Future Energy Sources 2.5.1.1 More Flexible Working Hours

I could not agree more. As I make my four mile commute to work and stop at every red light along the way, I can't help but wonder what simply timing the lights to the speed limit on the major streets would save in time and energy consumption.

The idea of demand side management seems to be absent from the energy discussions we hear in the US mass media. Subjects like methanol from corn, nuclear energy, and oil prices dominate. There would be far greater benefit in thinking about how NOT to use the energy instead of where to find it next.

It seems that companies are strongly locked in to the 8-5 work schedule. Mine laughs when I bring up telecommuting or flexible work hours. Friends of mine have been met with the same response. Why not a video conference instead of a flight to Europe for a three hour meeting? We seem to be bound by our mental models and expectations. I'm not sure how expensive energy will have to become before this changes.

I think trying to change peoples lifestyle (as suggested) is like the king trying to
stop the tide, pointless. Without good personal benefits very few will embrace it.

Critically, the requirement is for everyone to (voluntarily) amend their travel needs.
To do this I think designating no-traffic areas is likely to be far more effective.

This would cover the country with "islands" of relative peace and tranquility. i.e
inner city/town/village areas where the quality of living would improve; thereby
creating less travel requirements.

To achieve this all fossil fuel vehicles would park at the perimeter of the "islands"
and travellers continue their journey with a means of transport personally acceptable
to them, and chosen from a selection of none polluting means. (vehicles.)

Simply, they continue their journey using eg. electric vehicles, (public and private)
bicycles, on foot, shared, etc. To their own choice.

This could fit in with the desired "staggered hours" effect with more benefits.

That is, few would be in a rush to cycle walk or drive to their car at the perimeter
of the island. It would be that many would prefer to live within the area, now that it
is noise and fume pollution free; with negligable, or no, stop-start traffic jams.
i.e. This system would reverse the situation; - where it would be the external areas
which (slowly) become untenable; for fumes, noise, and traffic. (respective to the
islands) and this would encourage the individual not to travel, due to the many
personal benefits of staying within the "island."

But, you say, what about deliveries and essential services? These also would use
electric or non-polluting vehicles within the islands; over short distances, thereby
(mostly) preventing any fume or noise pollution. This decimation of the (island)
vehicles would allow a free traffic flow and, these vehicles would be normally kept
(garaged) at the perimeter anyway.
(as in replacing the fossil fuel vehicles, i.e. one in, one out, of the garage/area.)

The point is, to make the sociopolical changes we need; for saving energy and many
other good reasons, we need to provide the motivation to achieve it by creating the
benefits for the "person;" then they will follow as a group for the benefit of all.

I see the prime motivation as; with a better life insitu why would any one commute?

When the individual can have a better lifestyle, free from pollution of noise fumes and
traffic by living in the town, then their travelling requirements will fall dramatically.
This will have the desired beneficial knock-on effects for everyone, including the planet.
(Hope this is not boring. Jerome Thomas)

"I could not agree more. As I make my four mile commute to work and stop at every red light along the way, I can't help but wonder what simply timing the lights to the speed limit on the major streets would save in time and energy consumption."

The sequencing of traffic flow is next weeks discussion and the use of alternate fuels has already been discussed in other threads in this series. You can find a list of all the discussions in the series by following this link to the Engineer's Look at the Future of Energy Index Page where you will also find links to the discussions that have already taken place.

"Critically, the requirement is for everyone to (voluntarily) amend their travel needs.
To do this I think designating no-traffic areas is likely to be far more effective."

"This would cover the country with "islands" of relative peace and tranquility. i.e
inner city/town/village areas where the quality of living would improve; thereby
creating less travel requirements. "

Unfortunately a blanket rule like this would be catastrophic. I will give you an example, For nearly a decade I worked as a field engineer that needed to travel to work on emergency breakdowns at a moments notice. This meant that for two weeks out of four I needed to have my equipment and manuals with me at all times and be able to access them and take them with me to a call out at a moments notice. It simply was not and still is not a solution for me to leave my vehicle and use whatever transport was available to go to a job. Until actually getting there you never know exactly what you need. By not giving people that are critical to the operation of business and industry when and with what equipment they need to do their job you can end up shutting down business completely.

That is just one example and there are many others that simply can't use mass transit systems for practical reasons and a system like the one you have described is just not practical.

"I think trying to change peoples lifestyle (as suggested) is like the king trying to
stop the tide, pointless. Without good personal benefits very few will embrace it."

There are a lot of benefits to having more flexible work hours, avoiding the rush hours and the associated savings in time are just one. The problem is that business needs to allow people to work more flexible hours and as was pointed out in post #1 management needs to be able to see the advantages and allow people to work more flexibly.

In theory, this is a great idea - but in reality the slow pace of change means that the infrastructure and public transport are not changed to meet demand.

