4 ms·

Ask HN: How many of you have flexible work hours?

13 points by runawaybottle 14y ago

vs strict 9-5.

pavel_lishin 14y ago
Fairly flexible, I can arrive any time between early morning and 11, and I've never had trouble leaving early if I needed to.
IgorP 14y ago
I have flexible hours. The company I work for does not micromanage every single minute of one's time. A project is assigned and must be completed within a given amount of time. This has made all of the difference for me. Not knocking the 8 to 5 at all. For some people, this is a great schedule. It just never worked out well for me. I believe it is important to find a schedule that works for you. If you put your mind to it, you can achieve it.
daleharvey 14y ago
Completely flexible, work from home. Requires discipline, usually the discipline is needed to stop working as opposed to doing work.
- bmelton 14y ago
  I'm in the same boat. Completely flexible, work from home. Though I do have an 'office' in Mountain View, I work from Annapolis, MD and fly over every 6 to 8 weeks for meetings and such. I'll agree that for me, it also requires discipline, but generally that means the discipline to quit working at the end of the day. If I can keep myself in the zone, it's hard to break out. Of course, there are days I spend flailing to get in the zone in the first place that I'm sure even out at some point.
- mrbird 14y ago
  Totally agree. At home, it's easier to keep "working" and procrastinating all the stuff I need to take care of in my personal life. (Paying bills, running errands, doing chores, etc.)
- bbissoon 14y ago
  ...I thought I was the only one. Especially when you're constantly fighting an establishment that doesn't understand what you're doing and only cares about trends vs sustainability.
mrbird 14y ago
My kids' hours are much less flexible than my workplace's. I used to go in anytime from 7am to noon, and leave between 4pm and midnight. Now it's 9 to 5, every day.
gregcohn 14y ago
Those of you who are in flexible workplaces: how are you managed to this and/or do you manage teams to this?
- hyperberry 14y ago
  I worked recently at a hosting company that gave most employees (esp. in-house web designers/developers & marketing staff) very flexible hours. They subscribed to ROWE philosophy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROWE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROWE). Most folks on my team were in the office 2-3 days a week and worked from home F/T other days. Coordinating/ collaborating/ managing team communications was actually pretty easy and greatly facilitated with AgileZen + HipChat. Access to these web services was the same from office or from home (on different computers & OS platforms), and we used them actively no matter where anybody was at any given time. One of the dev guys had rigged up HipChat so that notifications from AgileZen (e.g. card completed or on hold) were posted automatically in team chat. HipChat also got auto notifications from GitHub (when somebody merged or pushed new files) and from our build server, TeamCity (when new builds started and finished, or in case of an error). As an entrepreneur and self-starter, however, the ROWE environment was dissatisfying. I think it's only appropriate for mature professionals -- and most of my coworkers were not. Seemed like most of their "working from home" was spent running errands & attending to side projects. Despite access to fancy collaboration tools, these folks were only really productive when they were at the office.
- mcrider 14y ago
  From day one, by putting trust in your programmers to manage themselves and get the job done (of course with the help of web-based project management/bug tracking/issue tracking tools).
  - gregcohn 14y ago
    this is the default setting, but i'm curious as to how you determine whether or not people are doing so.
    - mcrider 14y ago
jzd131 14y ago
I have flexible hours, I am a founder so the only thing that can flex is the number of hours I can sleep. All other hours goes towards the company
onlyup 14y ago
I have flexible. It's brilliant. I can't imagine not having it.
shindevijaykr 14y ago
I quit my day job! So I've full flexibility in terms of work hours :)
grantpalin 14y ago
I'm given broad flexibility for web development work, as I know what needs to be done and how to go about it. Self-discipline is necessary, as is clear and regular communication. I do have a workspace to go to, which I do most days. As has already been mentioned, the discipline includes when to start working, when to take breaks, and when to stop for the day.
bjourne 14y ago
I'd love to have it. It's something I would give up a big chunk of salary to get. But around here (Stockholm) it seems to be almost impossible to acquire. Either it is huge companies that have strict rules about it, or startups whose managers envision that the only way to develop is to have their developers sit tight and chat alot so that they can "teamwork" because that is how you become agile. There is also the implicit "if we can't see you working, you probably aren't" thought that is prevalent on many workplaces (even if few managers would admit to it) that makes flex time hard. The current trend in managing developers is to value "face-to-face time" and "being a teamplayer" above everything else (like competence) which makes flex time hard. Certainly, that is right for some developers but not for everyone.

