Flex- Time

Flex-Time allows employees of the Government of Canada to work during pre-arranged hours (usually between 7:00 a.m.to 6:00 p.m.) provided that they complete 7.5 hours each day. In this arrangement, employees usually have a “core” time that they need to be in the office and fixed periods for lunch. In this arrangement employees still work their required work hours; however, they may have different start and finish times than their colleagues in other units.

Part-Time/ Reduced Hours

This option allows employees to work less hours than the full-time requirement in their collective agreement (usually 37.5 hours  a week. These arrangements are sometimes made between employers and employees on a temporary basis while so that an employee can cope with personal or health issues. Sometimes employees may choose this on a longer term basis to achieve a better work/life balance.

work life balance governmentIn assisting employees to obtain a work/life balance, the Government of provides various work arrangements for its employees.

Although these work arrangements options may not be used by all employees,  two  work arrangements options are more popular than others: income averaging and a compressed work week.

What is income averaging work arrangement  ?

Income averaging is a  work arrangement  where an agreement between an employee and a manager that allows an employee to take a predetermined amount time off (between 5 and 3 months) for personal needs.

As a result, the employee “averages” his income over the other several weeks (taking a small cut in pay) to ensure that he/she receives a check while not in the office.

What is a compressed work week work arrangement  ?

A compressed work week is a  work arrangement that provides an employee with the option to work an additional amount of hours over a pay span (2 weeks)  to achieve a certain amount of free time in the future.

A common  work arrangement in a compressed work week  is that employees work an extra 50 minutes each day for 9 business days to obtain 1 day off.

A new option negotiated in the EC agreement allows EC members to have a “compressed” work year.

What is a compressed work year work arrangement  ?

This  work arrangements option provides EC employees with the ability to work an agreed upon extra time each day in order to take a leave with pay within that year.

For example: An example of a compressed work year would be an employee who works an extra 30 minutes a day. This is equivalent to 10 hours a month and 110 hours over 11 month (based on a month with 20 business days).  This additional time would provide the employee with almost 3 weeks of vacation (14.6 days),

As you can see, the benefits of this work arrangement equal up quickly. For more information on this option read here.


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