Are you resisting offering employees at your small business flexible working hours because you think it’ll give them an excuse to slack off? Well, some new research should convince you otherwise. It seems flextime may actually be less flexible than a regular schedule.

The 2012 National Study of Employers, released by the Families and Work Institute (FWI) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), found that U.S. employers are offering employees more options for managing when and where they work. The tradeoff for the employees, however, is that employers offering more flexibility are also requiring  them to essentially work more.

Compared to 2005, the study found significantly more employers are allowing at least some employees to:

• use flextime and periodically change starting and quitting times within a range of hours (77 percent, compared to 66 percent in 2005);
• take time off during the workday to attend to important family or personal needs without loss of pay (87 percent, up from 77 percent in 2005);
• work some of their regular paid hours at home on at least an occasional basis (63 percent, nearly double the 34 percent in 2005); and
• have control over their paid and unpaid overtime hours (44 percent, compared to 28 percent in 2005).

But although employers were offering more flexibility in some ways, they were offering less flexibility in others. The study found significant decreases in the number of employers allowing at least some of their employees to:

• return to work gradually after childbirth or adoption of a child (73 percent, down from 86 percent in 2005),
• take a career break for personal or family responsibilities (52 percent, down from 73 percent in 2005), and
• move from full-time to part-time work and back again while remaining in the same position or level (41 percent, down from 54 percent in 2005).

In other words, fewer companies are letting employees take extended time off. So what are the costs and benefits of flextime? You’re probably getting more work out of your employees in the short term; a 2010 Brigham Young University study of IBM employees found that those with flextime worked an average of 19 hours more per week than those on traditional schedules.

But are you risking burning them out in the long term?

Don’t get me wrong—I’m a huge proponent of flextime and, as the study noted, offering some form of flexible hours is pretty much essential to attract employees these days. But as entrepreneurs, we have “flextime” too—and it doesn’t take a study to convince any smartphone-toting business owner that flextime doesn’t necessary lead to work-life balance.

Flextime is a great option for employees, but make sure you give them some real time off, too.

Courtesy: Small Biz Trends

About Rieva Lesonsky

Rieva Lesonsky, founder and CEO of GrowBiz Media, is a widely recognized small-business expert and author of the bestselling book Start Your Own Business. Former Editorial Director of Entrepreneur Magazine, Rieva has been meeting with, consulting to and speaking to America’s SMBs—and the big corporations that want to reach them—for over 25 years. This experience has given her an inside perspective on what entrepreneurs want, how to connect with them, and how to help them grow successful businesses. Rieva has worked with B-to-B marketers including American Express, Dell, State Farm and many others, and with organizations including ASBDC, SCORE and the SBA, to market to and educate entrepreneurs.