Counting your work day

Every federal agency can offer its employees an alternative work schedule instead of a traditional fixed one (eight hours per day, 40 hours per week) as long as managers approve it.

There are two kinds of flextime:

Flexible work schedule, which includes core hours, when all employees must be at work, and flexible hours, where workers can arrive and depart within a "band of time."

Compressed work schedules, where employees can work nine longer days and have a 10th workday off.

Workers are paid for overtime when it is approved in advance. But they are not paid for premium night work if it is part of their flextime arrangement.

In the event the president issues an executive order granting a half-day holiday, full-time flextime employees are entitled to basic pay for the last half of their basic work requirement (i.e., nonovertime hours) on that day, not to exceed four hours.

Source: Office of Personnel Management