Working times and flexible benefits: Employee choices in a new work-family arrangement

Flexible benefits were first offered by Dutch organisations in the late 1980s. In a flexible benefit plan, employers give their employees the opportunity to change the composition of their benefits, so that the employees can choose those benefits that suit them best. The opportunities to sell or buy time off, particularly, make this arrangement interesting from a Work-Family point of view. We researched who participated in the flexible benefits plan, and who used the plan to adjust the balance between money and time off in their pay amongst employees of a Dutch university . We focused on the effects of the household and work situation on these choices, in order to examine whether flexible benefits can help employees to better combine work and household. Participation in the FBP turned out to be high. Employees in these organisations mostly opted to sell their leave, very few people used the FBP to acquire more free time. Both household and job characteristics influenced participation in the flexible benefits plan, and the choice to sell time off. A flexible benefit plan gives employees the option tochange the composition of their pay to their personal preferences and it is clearly being used by employees of this university.