Inchcape Working Time Policies in the United Kingdom - Case Study Example

Inchcape Working Time Policies: Management Report Student’s Name Course Name & No. Lecturer Introduction The British business organizations are increasingly becoming aware of the significance work-time balance and business policies in management (Lewis & Campbell 2007). The dynamic nature of the national and international economies coupled with the fast-paced business environmental factors compels many employees to work for long hours. Understanding that United Kingdom is an advanced economy, customers often expect to get services at their own times, forcing many employees to work extra hours. Most UK organizations have, however, become much cognizant of the business case for working time policies. The contemporary thinking is that providing guidelines and regulations pertaining to employee working time helps improve work-life balance for the business, employees and other stakeholders. Working time policies, therefore, are time guidelines, and long-term actions that help to guide the decision making and operations of an organization to ensure such factors asconsistency in decision-making, equity in organization's activities and Consistency in the relationships with stakeholder. Inchcape is one of the UK organizations with efficient working time policies. Executive Summary Inchcape is one of the leading car retailers in the United Kingdom operating across 26 world countries, including Hong Kong,Australia, and the United Kingdom. Its main headquarter is in London, United Kingdom (Inchcape 2015).The company operates in a multi-brand integrated retail business model with partnerships from different car companies like Lexus, Subaru, and Toyota. Inchcape’s vision is to be a world-class automotive retail organization that is customer-centric and sales oriented. This requires the management’s commitment across the business levels at every point of customer relations and brand partners. Therefore, a long-term program of behavioral change makes an important element of Inchcape’s customer journey. Its core purpose is to create a great customer experience for all its brand partners while maintaining it its core values for satisfaction and success. These include Winning Together, Respect for Each Other, Treating Every £ as its Own, Pioneering New Ideas, Integrity Without Compromise, Passion for Customers and Caring for Environment. Legal regulation The national work time policies operate under the umbrella of The Working Time Regulation Act of 1998. The UK government adopted the Act within it labor laws in 1998 from the Directives of the European Union (Tomlinson, 2007).Regulation put forth several provisions to which UK organizations make reference when drafting work time policies. Inchcape’s working time policies Aiming to be the employer of choice United Kingdom, Inchcape believes in rewarding its employees and stakeholders in and out of the workplace and management programs that ensure consistency and achievement of business goals. As part of this commitment, Inchcape’s management developed suitable working time policies to guide employee arrangements, operations, behaviors, benefits, styles, and commitments towards the direction of the organization’s goals and employee satisfaction. Policy Objectives Inchcape is a large organization with a wide range of operations which must meet the legal requirement of the UK government and organizational objectives. Before drafting the working time policies, the organization considered the problems on the ground that associates directly with employee work schedule, work flexibility, organizational objectives, customers’ requirements, employee demands and the legal business environment. Inchcape’s working time policy objectives include but not limited to: i. Reducing the maximum normal working hours to concur with national requirement of 48 hours a week ii. Maximizing the employee productivity by avoiding monotony and instances of overworking which may impact negatively on their health. iii. Ensuring good employee-employer relation for transparency and accountability in the organization iv. Facilitating the achievement of the organization’s objectives within a given time coverage v. Reducing costs associated with time wastage in the organization vi. Maintaining a workforce that is motivated towards the organization’s goals Below are some of the working time policies envisaged in the Inchcape’s management plans and strategy Working time Hours Hours of work feature prominently in the organization’s management plan for working conditions and employees’ lives. In this regard, Inchcape has made consideration to one of the aspects of poor working conditions. In many organizations, a number of workers are forced work for long and disruptive hours which, in most cases, is detrimental to their families, health, and lives outside of work. Basing its argument on this, work time limits become an important aspect in Inchcape’s management. Therefore, as one of its business policies and strategy, Inchcape set its working hours limits at 9hours a day such that every employee is expected to work a maximum nine hours daily and 45 hours in a week since the company rarely operates on weekends. The significance of the 45-hour week is that it is closest to the legal and healthy working standard of 50 hours, beyond which regular duties become unhealthy. Preservation of workers’ health is a priority policy objective in the organization’s management and remains an essential rationale for policy development, implementation, and evaluation. For daytime employees, the reporting time is 9:00 AM and leaving time is 5:00 PM Overtime Working overtime involves engagement in an organization’s duties at times beyond the normal working hours. Employees usually engage in overtime work for various reasons. Some of which include the bid to increase the monthly pay with a penny, passion for work, attempts to complete duties that could not be cleared within the stipulated time and if overtime is a policy of the organization. According to the National overtime regulations, employers do not have to compensate the employees for the activities carried out beyond the stipulated time or normal working hours. However, the employees’ national minimum wage rate must always remain the compensation target for employers. For Inchcape, duties performed overtime are compensated based on time and proof of quality and volume, and since most of its employments are based on contracts, an employee can only work overtime if the contract says so. Similarly, an employee can only work overtime if he or she accepts and no one can be forced to work if not interested. Further, an employee may agree to work longer than the normal working hours. However, it is the policy of the organization that this agreement must put down in writing and signed by both the department’s management and the employee. Overtime employment in Inchcape is voluntary, and payment is made together with normal salary as they fall due. Part-time and full-time policies In Inchcape, any activities relevant to the organization’s job allocations, performed at an employee’s time of convenience is regarded as part-time involvements. However, those performed within the organization’s accepted work-time limits of 9 hours are regarded as full-time participations. Part-time employment in Inchcape majorly exist in low-paid feminized engagements and manual jobs (like customer service and cleaning) with short hours. However, some part-timers take care of professional and associated positions