Government departments can go to glide time

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33655, 3 October 1974, Page 1

Government departments can go to glide time

1 ' (New Zealand Presi Association) . WELLINGTON, October 2. Government departments can now begin changing to flexible working hours, or glide time, for staff. Staff using glide time can start work as early as 7 a.m. and finish as late as 6 p.m.

All staff must be at work during the compulsory attendance time, or core time, from 9.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. An hour-long lunch break may be taken between noon and 2 p.m. The secretary of the State Services Commission, which switched to glide time on Tuesday (Mr T. J. Sanger) said today that once Government departments had investigated die scheme and found it worked, they could seek the commission’s approval for applying the scheme fulltime. Staff can please themselves when they work, as long as they observe core-time, keep

within the starting and finishing limits, and work 75 hours and 50 minutes every fortnight. A time-settlement period is allowed every fortnight. The State Advances Corporation’s head office in Wellington will go over to glide time tomorrow morning, the decision comes after a trial last year by the State Insurance office in Wellington, the Inland Revenue Department, Lower Hutt, and the S.A.C. in Nelson. Two New Zealand insurance c.ompanies. National Mutual Insurance and the A.M.P. Society, are already on “glide time."

A.M.P.’s New Zealand general manager (Mr K. W. J. Deal) said last month that morale had increased markedly, and lateness almost eliminated since the scheme was introduced.

Effective

"Staff tend to work more promptly in the mornings, and like the opportunity to work effectively before normal daily interruptions begin. I believe this increases

their output Considerably," he said. Mr Deal said that one object which had not bees satisfactorily achieved was that of providing a better service to the public between the hours of 4.30 p.m. and 5 p.m. “This was so because most of the staff had tended to start earlier than previously, and they finished work between 4.30 p.m. and 4.45 p.m.,” he said. The general manager of the Wellington Public Passenger Transport Department

(Mr K. Crompton) said that the effect of “glide time” on public transport would be “infinitesimal.” The Ministry of Transport has published a report of findings from a four-month trial by National Mutual which began on November 1. 1973. The scheme became permanent immediately after the trial ended. The M.O.T. found that flexible working hours were of real benefit towards more economic public transport, especially buses.