The Perceived Effects of Flextime on Work Performance of the Creative Department Employees of AQ Advertising Incorporated

Abstract

The effects of the flextime program in AQ Advertising Incorporated was assessed based on the employees’ perception. Specifically, the study, which is qualitative in nature, aimed to gauge whether the implementation of a flexible working hours policy had an effect on the capability of the Creative Department employees to generate ideas to produce creative outputs such as print advertisements, etc. The research instrument employed was the interview schedule. Since the said company only had four employees under the Creative Department, a census sampling scheme was implemented. All of the Creative Department employees underwent a focus group discussion. The Human Resource Manager of the said agency was also interviewed to gain a better understanding of how flextime is employed in the company. The focus group discussion and interview data were recorded, transcribed and analyzed. Results showed that AQ Advertising Incorporated implemented a rather lenient flextime policy. The core hours were set at 10AM and 2PM but bandwidth and schedule flexibility were on a project-to-project basis. This explained the Creative Department employees’ varying starting and stopping times. Results also suggested that AQ Advertising followed the ROI (relevance, originality and impact) philosophy in conjuring concepts for a specific campaign and the department exemplified the creative process proposed by Wallace (as cited in McShane and Glinoni, 2000). Flextime came in useful during the incubation and insight stages. The implementation of flextime also led to several incentives with regard to attaining personal and organizational goals. Flextime allowed Creative Department employees to balance their priorities, engage in leisure activities, maximize their potentials and generally make them feel less stressed and pressured with regard to work. These enabled them to do what is expected of them, thus, attaining the ultimate goal of the agency: deliver A-Quality results. Potential flextime problems with regard to communication, schedule changes, workflow and availability were countered by the management through compulsory meetings conducted twice a week, multitasking and standardized communication forms. The implementation of flextime produced a tremendous impact on the company as the respondents felt they would not be as creative if they were to follow an ordinary working schedule. Flextime is more of an advantage to the company; respondents were not able to identify a disadvantage of the policy in their company.