, generally that means employees work the same weekly hours but compress their work week to accommodate at least one shorter day each week. Consider how the short-day rotation could work for your organization and why not implement on a trial basis if it’s your first foray into seasonal hours?
Need help developing your plan and policy? Contact us today for a consultation and we can draft it for you – in time to relax and enjoy the summer!