Netherlands: introduction of the flexible work week with a prize thrown in

With this award, Hutten Catering is going to have free advice on human resources next year.  At Hutten Catering, flexitime isn’t simply for the 80 office clerks but also for cooks, delivery men, who are actually not called employees but “samenwerkers” (literally workers together).  The new work week was initiated by several businesses, the government and the Mobiliteit Taskforce, of which unions are a part.  Flexibility is a national stake because of traffic jams, which paralyze the country twice a day during rush hour.  The idea is to encourage businesses to pay their employees for work they do in the train, or get to work later even if it means paying time done at home, which implies a trust relationship not all employers are ready for.  Agnes Jongerius, secretary of the Federation of Netherlands Unions (FNV) mentioned, on November 11th, the issue of loosing controls, which scares employers with flexitime.  “You need to believe in it to establish a trusting relationship” she said.  Telework is increasing in the Netherlands, where the proportion of employees who can choose to work from home one or several days a week went from 6 to 15% between 2007 and 2008, within the framework of collective agreements (see our dispatch No. 100347).