Example request for flexible employment practice

•Identify job’s inherent requirements (attachPD)

•Outline the proposal:

•Sue works 4 days, reducing current hours from full-time to 0.8 (9:00am to 5:00pm) for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday

•On Wednesday, Sam, who has been providing relief in the office and has experience with all counter (student-related) and telephone duties, would work (9:00am to 5:00pm)

•Possible challenges

•New PD has new duties Sue needs to learn

•Sam would need to expand her current range of duties to include the full range in the PD – this would mean on the job training and FLO and Student One courses

•Mary, who also knows the job, would need to undertake whatever duties Sam had not yet been trained on in the interim

•On the rare occasion that a task wasn’t completed on the day she was at work, Sam would need to leave details of what was done and what needed to be done for Sue the next day

Most of the challenges are actually learning and development opportunities. The exception to this is the need for Mary to complete duties Sam has not yet trained in, and this is the current situation when Sue is not present.

•Proposed ways to overcome challenges

•Mary has been included in discussions and has agreed to carry out duties Sam has not yet been trained in, and to assist with Sam’s training wherever possible

•Sam is very keen to learn the new duties and is prepared to be available on an increased basis (e.g. three days in a row) to do some ‘intensive’ training. She is also aware that she might need to come in on a different day depending on course availability (FLO, Student One)

•Both Mary and Sue need to update training and learn the new tasks in the new position description

•Mary, Sue and Sam would work as a team who shared knowledge and understanding and filled in for each other whenever necessary – in particular where there were tasks that needed to be held over from a Wednesday to a Thursday, Sue and Sam would have a system (book or register, plus email) to leave necessary instructions. Telephone (mobile) contact would be available if needed.

•Benefits of proposal

•experienced staff retained

•customer service is more efficient, as there are always two staff in the office, except for lunch breaks

•increased student satisfaction

•further development provides more flexible and effective staff

•increased possibilities for staff to cover for holidays, sick days etc

•improved teamwork, especially collaboration and knowledge sharing

•reduced absenteeism and staff stress

•reduced costs because less back-fill required