Aisha's school run: Lena's Bakery Ltd has three shops, and each has a manager who opens up at 6:30 and leaves at 3. Aisha manages the High Street shop.
In September her son starts school, and the school gate opens at 8:40. Goldcrust has offered Aisha a manager's job where she can choose her own hours.
Last year Lena lost a good manager to a café that let its staff pick their hours. She does not want to lose a second.
So Lena and Marco offer all three shop managers flexi-time: each manager chooses when to start and finish the working day, as long as they work the agreed total hours and are at work during a fixed part of the day that everyone must cover (core hours).
How flexi-time works at Lena's
A set total
Each manager still works 40 hours a week. Flexi-time changes when the hours are worked, not how many.
Core hours, 10 until 2
Every manager is in the shop from 10 until 2, when the lunch queue is longest and the deliveries from Mill Lane are checked. Nobody chooses to miss these hours.
The flexible part of the day
Around the core, each manager picks a start between 6:30 and 10 and a finish between 2 and 7. Aisha starts at 9:15, after the school gate, and stays until 6.
Someone still opens the door
The shop still opens at 7. On Aisha's late mornings her senior counter assistant opens up, so the business has to plan who covers the hours a manager chooses not to work.
Flexi-time is not fewer hours: Aisha works the same 40 hours as before. Someone who works fewer hours than a full week is part-time, and that is a different arrangement.
The features of flexi-time are about timing
- You choose your start and finish.
- A core period is fixed for everyone.
- The total stays the same.
- Often, where too. Many businesses add some freedom over where you work. Lena lets each manager do the rota and the flour order from home one day a week.
Why would a business give up control over its managers' hours? For Lena the reason is people. Aisha can stay instead of joining Goldcrust, and the next time Lena advertises a manager's job, parents and carers who could never work 6:30 to 3 can apply. A business that offers flexi-time chooses from a bigger group of candidates than one that does not, and in a town where every bakery is short of staff, that matters.
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Flexi-time changes when people work. Lena's Bakery uses three other arrangements too, and each one changes something different: how many hours, how many people share a job, and where the work is done.
Part-time: fewer hours
- A contract for fewer hours than a full working week
- Two counter assistants work the 7 to 11 breakfast rush, 20 hours a week each
- Lena pays for the busiest hours, not for quiet afternoons
Job sharing: one job, two people
- One full-time job split between two people, each doing part of the week
- Two of Kofi's counter assistants at Market Square share one full-time job: Monday to Wednesday, then Thursday to Saturday
- A written handover each Thursday, so nothing is lost between them
Working from home: another place
- Work done away from the workplace, keeping in touch by phone, email and video (remote working)
- Marco does the accounts at home on Mondays and Tuesdays and is at Mill Lane the rest of the week (hybrid working)
- Only the parts of a job that need no ovens and no customers can move home
One more is worth knowing. Some businesses let staff work their full hours in fewer, longer days, for example four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour ones (compressed hours). The week's hours are the same; each day is longer, and one more day is free.
| Job at Lena's | Can it be done from home? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Night bakers at Mill Lane | No | The ovens, the dough and the 5 am vans are all in one building |
| Counter staff | No | The customers are in the shop |
| Shop managers | One day a week | The rota and the flour order can be done anywhere; complaints and new staff need someone in the shop |
| Marco's accounts | Most of the week | A laptop and the bank's website are all the job needs |
The job decides: Flexible work is not one policy for everyone. A baker cannot bake at his kitchen table, and a counter assistant cannot serve a queue on a video call.
To judge whether an arrangement suits a business, look at what the job needs: equipment, customers, supervision. Then ask whether those can be moved, split or shortened.
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Saturday morning: Last spring Lena's started delivering breakfast boxes to people's homes, ordered on its website. The number of orders changes a lot from day to day.
| Day | Orders |
|---|---|
| A Tuesday | 40 |
| A Saturday, all wanted by 9 am | 180 |
| The Saturday before Christmas | 400 |
Full-time drivers would sit idle most of the week. So Lena's uses drivers from a delivery app instead. They use their own cars, are paid $4 for each box they deliver, and take a job only when they want it.
Those drivers are part of the gig economy: work split into single tasks or short jobs (gigs), paid by the task and usually found through an app. A gig driver is not Lena's employee. He is self-employed, may deliver for three other businesses on the same morning, and gets no holiday pay, no sick pay and no promise of work next Saturday.
Halfway between a gig and a steady job sits the zero-hours contract. The worker is Lena's employee, but no hours are promised: Lena offers shifts when a shop is busy and pays only for the hours worked. The six extra counter staff she needs each December are on zero-hours contracts. In February most of them are offered nothing.
| Part-time employee | Zero-hours contract | Gig worker | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employed by Lena's? | Yes | Yes | No, self-employed |
| Hours promised | A fixed number each week | None: shifts offered when needed | None: takes a job when it suits him |
| Paid | A wage for the set hours | A wage for the hours actually worked | A fee per task: $4 a box |
| At Lena's | The breakfast-rush counter assistants | The extra counter staff at Christmas | The Saturday delivery drivers |
What gig work does to Lena's Bakery
Staff who grow and shrink with demand
The app sends twelve drivers on a Saturday and three on a Tuesday. Lena's pays for boxes delivered, never for a driver waiting for orders.