13 points by runawaybottle 14y ago

vs strict 9-5.

Fairly flexible, I can arrive any time between early morning and 11, and I've never had trouble leaving early if I needed to.

IgorP 14y ago

I have flexible hours. The company I work for does not micromanage every single minute of one's time. A project is assigned and must be completed within a given amount of time. This has made all of the difference for me. Not knocking the 8 to 5 at all. For some people, this is a great schedule. It just never worked out well for me. I believe it is important to find a schedule that works for you. If you put your mind to it, you can achieve it.

daleharvey 14y ago

Completely flexible, work from home. Requires discipline, usually the discipline is needed to stop working as opposed to doing work.

bmelton 14y ago
I'm in the same boat. Completely flexible, work from home. Though I do have an 'office' in Mountain View, I work from Annapolis, MD and fly over every 6 to 8 weeks for meetings and such. I'll agree that for me, it also requires discipline, but generally that means the discipline to quit working at the end of the day. If I can keep myself in the zone, it's hard to break out. Of course, there are days I spend flailing to get in the zone in the first place that I'm sure even out at some point.
mrbird 14y ago
Totally agree. At home, it's easier to keep "working" and procrastinating all the stuff I need to take care of in my personal life. (Paying bills, running errands, doing chores, etc.)
bbissoon 14y ago
...I thought I was the only one. Especially when you're constantly fighting an establishment that doesn't understand what you're doing and only cares about trends vs sustainability.

mrbird 14y ago

My kids' hours are much less flexible than my workplace's. I used to go in anytime from 7am to noon, and leave between 4pm and midnight. Now it's 9 to 5, every day.

gregcohn 14y ago

Those of you who are in flexible workplaces: how are you managed to this and/or do you manage teams to this?

hyperberry 14y ago
I worked recently at a hosting company that gave most employees (esp. in-house web designers/developers & marketing staff) very flexible hours. They subscribed to ROWE philosophy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROWE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROWE). Most folks on my team were in the office 2-3 days a week and worked from home F/T other days. Coordinating/ collaborating/ managing team communications was actually pretty easy and greatly facilitated with AgileZen + HipChat. Access to these web services was the same from office or from home (on different computers & OS platforms), and we used them actively no matter where anybody was at any given time. One of the dev guys had rigged up HipChat so that notifications from AgileZen (e.g. card completed or on hold) were posted automatically in team chat. HipChat also got auto notifications from GitHub (when somebody merged or pushed new files) and from our build server, TeamCity (when new builds started and finished, or in case of an error). As an entrepreneur and self-starter, however, the ROWE environment was dissatisfying. I think it's only appropriate for mature professionals -- and most of my coworkers were not. Seemed like most of their "working from home" was spent running errands & attending to side projects. Despite access to fancy collaboration tools, these folks were only really productive when they were at the office.
mcrider 14y ago
From day one, by putting trust in your programmers to manage themselves and get the job done (of course with the help of web-based project management/bug tracking/issue tracking tools).
- gregcohn 14y ago
  this is the default setting, but i'm curious as to how you determine whether or not people are doing so.
  - mcrider 14y ago

jzd131 14y ago

I have flexible hours, I am a founder so the only thing that can flex is the number of hours I can sleep. All other hours goes towards the company

onlyup 14y ago

I have flexible. It's brilliant. I can't imagine not having it.

shindevijaykr 14y ago

I quit my day job! So I've full flexibility in terms of work hours :)

grantpalin 14y ago

I'm given broad flexibility for web development work, as I know what needs to be done and how to go about it. Self-discipline is necessary, as is clear and regular communication. I do have a workspace to go to, which I do most days. As has already been mentioned, the discipline includes when to start working, when to take breaks, and when to stop for the day.

bjourne 14y ago

I'd love to have it. It's something I would give up a big chunk of salary to get. But around here (Stockholm) it seems to be almost impossible to acquire. Either it is huge companies that have strict rules about it, or startups whose managers envision that the only way to develop is to have their developers sit tight and chat alot so that they can "teamwork" because that is how you become agile. There is also the implicit "if we can't see you working, you probably aren't" thought that is prevalent on many workplaces (even if few managers would admit to it) that makes flex time hard. The current trend in managing developers is to value "face-to-face time" and "being a teamplayer" above everything else (like competence) which makes flex time hard. Certainly, that is right for some developers but not for everyone.