Example: In Edinburgh, there were only hourly bus services on Sundays in the 70s. When shops started opening their doors, the amount of traffic increased considerably, but the rate of change was too slow for the bus company to be bothered increasing the number of buses on Sundays. We have three main out-of-town shopping centres, two of which have decent bus services, but the third is serviced by only one route - because the volume of traffic was too great to allow the buses to keep to timetables!!

The bus companies only introduce new services when the council pays them to, and have been cutting evening services for years - making use of sustainable transport impossible for a lot for people, and the thought of flexible working is not being encouraged.

If shops and pubs can operate on a 24hour system there is no reason why any other business cannot - especially when most companies have global connections, so increased opening hours would mean that it would be easier to speak with colleagues/suppliers/customers across the globe.

In theory, this is a great idea - but in reality the slow pace of change means that the infrastructure and public transport are not changed to meet demand.

REPLY

Mindsets of management is even harder to change. I have at one time or another experienced every form mentioned. Flex time nd telecommuting included.

Several major cities including Toronto has had the "green wave" traffic control system in place for decades to try and reduce traffic gridlock. Despite computer control and vehicle sensing at every intersection it hasn't worked as well as expected.

Manufacturing facilities require people to come together at one place and usually at a specificed time.Flex time and telecommuting only works in information intensive business.

I currently work in a business with half our design staff on the far side of the continent. We work well together yet one of the business owners simply refuss to consider telecommuting in our office. As a result I spend four hours per day commuting to the office to sit at a computer terminal and talk to my colleagues four time zones away. Its frustrating when the prime time to email and instant messengering is wasted with me sitting in a car, then a train and finally walking.

Elnav

Typical management attitude - if it cannot be seen, then it must not have been done - proof of time spent is always needed when results are really what matters.

Hi elnav & GM1964,

There appears to be a world wide problem with management that seems to have started about 30 years ago. From what I have seen it is totally due to the so called new generation of professional managers that have gone through some sort of management school. The problem is they know didley squat about the actual business itself and only understand a balance sheet. I have lost count of the number of engineering managers that can't even tell a hammer from a screw driver that have the power to make engineering decisions. When I started posting to CR4 I was of the impression that this was a problem that was unique to Australia but I have since learnt that it appears to be a global problem and many engineers have seen the exact problem I have.

Inappropriately trained or qualified management is a serious problem that has and is causing enormous problems and it's apparently not confined to engineering. The answer is obviously to get rid of the concept of a professional manager and go back to using people that have come through the particular business and understand the business and technical problems as a whole and not just the financial side of the business.

However, getting rid of these parasites once they have infested a business is just about impossible and for the most part the business is doomed. Frankly I don't know how to change things. However, unless there is a serious change in the skill and appropriate training of management at all levels the problems we are facing as a technically advanced society has about as much chance of being solved as an amoeba has of winning a Nobel prize for physics.

Spot on!

HR departments are just as bad....

who sacks the managers? The managers?

Who sacks the HR manager?

All they want to do is expand their empires and employ 'yes merchants'.

Ok it's a generalisation....there are good managers but they are few and far between...usually appreciated by those who work for them...but not by the people at the top...because they have the unfortunate habit of telling the truth and being unable to see the Emeror's new clothes!

I've gravitated to smaller and smaller companies...

How many work at my company?....about 3/4 of us! (8 actually!) No HR dept! Bliss

Ah I only life were so simple as to change the physical environment around us and our bodies would automatically respond to those changes!!!

Sorry folks but animals forage at set times, hunt at set times and that applies to fish also ( you fishermen don't expect to nail a bunch of fish at noon do you !)

The reason we as humans have set certain hours to sleep,eat and work has been our biological clocks-those beasts currently are extremely hard (sometimes impossible ) to reset. Anybody that has gone from a graveyard shift to day shift has gone thru the 2 week cycle to reset that clock from night to day.

And let's be honest -who gets to choose when they work the ceo,the mayor,the governor or the president. No it would be the individual bosses and that is how it is currently done! Most businesses can not tell you why they start when they do now- or more accurately the employee don't know.

I've had many jobe which involved working "unsociable hours", some had 3am starts, some night shift. The only one I couldn't cope with was the one where I started at different times EVERY day (between 2am and 7am).

We need to have a set routine to function at our best, but there is no need for this to be a strict 9-5. Even getting one half to start at 7, and the rest at 10 would avoid the rush, and only add 3hrs to the opening times.

I partially agree with Dr. Tom. Human needs and biological time clocks will tend to confine out activities to certain time slots.

However, I think there are two human characteristics that give the concept of flexible working hours worthwhile potential:

1) There are "morning people" and there are "night people". Morning people like to get up at the crack of dawn or earlier and go to bed by around 10 pm. The night people prefer to sleep until maybe 9 to 11 am, but will stay up until 2 to 4 am if schedules allow. This presents us with a split of about 5 hours in our preferred "shifts".

2) Within out awake time, we can choose to go to work first, in the middle of our "day" or last. Probably first or middle would be the most productive. But since one is awake roughly 16 hours a day, this gives us a potential time choice of about 5 to 7 hours differential.

