In Luxembourg, only 24% of employees benefit flexible hours and 7% practice teleworking.

Luxembourg: according to a recent study by Statec, 76% of employees aged 15 to 64 do not benefit chosen flexible working hours at their workplace.

Might such flexibility exist, it is nevertheless imposed by the employer according to the company’s needs. However, most of the employees have the opportunity to arrange their working schedules, this for family reasons mainly.

“Still, 65% of them declare that they can generally modify their start and/or end time for family reasons” the survey specifies. Furthermore, approximately 50% of employees aged 15 to 64 acknowledge that they can organise their working time in order to take whole days off, still for family purposes, and this without having to use their paid leave.

Some flexibility however remains

Among the 24% of employees who may freely adjust their own working time, 25% are male and 22% female. 9% of them benefit a flexible framework with a working time banking scheme, during the week or the month (flexitime).

If another nine percent must work a fixed number of hours per day, they can however determine their time of arrival and departure. 5% of employees are responsible for their own work schedule, and 1% benefit from another form of flexibility they implemented according to their own choice.

Against all odds, the personal flexibility rate is the highest within small businesses: “Very small businesses (1-10 employees) seem slightly more favourable to the flexibility (29%) than larger firms. The proportion of employees who can determine their own schedule is particularly high (8%)”, the statistical office in Luxembourg says.

A sector comparison also reveals that flexible working time is very frequent in the agriculture more particularly (34%): “However this work flexibility is largely limited to a schedule within a workday. Flexitime with a monthly capitalisation scheme of working hours seems non-existent”, Statec explains.

But in the industry, working time flexibility remains however the least common, as it is practiced by 16% of the employees only.

Home working grows

On the other hand, flexitime is the most practiced in the sector of services, particularly in the financial industry (36% of the employees) and in the real estate business (41% of employees).

“Working at home is increasing in Luxembourg”, Statec observes. In 2005, over 90% of employees said they never worked at home over the last four weeks. In 2010, they were 80% only.

It is in the intellectual and scientific professions that such work scheme is most prevalent. Without surprise, 24% of managers and executives accomplish a regular part of their tasks at home, and 18% say they do it sometimes.

Teleworking: still a complementary work

Teleworking seems far from being a common habit in Luxembourg and faces a slow development. This form of activity organisation from home or in a nomadic way is made possible by the information technology and communication (Internet, mobile phones …).

If it concerned 1.7% of workers in 2005 indeed, it has been practiced in 2010 by only 7.1% of workers. “Teleworking is usually reduced to a very limited part of their working week”, Statec notes. However, it remains as a complementary work for people who use it.

“In most cases the time spent on teleworking remains below 8 hours per week”, the study says. If it is described as “a particularly appropriate solution for young mothers to reconcile career and more active presence by their children”, the document recalls, the reality remains however different by now.

In 2005, more women than men chose teleworking. In 2010, 8.3% of men and 5.7% of women now practice it. It is much more commonly chosen by people without children, as well as by persons over 40 years, who are highly educated or employed in a senior executive or intellectual professions and science.

Therefore, according to the authors of the survey, “the teleworking choice seems less influenced by family circumstances than by the characteristics of the occupation itself.” A sector analysis confirms this observation: it is slightly practiced in the industry (5% of the employees), while being more common in the information and communication sector (17%), in specialised, scientific and technical activities (12%) as well as in education (13%). Hence, whatever the figures, teleworking still remains, it seems, far from being a common custom.

Marc Alison