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Bristol City Council has adopted a flexible working policy
as part of Work Life Balance. This policy allows a variety of alternative
working patterns to fit in with the complex lifestyles
of working people today.
Some of these options may have a direct or indirect affect
on air quality depending on the choice of transport of the employee. Below are
some examples of these options.
1. Flexi time
Instead of keeping rigid start and finish times most
employees of the City Council can stagger their start and finish times. These
are often chosen to avoid the rush hour congestion peaks. By adopting an
earlier or latter start and finish the journey time is shorter and smoother
resulting in less pollution emitted from the vehicle.
2. Home working/teleworking
When it is possible for an employee to work some days at
home there is the potential to remove one car from the road.
3. Working compressed weeks
It is possible for an employee to work their normal hours
but compressed over 4 days of the 5 day week or 9 days of the 10 day fortnight.
In this way another vehicle is removed from the road for one day.
4. Rolling leave year
From 1st April 2001, calculation of annual leave
entitlement for new employees uses an individual employee’s council starting
date rather than from a corporate leave year beginning on 1st April each year.
This avoids the final rush for leave in March and spreads the impact of
commuters over the year.
Many of
these examples may seem small but as Bristol City Council is the largest single
employer in the city (approximately 16,000), any of
these measures when factored up by a few thousand may have a significant effect
on air quality.
There may
not appear to be any incentive for management to adopt these schemes but it can
be pointed out that having some people start early and some finish late enables
longer hours for customer contact and give the organisation a competitive edge
and increase customer satisfaction. |