Combined, these characteristics would allow "convenient" overlapping shifts (say 8 hours plus 1 for lunch)) of 6 am to 3 pm, 11 am to 8 pm for option 1. Using the "middle" of option 2 would give about 11 to 8 pm and 4 pm to 1 am shifts.

These estimates are very crude, and the "shifts" don't interleave very ideally (note the duplication of 11 am to 8 pm) but perhaps they point to times where the majority of jobs could be spread without encroaching on our preferences.

Having worked various night shifts, the hardest part was the days off, if you don't stick to your sleeping schedule, zombie [ live on the outside, dead on the inside ]. What are you supposed to do @ 3am on a tuesday? the amount on human interaction [ or lack ], leads to isolation, depression......

A few years back I got a trick schedule implemented, 6days on, 2 days off & a 4 day weekend every 6 weeks. No overtime was paid as you would only work 5 shifts/pay period.

A couple of things sabotoged it : jealosy from other departments & mgt. complaining that they couldn't remember who was to be on [ too lazy, to actually look @ the schedule ].

There are solutions, implementing those solutions is another problem!!!!

The reason we as humans have set certain hours to sleep,eat and work has been our biological clocks-those beasts currently are extremely hard (sometimes impossible ) to reset. Anybody that has gone from a graveyard shift to day shift has gone thru the 2 week cycle to reset that clock from night to day.

This is true and our body clocks tend to be controlled by the sun. However the time the sun rises each day varies by between ±30 minutes near the equator to ±12 hours at the poles yet we start work at the same time regardless of the time the sun rises. So we are already forcing our body clocks into an unnatural cycle already and changing it by a couple of hours to spread the starting and finishing times is no worse than what most people are already doing. In fact if done properly it may actually reduce the effect on the majority of people.

If you want to reduce traffic caused by commuters, reduce the amount of parking spaces inside the city.

Hi Masu

I couldn't agree more !

Taking this a bit further, it just so happened that an urgent design had to be finalized by a set deadline, and my boss realized (the world is truly full of wonders) that i would not be able to concentrate on the task, given all the interruptions, phone calls, killing fires here and there in my work environment. So, (and this still surprises me) he suggested that i stay at home the following day and return with results the day after. Well, apart from being near my loved ones the whole day, I saved +- 2 hours wasted on the road, saved considerable amounts of petrol (and emissions), cut the risk of a road accident to absolutely zero, had a better quality of life for that one day, and so forth. Finished the job with highly recognized results, and returned a lot less stressed and more elated to work two days later. This definitely won't be the last time and i suppose that many of us could do the same thing, once a month, once a week, twice a week, whatever- depending on the job.

The way to go, and it also cleans up the traffic congestions.

Who put out the fires while you were actually getting something done? & why can't it be the normal practice?

Many organizational functions could be handled remotely [telecommuting ], but then how do you keep a team [ group ] together ?

Any idea of the % of commuters, that could actually telecommute?

I worked in a food processing plant, where 12% of the work force are involved administration, of that amount maybe 5% could possibly telecommute.

What happens is the people who are able to telecommute, are the most prominent & tend to get press. On the whole the ability to telecommute is relativly rare.

Any functions that are able to be done remotely, could possibly be out sourced.

Nobody is suggesting that the majority of people could telecommute. However, there is a not insignificant proportion of the work force that can carry out much of their work without commuting to a central location.

Global warming and climate change means we are facing hitherto unheard of problems and if we wish to keep and improve the standard of living as we have to date it is going to require a change in the way we think. Telecommuting and flexible work hours are examples of how we need to change the way we think and go about doing our daily work.

Masu

Don't mind me.

I've spent many years on the factory floor, it gets old hearing about open door policies & how we're in this together, team building rah rah meetings.........

Having an endless procession of bosses to retrain & humor, has definitly jaded me to mgt's good intentions. The relationship tends to be backwards. The proper mode is the higher ups providing the conditions to do the job @ hand! A customer service model. Who's your customer & how do you provide the best service possible.

Back to your points.

of course flexible hrs make sense, offsetting start/stop, days, # of hrs can improve the efficency of transportation systems.

Telecommuting is a fine, as long as you can keep a cohesive unit & mgt truly buys in.

positive incremental change

increase efficency

Keep up the good work!

Bench engineering is fun & entertaining.

You bring up possible technologies [solutions] even when you don't think it's a good idea.

We all start the day work at the same time , our nature of working is time dependent that is we dependent on other bussiness, services , co-ordination (synchronously) when we need it most , but it is not necessary now , with global economy , out sourcing time distribution of working hours can change .where transportation is concerned well planned city layout can work ,in older times there were offices , companies concentrated within same premises of the part of the city , housing , market on the other part. so one way traffic flow with With rising property prices , offices shifted out side to cheaper parts , that established to & fro traffic flow almost equally in both direction , flexible working hours will deffinetly increase productivity , but that energy wastage or social problems should be consider trade off or not is doubt full.