Lower costs
No holiday pay, no sick pay, no van and no fuel bill: the car and the petrol are the driver's. Each delivery costs Lena's exactly $4.
Less loyalty, more turnover
Goldcrust's app pays $5 a drop, and drivers go where the money is. There are new faces every Saturday, and each one has to find the doors again: high labour turnover (2.1.6).
Less control over service
The driver wears no Lena's apron and answers to the app, not to Aisha. When a box is left in the rain, the customer blames Lena's.
A job offer that has to change
To find 30 drivers for the Saturday before Christmas, Lena's may have to pay more per box or let drivers book their slots a week ahead. The work has to suit people who can say no.
The worker carries the uncertainty: For Lena, a quiet Tuesday costs nothing. For the driver, a quiet Tuesday is a day without pay.
The trade in zero-hours and gig work: The business gets flexibility and lower costs, and the worker takes on the risk that there is no work. It suits a student who wants a few hours on a Saturday. It is hard on someone who needs a steady wage to pay the rent.
Six months after flexi-time began, Lena and Marco look at what changed. Some of it they hoped for. Some of it they did not see coming.
What Lena's gained (advantages)
- Managers stayed. Aisha turned down Goldcrust. No manager has left since, so there has been nobody to recruit and train.
- A bigger pool to hire from. When Kofi's senior counter assistant left, the advert offered flexi-time too and drew eleven applicants, against two the year before. Parents and carers could now apply.
- Fewer days off. A manager with a morning appointment moves her start instead of calling in sick (lower absenteeism).
- Keeping up with rivals. Goldcrust and the cafés already offer flexible hours. Without them, Lena's would struggle to hire any manager at all.
What it cost Lena's (disadvantages)
- Nobody to ask at 5. A customer who complains at 5 pm on a manager's early day is told the manager will ring tomorrow.
- New staff on their own. Two new counter assistants still need showing how the till works, and on some mornings their manager has not arrived.
- Less control of the day. Lena can no longer be sure who is in charge of each shop at 7 am. The rota has to cover every gap.
- Harder to be fair. The night bakers at Mill Lane cannot choose their hours, and some resent the managers who can.
And for the staff?: For Aisha, flexi-time and the home day bring a better work-life balance, but not for free.
What Aisha gains
- The school run
- No commute on Mondays
- More say over her week
What it costs her
- A working day that can creep into the evening
- A home day with nobody to talk to
The Saturday drivers and the Christmas counter staff: For them the trade is harder. They choose when to work, but the business chooses whether there is work. No guaranteed hours means no guaranteed pay, and for the drivers no sick pay either.
| Arrangement | The business gains | The business gives up | The worker gains | The worker risks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flexi-time | Staff kept, more applicants, fewer absences | Managers not there when needed | Control over the working day | Work creeping into the evening |
| Part-time and job sharing | Staff at the busy hours only; skills kept | More people to organise and hand over | Time for study, children or care | Lower pay; fewer chances of promotion |
| Working from home | Staff kept; less space needed | Supervision and face-to-face contact | No commute; a quieter place to work | Isolation; home and work blur |
| Zero-hours and gig work | Staff that match demand; lower costs | Loyalty and control over service | Choice of when to work | No guaranteed hours, pay or sick pay |
Two questions for any arrangement: Does the job still get done where and when the customer needs it? And when there is no work, who carries the cost: the business or the worker?
Flexi-time and working from home hand control to the worker, and the business pays in supervision. Zero-hours and gig work hand the risk to the worker, and the business pays in loyalty.
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How this comes up: Short questions tied to a case, for two or four marks.
| Question | Marks |
|---|---|
| Explain one advantage and one disadvantage for a named business of letting its managers work flexi-time | 4 |
| Explain two impacts of the gig economy on a named business | 4 |
| State two features of flexi-time working | 2 |
Your context: The case usually says why the business made the change, often a shortage of staff, and what went wrong afterwards. Those two details are your context.
The four-mark pattern
- Name the advantage. Flexi-time helps the business keep and attract staff: people who fit work around children or care can stay, or apply.
- Show it in the case. Aisha turned down Goldcrust's offer, and a job advertised with flexi-time drew eleven applicants instead of two.
- Name the disadvantage. Managers are not always there when they are needed, so the business has less control over the day.
- Show it in the case. A customer who complained at 5 pm had to wait until the next day for an answer.
Trap one: whose advantage?: The question asks for an advantage for the business. 'Aisha can do the school run' is an advantage for Aisha. Turn it into one for Lena's: she stays, so Lena's does not have to recruit and train a new manager.
Trap two: no case, no second mark: 'It improves motivation' is one mark. The second comes from a name, a number or an event in the case.
Explain one advantage and one disadvantage for Lena's Bakery Ltd of allowing its shop managers to work flexi-time.
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