which are of high level and attracts better pay. According to Inchcape’s management, providing flexibility in the performance of duties is important especially for those who are not yet permanently employed or experts working with other related organizations. As a result, a good proportion of the employee populations is employed on apart-time basis. Working time flexibility The availability of work time flexibility policies and programs aimed at supporting employees with family responsibilities according to the management can be helpful in enhancing workers participation in the organization’s activities. In addition to, flexible reporting and leaving times (flexi-time), the organization, the organization offers payments for time off work especially to employees confirmed to have been out to deal with family problems. Regarding the significance of working time and duration in balancing family life and the organization’s work, Inchcape has developed as a scheme to verify the extent to which element of work time flexibility such as daily work schedule, usage of paid annual leave and the use of other leave pertaining to sickness and family needs. In most cases, workers with children are often given preference to childless workers when it comes to according to work time flexibility Costs and benefits Designing work time policies are on one side a significant step in Inchcape’s management plan and on the other side a drawback. However, since a business to be business and for a policy to be supportive of business dealings, more benefits than costs must accrue. For instance, by outlining the various work time policies, employees understands what is expected of them in terms of time management and work requirements. This gives them an opportunity to plan for their activities in line with the organization objectives. Underperformance, therefore, becomes a rare case in the organization since every such worker knows what to do at what time. Similarly, work time flexibility policies and programs employed in Inchcape management come along with an aspect of motivation to employees. According to Scott and Davis(2015), motivation is one of the greatest ingredients in employee performance. Motivated workforce always works with passion and interest and do not need to be followed to work because they understand what to accomplish within a given time limit. A survey by the British Social Attitude suggests that a satisfactory work-life balance is a shared aspiration for many employees in an organization although it is not placed as the most crucial priority when it comes to job security and interest of work (Park et al. 2012). Balancing family engagements with work requirements is a source of motivation to workers because in most cases they work hard to support their families. From the national viewpoint, most part-time duties are often associated with women who have entered male dominated professions or job markets. Being that the organization deals with cars, most of its activities are male-dominated making the integration of female gender a significant aspect of consideration for customer attraction and feeling of gender balance. As such, most part-timers are women working in sales and customer service departments and cleaning areas. Integrating part-time policies within the organization structure has not only helped the organization source for qualified human capital in specialized areas of engagement but also integrate a blend of different personnel in the organization’s human resource structure. The part-time policy also provides ahigh level of flexibility in the organization’s working time management and provisions making many experts in different fields be attracted to Inchcape’s job offers. It creates a general thinking that working for Inchcape is a great experience. Working with time is a crucial step in business planning and management (Scott & Davis 2015). By drawing work time policies, the organization comes clear on what to take place at what time. This stimulates the need to avail the requirements within a specified time, enabling the company to achieve its time objectives together with the general business objectives. Currently, Inchcape ranks as one of the best car selling retail businesses the United Kingdom. Regardless of its significance, awarding work time flexibility comes with numerous costs for the organization. Due to the flexibility of starting and finishing times, some employees see this as an opportunity to deliberately report late to work and finish their assignment later than the stipulated time, thus, causing inconsistency and inefficiency in the operations of the of the organization. Additionally, payment of time off workers undertaking their family responsibility appears as an expense for an activity not done, thus, impacting negatively on the organization’s income statement. Conclusion and Recommendations The working time policies of an organization usually determines the period within which the rewards and punishments relating to different engagements are experienced. If rewards are linked to long-term success of a company, managers tend to relax since they cannot identify with present success. However, if rewards affiliate to short-term success, anticipating the future of the business becomes a challenging task to managers. A specified future must identified with the policy statements. For instance, in three months’ time the organization should have come up with appropriate choices for the portfolio. Inchcape should also consider introducing employee handbook system that describes policies, procedures, charts, priorities, and bargaining status of all employees. This will improve the employee’s understanding of what is expected of them together with their rights and positions in the organization. Introducing strong internal controls and checks for time policies. For instance, instance, introducing an employee register where they sign when reporting and leaving the workplace. This would be helpful in monitoring employee movements Time Scale Activity Time cost expectation Introducing a biometric employee register and other internal controls 1 month, after the approval of the report will be sufficient -Purchase of Employee Biometric Register machines -Management and maintenance Close understanding of the employee movements since the organization many workers Introducing employee handbook system 3 months from date of approval would sufficient to gather necessary resources. -Printing cost -Expert evaluation cost - Employee briefing and integration Always prepared workforce References Inchcape. n.d. Benefits of working for Inchcape. Available at https://www.inchcape.co.uk/careers/benefits-of-working-for-inchcape/ Inchcape.,2015. Industry leader. Available at http://www.inchcape.com/etc/designs/inchcape/corporate/annualreport2015/pdfs/archive/inchcape-annual-report-and-accounts-2007.pdf Lewis, J. and Campbell, M., 2007. UK work/family balance policies and gender equality, 1997–2005. Social Politics: international studies in gender, state & society, 14(1), pp.4-30. Park, A., Clery, E., Curtice, J., Phillips, M. and Utting, D., 2012. British social attitudes 29. London, NatCen Social Research. Scott, W.R. and Davis, G.F., 2015. Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural and open systems perspectives. Routledge. Tomlinson, J., 2007. Employment regulation, welfare and gender regimes: a comparative analysis of women's working-time patterns and work–life balance in the UK and the US. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18(3), pp.401-415. Read More