Uses of Time

Can you make a brief description of your company? Year of creation? Sector and activity? Size?

Incoop is a non-profit integral cooperative of consumption and work, linked to the social, cultural and educational sector. We come from the associative world and we have a trajectory of more than 25 years. We are currently about 500 people working, 40 work partners and 350 members of consumption.

Our activity is developed around the entire life cycle of people, from the services of small children (from 0 to 3 years) to senior programs, which have no age limit. Throughout these stages, we manage a wide variety of services in different areas such as childhood, adolescence, youth, women, immigration, culture ...

From Incoop we always put the person at the center of our interventions, seeking an improvement in the quality of life of people, through quality programs based on education, culture and mediation. We work with the public administration in the joint management of different programs and we also generate our own projects based on the knowledge and innovation that is developed in the cooperative.

The cooperative adapts to the constant changes that take place in society, giving different answers and solutions to each of the new realities. In this way, we consider ourselves a flexible cooperative, and open to changes and innovation.

Why is reconciliation and time management important in your company? What is the purpose of your conciliation and time policies? What benefits do they bring?

Incoop we work for and with people, and this fact requires a lot of flexibility and innovation to respond to the great diversity. A single solution is not valid for all, and therefore it is necessary to find the specific answer to each one of the needs of workers, users, clients and other linked groups.

Being able to combine professional spaces and spaces of a personal nature improves motivation, performance and creativity. People need reliable spaces that allow us to develop both professionally and personally.

Can you briefly explain the time management practice of which you are most satisfied and satisfied?

We consider the management of time as one of the main axes to promote the motivation and performance of the workers of the cooperative. For this reason, we allocate efforts on the part of all the teams in the planning and prioritization of the different objectives to be carried out.

Regarding the time management of each worker, a personalized work calendar is developed for each person in the cooperative, flexible with the needs that may be required.

Annually, an intensive day is held during school holiday periods (winter, summer and Easter) and there is the option to enjoy two free afternoons a week during the rest of the year. On the other hand, the schedules of entry and exit of the workers are flexible according to the needs.

Finally, we are implementing teleworking days for the teams of the cooperative structure.

What would you recommend to a company similar to yours when implementing measures of conciliation / time management?

Time management must be worked with the characteristics and needs of the people who make up the group. And in a similar company we would recommend that they pay a great deal of attention to their workers, to make some measures in accordance with their realities.

However, we think that they should focus on some main axes such as organization, planning, autonomy of teams and people, flexibility and achievement of objectives. It would also be necessary to measure the emotional cost of doing excessively face-to-face sessions, versus the satisfaction and motivation gained through measures of conciliation and flexibility.

In Incoop, the relationship with the teams does not go through face-to-face control, but rather through autonomy dynamics and achievement of objectives.