Should more flexible working hours be allowed in UAE?

Difficult daily commute from Sharjah to Dubai makes the argument for flexible working hours more compelling.

The daily commute has become a daily grind. Traffic in Dubai is returning to the levels we experienced during the boom and it can take me up to two hours on a bad day to reach my office. While the simple solution is to move closer to my office (I currently live in a villa on the Sharjah/Dubai border), rents in the Marina area where I work are extremely high. How should I broach flexible working hours, allowing me to start and leave earlier than my colleagues? MD, Dubai

When I read this question, my first response was to wonder why you don’t just go and ask for the permission you need? I found it difficult to think why an organisation should resist such a request. Of course, I can see that if your role is an entirely interdependent one (a nurse within a dental practice, for example) then there is little point in you arriving an hour before the dentist and leaving when the waiting room is still full of patients. But broadly speaking we should allow our employees within reason to work in a way which maximises their efficiency. This may include flexible times for arrival and departure, and it may include the sensible use of a working from home option.

For me, at the heart of this sort of issue is the question of trust. Why would I not allow someone to work flexibly in this way? Because I don’t think the individual would work unsupervised and unsupported? If so then I have an issue of trust with this individual. That lack of trust may be warranted or it may be misplaced, but it is far more important to solve and remove the trust issue – because then the sort of problem you describe becomes easy to solve: if you trust the individual, then let them work in a way that represents the right balance of efficiency and convenience for them.

It may be that someone fears that permission given to you will result in request from lots of other people. Would that matter? Surely it’s better that people arrive at work in a timely manner and not feeling hassled, rather than that everyone arrives simultaneously? (Not that the latter option really exists, given the current volume of traffic in and around the business areas of Abu Dhabi and Dubai)

I suppose a genuine worry might be that productivity might drop off if all the people required to make decisions or to move things forward are not available to each other in the same window of time (for example, between nine and five.) I know of an organisation in Abu Dhabi which addressed this by allowing flexible working – people could arrive any time between half past seven and half past nine, and leave after they had put in eight hours each day – but people signing up for flexible working have to agree to have a mobile phone and a hands-free car kit so that they could be safely contacted at any time between nine and five, regardless of whether they are driving to or from work. That seems to work well for this organisation – many an enquiry can be quickly sorted out or at least managed and contained by a telephone conversation. Indeed, some of the executives in this company find travel time is much enhanced when they use the time to reach out on the phone to clients, prospects, customers or colleagues.

Another worry might be if you are predominantly forward facing. Pretty much the same principle applies: make sure you can be contacted during the normal working day. Pretty much the same benefits exist: travel time can be a very useful opportunity to contact people and talk with them.

In my view, over the next decade and beyond, we will all have to become much more flexible about when, where and how we work. I think we will see an upsurge in the use of tools like Skype, and the movement around supporting home working will gather momentum. Pressure on space in business areas, upward pressure on rents, continued increase in traffic volume, growing levels of comfort with technology … all these things suggest we will see more, not less flexibility in the future.

Doctor's prescription: Get ahead of the curve. Build up your arguments and go present a compelling case that will help you to work smarter, more efficiently and with less stress. The worst that can happen is that the status quo is maintained – and the best is a significant improvement in your working conditions.

Roger Delves is the director of the Ashridge Executive Masters in Management and an adjunct professor at the Hult International Business School. He is the co-author of the book The Top 50 Management Dilemmas: Fast Solutions to Everyday Challenges. Email him at [e-mail] for advice on any work issues

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