Working-Life Time Accounts in Company Practice

Overtime and certain components of remuneration can be credited in long-term working-time accounts and then drawn down at a later point. The basic idea is to save up time for use in a later phase of working life. For the company, long-term working-time accounts make for flexibility; for the employee, they offer the opportunity to improve the distribution of occupational and nonoccupational demands across the course of life. However, the range of ways for companies to implement this instrument is extraordinarily broad, as is the range of possibilities for employees to use it. In that context the objectives of flexible labor management, the desires of the employees, the legal framework, and the rights of all participants in an industrial democracy constitute a complex and sometimes contentious arena that calls for careful analysis. This project tackles the task. Drawing on representative data from companies, detailed industrial case studies, and quantitative and qualitative surveys of employees, the authors comprehensively present and evaluate the practices and obstacles involved in using long-term working-time accounts.