BP drops flexible working arrangement
August 20, 2008
A few weeks back I was discussing the issue of awarding salary increases and bonuses in the stretching economic conditions, and suggested using flexible working arrangements as a less costly alternative to these options when times are tough. Well now it seems that this is not necessarily the case. An employment expert has warned that the next area to be affected by the ‘credit crunch’ may be flexible working arrangements, as BP has announced that its current 9 day fortnight arrangement is to be scrapped to improve efficiency. At the moment workers at many of BP’s offices can have every other Friday off as long as they work the required number of hours every week, but this excellent benefit is soon to be lost. I can only imagine how annoyed the workers will feel at losing this arrangement, I would be livid!
I don’t really understand why changing this working arrangement will save money, as long as the same amount of hours are worked each week. In personnel today Julie Quinn, the employment expert that commented on this issue explained that:
“Many organisations have headcount statistics which do not support part-time working or job sharing. Someone working three days out of five is not three fifths of a full headcount. The benefits costs are often the same, for example healthcare cover, therefore more part-timers or atypical arrangements directly feed into greater headcount at a time when many employers are looking to reduce headcount and save costs.”
However I don’t see how this affects the people working 9 day fortnights. Surely they are still full time workers and therefore headcount costs are the same? If someone can explain BP’s financial reason for changing this arrangement then I’d love to hear from you.
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