The aim of my master`s thesis was to approach the issue of working hours as one of the most important working conditions, and its special arrangements known as flexible working hours account. The basis of working hours is contained the Labour Code 262/2006. Working hours are often decisive factor for selecting employment. Mothers welcome the opportunity to negotiate a shorter working time. They can properly take care of their children as well as go to work. Today is very popular flexible working hours. The thesis is devoted to working hours, both at an international and European level. These regulations have a considerable influence on the Czech regulation of working time. ILO conventions have priority over the Czech law. From the 1st May 2004 is the Czech Republic member of the European Union and it implies an obligation to bring Czech legal regulation into conformity with European Union regulation. For regulation of working hours are important judgements of the European Court of Justice. The most important judgements are mentioned in the thesis (e.g. Jaeger, SIMAP). These judgements had big influence on definitions of working hours in Labour Codes of the Member States. Czech Labour Code respects these decisions as well as the Council Directive 2003/88/EC on some aspects of organization of the...

This essay examines the impact of employees' working hours on genderequality. There is a problem linked to part-time and full-time work alongwith gender equality, which leads to that significantly more women workspart-time than men do. The reason to this is partially because the welfareindustry is female-dominated and infused by part-time employment, andbecause of the uneven distribution of roles between the sexes. A new rule ofpresumption has been formulated in the Employment Protection Act(1982:80) which stipulates that all employment contracts apply for full-timework, unless agreed otherwise. The purpose of this essay is to investigate theprovision of full-time as the norm and whether an extension of workinghours will promote equality in the labor market. A shortening of workinghours is presented as another possible solution to the gender equalityproblem and after that, both possibilities get analyzed with their pros andcons and their relevant legislation. To investigate whether full-time work as a norm will improve genderequality, research results from previous full-time projects are compared. Insummary, the results of this essay show that full-time work as a norm islikely to be a successful equality tool, but previous research has shown thatsupplementary measures will then be required. Among other things, it will berequired that the government works to remove unfavorable working hoursand that the welfare professions become more sought after among men.Another important measure is to work more actively to remove the unevengender distribution around unpaid domestic and care work. This is importantbecause it is something that leads to many women not getting their lifepuzzle together and therefore choosing to work part-time instead of full-timein order to have more time to spare

This essay is about the change of the Swedish party Socialdemokraterna (S). It is a very current subject, since many political newspapers write about that the party moves into the political middle. Apparently the party is not what it used to be and that is what this essay will explore and analyze. My purpose is to explore what ideal type answers best to the Social democrats change. The chosen ideal types are neo-liberalism, reformist socialism and the third way. And the materials I use are political programs from 1990, 2001 and 2013. To achieve my purpose I’ve chosen two different methods: 1. Content analysis 2. Idea analysis. Each of them has been very useful and to combine them has proved efficient. The results of the content analysis show that the party in 2001 and 2013 is using a different vocabulary than in 1990. The results of the idea analysis are that the political program from 2013 show that some of the ideas are divergent. For example, a traditional social democratic value is that the working hours should be shorter. But in 2013, the party doesn’t suggest shorter working days and weeks.

66 Abstract - Flexible forms of working hours This diploma thesis deals with the flexible forms of working hours and its goal is to describe this issue in intelligible and comprehensive way. It is being very interesting and current theme which is to a great extent not subject to direct legal regulations and provides its contracting parties with a big amount of freedom of contract. This fact assists in bigger flexibilization of labour market and represents a significant instrument in the fight against unemployment and economic crisis. This thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter One introduces the term flexible forms of working hours and briefly describes the content of following chapters. Chapter Two delimits the area of labour law in relation to other branches of law and describes law principles relating to labour law. The following Chapter Three deals with legal regulations of working hours, its length, ways of allotment and international legal regulations. Chapter Four represents an introduction to the flexible forms of working hours. The basic methods of division of flexibility in the relation to the labour market are mentioned here as well as flexible forms of work are divided on the basis of typology which is used in this diploma thesis. This chapter is followed by Chapter Five, which is the most...

- Flexible forms of working hours Flexibility is hotly debated term in the recent years and not only in a relation to labour market. This diploma thesis deals with flexible forms of working hours, which represents one of the means to achieve greater flexibility of labour law as well as flexible labour market. Increased options in adjusting working hours based on the needs of the subjects of labour-law relations contributes to more efficient use of employees work, provides new possibilities for some risk groups of employees on the labour market and helps employees in achieving work- life balance. These factors also have positive influence on unemployment rate. The thesis is divided into four chapters, which are further divided into subchapters. The first chapter introduces selected legal principles with the regards to the subject of the thesis. Main focus is on subsidiary relation between civil and labour law and "what is not forbidden, is allowed" principle, which is crucial for flexible forms of working hours, followed by an overview of selected basic principles of labour-law relations and introduction of flexicurity concept. The second chapter builds a foundation and much needed context for subsequent chapters by defining working hours and it's legal regulation on national as well as...

