Decent Working Time & Time-Banking

Script:

In today’s busy 24/7 world, time is a rare commodity. From New York to Geneva and beyond, balancing time at work with family and home life is an increasingly tricky business.

Irish banker (in English)

You can work as long as you want. We have 24-hour access.

Belgian, International Labour Conference delegate (in French)

If you leave home at 7 in the morning and don’t get back until 7.30 at night, and on top of it you have a family, it’s hard going.

UN employee based in Congo (in French)

There are no set hours for senior professionals. As long as there is work to do, you do it.

Swiss communications consultant (in English)

Before, I was working 80 per cent but in fact it was 120 so it couldn’t match, I was working weekends and very late. I could do it, but I didn’t want to make this, for the family so I decided to change.

A new book published by the ILO called “Decent Working Time”, says there is an increasing tension between enterprises’ business requirements and workers’ needs and preferences regarding their working hours.

One working time solution can be found at Airbus’ operations in Germany. Here they use time-banking accounts which give staff more flexibility with their working hours.

This scheme works on a traffic light principle. In the green zone an Airbus employee works the regular 35-hour week. Clock up more than 8 hours of overtime, they enter the yellow zone and their manager is alerted. At over 80 hours of overtime they hit the red zone. Time for the worker to meet their line manager and discuss taking a break.

Jon Messenger, editor of Decent Working Time, Senior Research Officer, Conditions of Work and Employment Programme, ILO

Decent working time should be healthy and safe, it should be family-friendly, it should promote gender equality, it should obviously help enterprises to meet their demands in terms of productivity and competitiveness and finally that workers should be able to realise their needs and preferences regarding their working hours.

At Airbus Germany, the time banking scheme has paid off. Workers say they prefer having greater flexibility in managing their work hours, and productivity has soared.