Flextime

What It Means

Flextime is a schedule where you choose when to start and finish your workday, within limits your employer sets. You still work the required number of hours, and you're at work during core hoursCore hoursThe fixed part of the workday when everyone on a flexible schedule must be working, with flexible start and finish times on either side. See more, the fixed stretch when everyone has to be there. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) calls this a flexible work schedule for federal employees and sets it apart from a compressed work scheduleCompressed workweekA full-time schedule that fits the usual hours into fewer, longer days, such as four 10-hour days a week instead of five 8-hour days. See more, which the agency fixes and which gives no choice of start or finish times.

How People Say It at Work

• "I'm on flextime, so I'm in at seven and out by four."
• "Can I flex my hours on Thursdays for the school pickup?"
• "As long as you're here for core hours, come in when you like."

The Breakdown

Flextime next to a compressed schedule, per OPM

How to ask for flextime (Buhata's suggestion)

1. Read your employer's written policy, or ask HR whether a flexible schedule exists and what its core hours are.
2. Pick the start and finish times you want and say why they help, such as a school drop-off or a shorter commute.
3. Show how your work stays covered, especially early-morning or late-day tasks.
4. Offer a trial of a month or a quarter with a set date to review it.
5. Get the agreed times in writing, so a change of manager doesn't undo them.

Try it today. Write down the start time that would make your mornings easiest, and check whether you'd still be in for your workplace's core hours.

Good to Know

Flextime changes when you work, not how many hours you work. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, overtime for covered nonexempt workers is based on hours over 40 in a workweek, so starting early or late doesn't change it by itself. OPM also describes maxiflex, a further kind of flexible schedule for federal employees, in its own fact sheet. Outside federal service, whether flextime is offered at all is up to your employer.

Related Terms and Categories

• Core hours

  The fixed part of the workday when everyone on a flexible schedule must be working, with flexible start and finish times on either side.

• Compressed workweek

  A full-time schedule that fits the usual hours into fewer, longer days, such as four 10-hour days a week instead of five 8-hour days.

• Hybrid work

  A work arrangement that splits the week between working from home and working at the employer's site, such as three office days and two at home.

• Remote work

  Doing your job from somewhere other than your employer's workplace, most often from home, for some or all of the workweek.

• Work-life balance

  How your time and energy divide between paid work and the rest of your life, such as family, rest, health and interests.

• Return to office

  An employer policy that calls staff who worked remotely back to the workplace for some or all of the week, often called an RTO mandate.

Work, career and remote life