Working hours, their duration and work schedule Abstract The diploma thesis deals with the topic of working hours and related institutes in Czech labor law in order to provide a comprehensive overview of the valid legal regulation. In addition, the work deals with the issues of breaks and rest periods, which are inseparably related to working hours. The thesis is divided into six chapters, which are subdivided into subchapters. The first chapter contains a historical excursion into the history of working hours regulation in the Czech lands from the Middle Ages to the present. I also mention the valid legal regulation of working hours at international and national level. The second chapter defines the concept of working hours, followed by a detailed description of each of the related institutes - its length, scheduling of work, work overtime, night work, on-call duty and working hours register. The following chapters discuss the organization of working hours for employees who look after children or other natural persons, pedagogical workers, workers in transportation and employees working under agreements to work outside the scope of employment. For these employees, there are some deviations from the general legal regulation of working hours or special conditions, as I refer here. The last chapter deals with...

Introduction: The issue of working time reduction has continued to be discussed in various contexts and has become a current social debate. Because of this, it was of interest to carry out research in the area by analyzing what effects a shortening of working time has on an activity from an economic perspective and also concerning productivity goals and result orientation. Aim: The purpose of this study is to analyze how shortening of working hours affects the organizations' finances, productivity goals and results in the private sector. Method: This research is focused on a phenomenografic method with its base in qualitative interviews. Result: The result section is presented in the following main themes: Arguments for the introduction of shortened working day; Organizational effects and disadvantages of the introduction of shorter working days. Conclusion: The difference between the private and public sector is in focus and the motivation for why an abbreviated working day has been introduced differs between them. While the private sector focuses on efficiency and increased profitability, the public sector focuses on well-being and thus productivity. One of the most important findings identified in this study is that the primary argument for introducing six hours working day, which also reflected the new organization after the change work, was to create a better balance between work and leisure.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether there is any connection between working hours, desired working hours and the worker ́s health. The study also aims to investigate if there are any differences over time. Earlier studies have shown that individuals need a balance in their life between worked hours and free time. This balance seems to be important for employees if they want to lead and remain a healthy lifestyle. If the employed doesn’t feel satisfied with his or her working hours then the balance can get disrupted which could lead to a number of health problems. There are a lot of studies that aim to explain the relationship between working hours and health. There is a missing area which examines the relation between desired working hours and the worker`s health. Therefore, this topic is interesting to study more closely. The study is conducted using data from the Swedish survey of living condition panel (ULF). The panels consist of people between 16 to 84 years old. The study started in 1975. Since 1979 the study has been conducted at 8 yearly intervals. The data is administrated by Statistic Sweden (SCB). Three hypotheses have derived from previous research 1; employees who are satisfied with their work hours are least fatigued 2; the relation between working hours and desired working hours has bigger effects on women than men. 3; women who are satisfied with their working hours are less fatigued over time. The results showed that people who are working fulltime or part time with a desire to work less are feeling most fatigued. People who are satisfied with their working hours are least fatigued. The relation between working hours and desired working hours has bigger effects on women then men. Women who are working part time are feeling less fatigued over time.

- Working hours, their duration and work schedule This thesis introduces an overview of the current regulation of working hours and related institutes. It is focused on the particular options how to regulate working hours duration and working hours schedule, as well as on legal limits and restrictions. Working hours are crucial not merely for employers, but also for employees. For employees working hours also determine their leisure time. Therefore, this thesis is focused also on work-life balance with suitable work hours schedule. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first part outlines the most important historical development of working hours regulation from medieval rules to the current regulation and its position in the current legal order, which is essential to correct grasp of subsequent parts. In the second, principal part of the thesis, are analysed particular concepts of working hours regulation, there is also an overview of related judicature which defines working hours, working hours duration and possibilities of scheduling. This part also includes a description of minimal rest periods, rest breaks, night work and on-call duty. The third part aims to introduce the special rules for two specific groups of employees. The first are teachers, trainers, and other teaching stuff, and...

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / In the twenty first century, the traditional roles in a nuclear family have changed. In the majority of modern families, both partners have careers and full-time jobs. Burnett, Gatrell, Cooper and Sparrow (2010) explain that the approach to working life is changing, both men and women want to find a balance between work, family and caring responsibilities. Guest (2002) also elaborates that work-life balance has always been a concern for those interested in the quality of working life and the relation to broader quality of life. Due to the challenges which employees are currently facing, flexible work arrangements have become an increasingly popular business practice around the globe as a means to reduce work-life conflict. Many organisations offer flexible work arrangements with the goal of facilitating positive outcomes for both organisations and employees (Joiner & Bakalis, 2006). However, other organisations are still resistant to introducing flexible work arrangements as they fear it might impact negatively on productivity (Johnson, 2004; Martinez-Sanchez, Perez-Perez, Jose Vela-Jimenez & de-Luis Carnicer, 2008). While literature on flexible working hours has increased in recent times, no study has been found on the relationships between flexible working hours, employee engagement and organisational commitment in the retail sector in South Africa. Therefore this study focused on the relationship between flexible working hours, employee engagement and organisational commitment. The study followed a quantitative approach and the questionnaires were completed by 161 respondents. The two statistical approaches used to draw conclusions for this study are descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found significant relationships between flexible working hours, employee engagement and organisational commitment. The study also found a significant relationship between different age groups and flexible working hours as well as male and female and their use of flexible working hours. In conclusion, if retailers want to remain competitive in the retail industry where international competition is rife, they will have to ensure that they have the best talent. In order to acquire top talent, they will need to implement policies that will attract and retain them. Based on the findings and results, flexible working hours could substantially assist by increasing their employee engagement and organisational commitment and thereby attracting and retaining the top talent in the South African retail industry.