SISQUAL® WFM attended Global Talent Day 2024 with an innovative presentation on how we manage working hours. The annual Human Resources event, dedicated to debating the future of work and innovation in talent management, served as the stage for a round table discussion on the concept of ‘Self-Service Working Hours – Way Forward or Utopia? The debate was attended by SISQUAL® WFM Vice-president, José Pedro Fernandes, lawyer specialising in labour law, José Pedro Anacoreta, and the founder of Despolariza podcast, Tomás Magalhães.
But after all, can a ‘self-service’ flexible working hours model be a realistic solution or is it just a utopia?
The Road to Flexible Working Hours
According to José Pedro Fernandes, SISQUAL® WFM Vice-president, the working models we know today are still remnants of the Industrial Revolution, which imposed fixed working hours and rigid production standards. However, with the advance of technology and the growing demand for a better quality of life, SISQUAL® WFM proposes a more humane and flexible alternative, challenging both companies and workers to ‘break’ the rigidity of traditional working hours.
The ‘Self-Service Shifts’ concept aims to give employees more autonomy over their schedules, with the help of technological tools that facilitate shift management. The idea is simple: workers can have more control over their working hours, adjusting them according to their personal and family needs, without jeopardising their professional responsibilities.
Quality of Life at the Centre of Management
During the debate, SISQUAL® WFM presented two innovative concepts that underpin this new approach: the Quality of Life Moment and the Quality of Life Week. Both are designed to improve employees’ work-life balance.
Quality of Life Moment: During this period, managers plan schedules in advance, allowing employees to request schedule changes according to their personal needs, offering an opportunity to better align professional commitments with private life.
Quality of Life Week: A phase in which employees receive their work schedules early enough to check that they are in line with their work-life balance. This interval allows room for adjustments and corrections, guaranteeing worker well-being.
Technology as an Ally in the Humanisation of Work
SISQUAL® WFM’s participation in Global Talent Day 2024 highlighted the importance of incorporating technology to humanise working hours management. Using WFM tools makes it possible to facilitate the creation of flexible schedules while putting the employee’s experience and quality of life at the centre of organisational decisions. By giving employees the ability to manage their schedules, the company is promoting a fairer and more adaptable working environment, which can result in greater satisfaction, talent retention and, consequently, more productivity.
For the founder of Despolariza, Tomás Magalhães, ‘the use of WFM tools takes the concern for quality of life and flexibility to its maximum’, however, he emphasises the need to ‘reinvent schedule management’, by changing the type of ‘employment contract’ to a model governed by tasks.
A New Look at Working Hours
Another key point of the presentation was the need for a change in labour legislation that will allow an evolution in the way we measure and control work. Although in some areas, such as factories or customer service, working time remains an important factor, SISQUAL® WFM argues that in many other sectors it is time to migrate to an activity-based evaluation model. ‘We’re going to have to evolve to measure work in a way that isn’t just about time,’ says lawyer José Pedro Anacoreta, emphasising the importance of companies investing in processes that allow them to measure results.
For this transition to be effective, it is crucial to create robust processes that protect both companies and employees, ensuring that this new approach is applied fairly and transparently.
The future of work thus depends on a more humane, flexible approach focused on people’s real needs. By challenging traditional patterns of fixed working hours, SISQUAL® WFM is showing that ‘Self-Service Hours’ are not just a utopia, but a viable and effective reality, underpinning this transformation with the use of technology and proving that it is possible to balance productivity and well-being, benefiting both companies and employees.
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