To: Jean Withrow

　　From: Bob Stein

　　Date:Aug.18,2004

　　Subject: Feasibility of Flexible Working Hours

　　This report concerns the feasibility of allowing workers to start and stop work ast the times that suit them best, a practice known as flex-time. Of course, we all understand that everyone would still wrok a total of 40 hours per week, as we do now. This idea of flexible working hours was first presented to the directors by some of our workers , many of whom have young children in school.

　　The Personnnel Manager was asked to look into the question, and his study had two aspects. First, he looked at the experience of other companies, and second , he looked carefully at our own working arrangements.

　　After studying flex-time arrangements at four similar companies, the Personnel Manager reported several advantages:

　　Parents of school-age children were able to fit their work hours to those of their children, workers could choose to work during hours they could be most productive, and worker attitude improved because of more choice in work time.

　　There were , however, some disadvantages as well:

　　Sometimes there were not enough workers in some departmetn at crucial hours of the day, and it took a while to iron out confusion about schedules

　　Next, we asked all employees of our company to predict the hours they would probably choose to work. This information was then circulated to all heads of departmetn for comment. The department heads were asked to look in particular at possible problems and their solution

　　After studying all this information, a committee that included a representative from every department decided to try flex-time for a period of 3 months, starting April 1. At the end of that peroid, the committee will make a final decision