POLITICALLY INCORRECT ZONE: Flexible hours vs Inflexible Traffic

capsule arial, patient sans-serif;”>By Kevin Harris

illness arial,sans-serif;”>I’m going to be a bit less political and discuss possible solutions to a local dilemma, which was brought up in the recent Thousand Oaks Candidates Forum session on May 9. At one point during the forum, candidates were asked about their proposed solutions to reduce local traffic congestion on and around Thousand Oaks Boulevard. Though the proposals varied somewhat with the candidates, one candidate, Dan Roundtree, offered what I believe was the most potentially achievable and effective method of quickly reducing at least some of the local traffic congestion.

Roundtree suggested spreading employees hours throughout the day, meaning, not locking employees into a 9-5 schedule if they don’t have to be. He also suggested encouraging people to both live and work in Thousand Oaks. My own twist on that is simply, encourage more telecommuting. And here’s the thing; in my view, those things in many cases can logistically be done without interfering with business. But far too often business owners or management chooses not to, for reasons that are beyond me.

One direct example I can offer involves local real estate offices. Every week I attend real estate office meetings as a vendor. Their office meetings are generally in the mornings, but surprisingly, many of their meetings start at 9 am – the same time that the majority of salaried, traditional office workers have to start their days. This always struck me as bizarre. Like many other local occupations, realtors are 1099 independent contractors, are not paid any salaries and are compensated entirely by commission. In fact, many realtors put up with such a risky career in part, to escape the rigidness and lack of flexibility of a salaried, 9-5 job.

So why then, do those real estate managers hold their weekly office meetings at 9 am, forcing the realtors to suffer in rush hour traffic with the rest of world? It is completely unnecessary, and only adds to local traffic woes. I understand that the manager might want to have their meeting start and end early enough to free up the realtor to conduct business during the most productive parts of the day, but starting their meetings at 9:30 am or 10 am would still do that, while keeping their realtors out of the worst times of traffic! Again, trying to emulate the 9-5 world that their realtors work hard to ESCAPE seems counterproductive to me, and makes local traffic conditions worse.

Real estate offices are hardly the only perpetrators of this. Not only do other industries needlessly adhere to the 9-5 schedule for its employees, but many offices demand that employees work at their company offices without any good reason, other than management wanting to keep direct tabs on employees at all times! But with today’s technology, management can easily keep detailed tabs of employees whereabouts and activities throughout the workday, remotely! This no longer requires Terminator Robots or Skynet, people!

Lengthy commute times, employees arriving to work late, and missing work altogether, costs businesses nationwide $billions each year, not to mention the lost family time, added stress from sitting in traffic and high costs of gasoline and wear and tear on our cars. And while not every work scenario can stray from the 9-5 schedule, and some jobs do require driving to the office, there are many businesses, and their surrounding communities, that would benefit from alternative employee hours and telecommuting. We just have to spread the word!

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Kevin Harris

Kevin Harris is a former reporter, editor and journalist, and previous President of Cal State Northridge’s Society of Professional Journalists. He is now a realtor and videographer, and lives with his two children in Oak Park. 

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