Benefits from Flexible Work Schedules--Legal Limitations Remain

There is no apparent reason why the government might not benefit from the use of flexible or compressed work schedules. A flexible schedule allows employees the freedom to choose, within given constraints, their working hours. Compressed schedules are fixed and involve working the same number of hours as usual in fewer days. An estimated 10,000 nonfederal organizations with 1.2 million employees are using compressed schedules, and from 300,000 to 1 million nonfederal employees are using flexible schedules. As of May 1977, 90 federal organizations with more than 141,000 employees were either experimenting with flexible schedules or using them permanently.