Alternative Workweeks: Productivity Vs. Employee Benefit

By Joyce Lorick, LA Consulting, Inc.

Public agency managers face increasingly limited public funds with demands for increased accountability and greater pressures for transparency of choices for employee work schedules. As a result, alternative work schedules (AWS) have become increasingly popular over the past several decades. AWS, in the area of public works, is a heated topic with the issue of productivity being a core question. It is widely thought that an  AWS increases productivity due to higher employee satisfaction and morale but limited research found by LA Consulting concludes that AWS generally function to the benefit of the employee with little to no documented improvement in productivity.