On 2008-01-03 09:28:56 +0000, "Bob Mannix" said:

In an ideal world and with ideal, highly motivating tasks where the person
performing them feels ownership of them, yes. In the real world one has,
unfortunately, to distinguish between attendance and performance and deal
with them separately.

Certainly they should be dealt with separately but with the emphasis on
achievement of objectives.

If the tasks aren't motivating to some degree, even if it's only
getting paid, then that is another problem.

Opponents of flexitime often say "they may be here,
but are they working?". My response to this is "how do you know they are
working if they are not on flexitime?".

Because you measure the results at the end of a period of time.


Flexitime does not and cannot
address problems of competence and laziness on the job and doesn't pretend
to. It can (and does) ensure that no one shirks on attendance and that those
who put in extra hours are credited for it and staff don't waste time
moaning or feeling bitter about other's slapdash approach to timekeeping
(and getting it wrong sometimes). It does not cure the ills of the world but
is a practical improvement nonetheless (IMHO).

But the measure of success whould be based on achieving an agreed
objective, not on how long it takes to do that.

On a simple level, let's say that somebody is making widgets and the
nominal and reasonable number that can be made in a nominal 8hrs is 160
(to make the sums easy). It shouldn't really matter if they make
their 100 widgets in 6hrs and go home. Equally, if they choose to work
for 8hrs and make more and more money then fine as well. It's less
fine if they take 10hrs and only make 100 widgets. Ultimately that
implies corrective action.



Setting SMART objectives over a year (say) is hard enough if one is in an
environment where everyone's job is different.

it's also far too long. Very broad objectives can be done in this
way, but general ones are better done in quarters and specific ones if
appropriate in months or even weeks. On the quarterly ones, there
probably should be monthly reviews on progress.


Using this to deal with
attendance issues is (or can be) asking for trouble. If one goes the whole
hog and makes (say in an IT environment) all the workers contractors who
then are offered so much to do a task, fine, they can do it when they like.
Not all work environments are like that though!

No they aren't, but measuring purely based on time, especially
automatically metered time is really an abdication of responsibility
for management, who should be thinking about what people are doing,
agreeing the objectives and ensuring that they happen. That involves
some work of course.