‘Flexi-time’: work when it suits you
March 1980
The Revenue Commissioners are always one step ahead, and not always in the area of taxation either. In this case the taxation office in Anne Street in Wexford has made local history by becoming the first office in the county to operate ‘flexi-time’.
Flexi-time, a modern work method which is widely operational in other European countries, allows for more flexible working hours. For a defined time during the day, a worker may come or go, depending on what he has arranged with his co-workers. But while he is given a greater degree of freedom in his working hours, he must still clock up an appointed number of hours over a given timeframe.
In the case of the taxation office in Wexford, the working day has been lengthened, and now runs from 8.30 in the morning to 6 o’clock in the evening. During a certain period of the day, called ‘core time’, all staff must be present. This runs from 10 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. and from 2.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. Staff may decide whether to work or not during the rest of the day, but over the course of a month, they must have worked a given number of hours. In addition, they may ‘work up’ a maximum of eight hours extra in the month which they can take off some other time, or carry over a debit of a maximum eight hours, such that they must make that time up the following month.
The general idea is that a staff member can work when it suits him best. One might prefer to start at 8.30 a.m. and leave at 4.30 p.m. that day having worked up a complement of eight hours. Another might prefer not to start until 10 a.m. but then remain in the office until 6 p.m. instead, to do his eight hours.
A taxation spokesman in Dublin pointed out that this system was introduced to the first taxation office in 1977, and though it is still not 100 per cent operational, it is working very well. He added that so far, no complaints have been received.
But for the benefit of hapless taxpayers stuck with the vision of an empty office in Anne Street whenever they happen to call, there will be someone on duty all the time. A situation where everyone there leaves work at the same time will not arise.
We should say too that from our experience, when we rang the Anne Street office to enquire about the new system, flexi-time has not done away with the notorious levels of Civil Service bureaucracy. We were politely told that nobody there could talk about the new system, and that we would have to ring the personnel section in Dublin instead.