Four Day Work Week

Rockie

Have any of you gone from a five day work week to a four day work week? How did you implement this and did you require any type of adjustment on salary?

Our medical practice is considering going this route - not totally closing one day, but rotating the staff through in some manner so that part of the staff can have one afternoon or day off per week and then the other part the next week.

Have not worked through the bugs yet, but it's interesting that our CEO was the one that actually brought this up in our Sr. Manager's meeting yesterday afternoon. We had quite a philosophical conversation on "why is the work week structured like it is, and why do we have to continue to work within this type of structure?" We threw out such things as Sr. Management taking off a day or a half day every other week - even if just to have a chance to complete projects at home that we can't get to at work because of interruptions.

Do any of you work in a unique environment where you don't work the traditional 40 hour work week?

lorrie

I would love a 4-day work week, and I think it would be a wonderful tool for retention. I have heard a lot about the move to a 4-day week recently, so I hope it catches on. Unfortunately, it is not something our owner will even consider. Our management employees work a pretty strict 45-hour per week schedule, plus one Saturday morning per month.

ritaanz

We are a manufacturing company and moved to a 4 day work week 2 years ago. The plant, both first and second shift, Engineering and HR work Monday through Thursday, 10 hours a day. Sales and Accounting Departments work Monday through Thursday, 9 hours a day and 4 hours on Friday.

It has worked well for our company. All the employees like it, the company can schedule overtime on Friday and the employees still have Saturday and Sunday. We have seen other advantages: attendance has improved, our electric and water bills are lower and it's a great recruiting tool. One other thing, I get a lot done from 6:30 am to 8:30 am without telephones and interuptions.

My problem will be when business picks up and we need to put on a third shift. I'll worry about that when it happens. But, it will be a good problem to have.

ray a

Four years ago my company purchased a new facility 25 miles from the old facility - in the next county. Many employees already had a long drive from the opposite direction, so the move just added to their driving time, in some cases more than doubling it. Many were threatening to quit - the job situation was better then and they had more options.

As an incentive to keep people from bailing, we offered them the opportunity to go to a 4 day work week choosing either Monday thru Thursday or Tuesday thru Friday. The selling point was the 4 day work week reduced their driving time by 20%. A few took us up on the offer, but not too many. Within a few weeks after moving to the new facility, several went back to the normal 5 day week. Last year we still had a handful of employees working the 4 day week and we rescinded the option with very little grumbling. It was good while it lasted, but then became more of a problem to administer not knowing if someone was just absent or it was their scheduled day off. Our problem was it was not across the board. But, making it mandatory creates other problems with employees who cannot work 10 hour days because of scheduling conflicts.

Trinity

Hello Rockie,
While I work for a credit union, which means we are open whenever the sun comes up, my mother has worked as a dental assistant for 20+ years and the 4 day work week is a common practice in this field. In some offices, they work 9 hour days and half a day on Friday, or 10 hour days and closed on Friday. I believe you only have to work 32 hours to be considered full time for insurance purposes, so as long as they got in that many hours in the 4 days, they were fine. However, they were paid less overall than those who worked 40 hours..(except for Oral Hygenists who make oodles of money per hour..)

Sunny

We had one manufacturing plant that worked 4/10's - Monday through Thursday with Friday as the possible o/t day. While this scheduling may work in your environment, it did not work for our plant personnel. Work comp injuries soared and efficiencies dropped. It was too tiring for folks and they got careless. They also slowed their pace through the day so we wound up with less getting done well than we needed. When we moved the plant we went back to 5 eights and efficiency and safety performance improved. Again - this is in physically demanding manufacturing not in an office enviroment.

System

Some people in our printing department work 4-day weeks. My impression is that they love it for three days a week and tolerate it the rest of the time. I don't see any reason to adjust their pay.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

AprilShowers

Rockie,
We have an option of a 4 day work week in our medical billing department. Only a few (3 or 4) employees have taken this option (out of 47). They either work Tues- Fri or Mon - Thurs. (10 hr days). No adjustment in pay. It seems to work out fine for that department, these employees just work it out with their supervisor.
April

valentine

We do a four day work week during the summer months. It is left up to each department to schedule their employees. EE get paid their normal pay we pay bi-weekly and it works like this. Instead of 8 hours ee work 10 hours for four days a week and then takes one day off. It could be Friday, or it could be another day. We don't specify, only that they don't take every Friday off.

Works well and staff loves it.

vmiller MO

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 05-02-03 AT 12:09PM (CST)[/font][p]I have several clients in Missouri who have gone to this concept. Most are in the manufacturing industry. One of the major problems is the recruitment and retention of women who are single mothers. Day care and school issues are their concerns. A second problem area is productivity. There are studies that suggest that productivity drops as the work day is lengthend. The third problem area is safety. Again, a long work day can cause safety issues as the employees become fatigued and their concentration level decreases.

None of these problems are insurmountable. They are concerns that you should address before going to such a work schedule.

Vance Miller
Editor, Missouri Employment Law Letter
Armstrong Teasdale LLP
(314) 621-5070
[email]vmiller@armstrongteasdale.com[/email]