Council hesitant on proposed employee flextime

Changes to the Town of Olds personnel policy had council chambers split between council and administration over work hours.At a policies and priorities meeting on April 22, council debated a potential revision to the policy that would allow eligible staff to work on a flextime work schedule.Council was worried about maintaining the same quality of public service if a few proposed additions to the policy came into effect: Flexible schedules, which include staggered work hours, alternate work schedules with different start and end times and compressed work weeks, where employees would put in extra time each day to take a longer weekend.According to the town's chief administrative officer, Norm McInnis, the changes are needed because under the existing personnel policy, some staff members were being paid overtime for work that is part of their regular duties.With the proposed changes, if employees have functions to attend at night, they can schedule around it so the town will not be charged for overtime.“We're trying to get back in line with Alberta labour standards and saying only bonafide overtime is going to be paid at overtime rates,” McInnis said. “So if you're here and your job requires you to be here after hours, that's part of your job. What flex schedule would you like to use to make that work for you.”However, Coun. Mary Anne Overwater was concerned that Olds does not have enough staff to accommodate flexible schedules and that irregular hours would not serve the public well.“When you have somebody working 11 hours one day because they stayed over to look after a meeting and then showing up four hours the next day, I can't imagine the nightmare that front end staff would have to go through to direct traffic when they already told some of our residents that person would be in that department the next day 8:30 to 4:30 and now they're not,” she said. “I think we're in the business of serving our people, our public and I think a lot of these schedules would not work in our small office.”Olds mayor Judy Dahl wondered the same thing.“How does this support our community, who we service if they come in and they need help and that office is empty?” she said.McInnis said these flexible schedules did not mean that the town is discarding structure in the workweek.“Each of these is an agreement between the supervisor and the employee. None of them are guaranteed,” he said. “You're on a schedule. This is not flexibility where you can come and go as you please. You and your supervisor agree to a schedule and that schedule is solid.”“It's got to work for the organization.”Some councillors suggested that the revision be approved on a trial basis.Without council reaching a consensus, Dahl proposed that the discussion go in-camera.The town's personnel policy was “last approved in its entirety” in February 2013, according to a report from town [email protected]