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A sub-committee of the APEGM Women in Engineering Advisory Committee (WEAC) has prepared a document to provide information to members of APEGM about flexible working arrangements.
The document is intended to serve as a reference tool for professional engineers and their employers when considering flexible workplace arrangements. Such arrangements assist men and women wishing to balance their work and personal commitments such as family, community, education, professional development, religion and general interests.
In today's economic culture where dual-income households prevail, the need for alternative work arrangements has never been greater. The challenge of balancing multiple responsibilities can cause employees to experience fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and absent-mindedness. This in turn affects corporate profitability by reducing productivity and performance. Flexibility in the workplace is clearly a solution that benefits both engineers and their employers. Employees who find their lifestyles satisfying and rewarding because of the ability to balance all commitments will be hard-working, dedicated, and productive.
Described in the document are seven practical flexible working arrangements: flexible hours, job sharing, permanent part-time work, telecommuting, v-time, on-site day care, and phased retirement. Each section provides a brief description of the arrangement along with considerations, advantages, and disadvantages. At the end of the document are references for obtaining further information as well as those used to prepare this handbook. Interested parties are encouraged to pursue additional references through government offices, public libraries, and corporate libraries.
It is important to note that successful flexible workplace arrangements are achieved through mutual trust, compromise, negotiation, and above all FLEXIBILITY between the employee and employer. Both parties are responsible for ensuring that the arrangement is suitable and is working. Some employees may prefer to prepare a detailed proposal outlining their interest in a flexible workplace arrangement or that their employer adopt formal policies to address these issues. Others may slowly migrate to an arrangement preferring the informal arrangements that are made between themselves and their immediate supervisor. Every situation is different. Formal policies are designed to protect the employee but in some instances are too rigid or, on the contrary, too open to interpretation. Informal arrangements may initially work well but are subject to re-consideration in the event that supervisors change.
Recognizing a general lack of understanding of flexible workplace arrangements, the document has been prepared by the Women in Engineering Advisory Committee (WEAC), a sub-committee of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of the Province of Manitoba (APEGM), with the hopes of heightening people's awareness of their options. The full document, Flexible Work Arrangements, may be downloaded as a pdf file. We encourage all readers to share the information presented with their peers and their Human Resources department.