Transportation's Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions ...

Transportation’s Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Volume 2
present over longer hours. The potential magnitude of this increase has not been
estimated.
Cost-Effectiveness
The net cost of offering flexible work schedules to employers and the U.S. Government is
minimal. The most significant cost typically incurred is the time required to develop and
administer the program (U.S. EPA 1992).
Cobenefits
Flexible work schedules offer a potential host of cobenefits to employers, employees, and
society as a whole. Documented benefits include reduced absenteeism and tardiness;
improved employee attraction, retention and morale; lower overtime costs; and, in some
cases, increased employee productivity (U.S. EPA, 1992; VTPI, 2008a). One workplace, for
example, saw employee productivity increase by 3 percent and average annual sick time
decrease by 3.5 days per employee after it began offering flexible work schedules (U.S.
EPA, 2003).
Feasibility
Thousands of government agencies, private sector companies, and organizations already
offer flexible work schedules without problems. However, there may be significant
barriers to further expansion of flexible work schedules, including:
• Commitments outside of work, such as driving children to and from school, prevent a
significant portion of the labor force from changing their work schedules from the
standard 9 to 5 (Picado, 2000);
• Resistance by management to offer flexible work weeks also prevents widespread
implementation of flexible work schedules. Workplaces may also see an increase in
facility and energy costs after implementing flexible work schedules if employees are
present over longer hours; and
• Incompatibility with occupations that require that work begin and end at set times,
such as teaching, nursing, emergency response, and manufacturing (Beers, 2000).
While Federal and State government agencies could take a leadership role in promoting
flexible work schedules by offering such schedules to their own employees, there has been
little investigation of potential incentives for encouraging greater adoption of flexible
schedules in local government or the private sector. Some options may include leading by
example (government agency adoption); outreach and promotion, such as through
broader employer TDM outreach programs; and tax credits or other incentives for
businesses who adopt or allow flexible schedules.
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