The concept of the 4 day 40 hour work week is not new, but its also not all that common. This is especially true in smaller organizations.

But perhaps its something that small business owner/managers should consider because under the right circumstances, there are substantial benefits to the employees and the company.

Over on the Inc.com site site, Jay Love from SlingshotSEO writes about The Case For a Four Day Work Week. In this article, Jay speaks to the benefits of this approach at his company that generally fall under these themes:

• Talent: Improved caliber and recruiting and greater retention
• Greater sense of urgency, energy and collaboration.
• More time for research – the article implies that employees are encouraged to use the 5th day to “research” (work?) on things that they might not otherwise have time for but also to imply use the time as they like.
• After work on Thursdays there is a more social orientation with co-workers leading to overall improved morale.

Utah State, Provo and El Paso

A quite different story has played out at the State of Utah who, as of September 2011, have reverted BACK to a 5 day work week after trying out the 4 day approach. In their case, the objective was to improve efficiency, reduce overhead costs and conserve energy (no mention that I can find about employee retention, collaboration etc.). They did not achieve the economic benefits plus there was some negative response from the public.

In a fascinating twist the City of Provo, Utah experienced only positive things when they went to a 4 day week, with improved morale and reduced costs. And El Paso, Texas is proposing a four-day work week after testing it out the past two summers. Projected savings for the 800,000 person city is estimated at $400,000 per year mostly due to lower utility and fuel costs. See more details here.

Note: In all the examples above, the 4 day work week was Monday to Thursday.

FedEx

My singular exposure to the 40/10 work week was 20 years ago at FedEx when the concept was leading edge at the time. There were considerable operational benefits for the company to have their couriers work 10 hour shifts versus 8 hours. One of them was probably the reduction in overtime pay (more frequency and more hours of overtime with 8 hour shifts). Other than the possible reduction in overtime pay, the employees loved it.

Here was the kicker at FedEx: They rotated the day off through the week. Week#1 was Monday off, Week #2 was Tuesday off, etc. This means that every 5 weeks the employee got the Friday AND the Monday off resulting in a  4 day weekend. That’s 10 @ 4 day weekends per year! How cool is that?

My thoughts about a 4 day work week:

To me this is all about how this will benefit the employee and how the employee, in turn, will deliver better results to the company. This is not about costs savings to a business; if savings do materialize, that’s a bonus.

As Jay articulates, a 4 day work week is a tremendous recruiting and retention tool. Folks are naturally going to want to do good work in order to either get hired and/or keep their job.

Jay also speaks to urgency, energy and collaboration and what he implies but did not state is that there will be actual productivity gains. I believe that these gains are inherent.

• Deadline are tightened because there are 20% fewer deadline “options”.
• Folks will also work in high(er?) gear to ensure that everything gets done by Thursday evening because who wants something hanging over their head for the next 3 days.
• “Go-getter” types are highly likely to devote their Fridays to their careers, meaning, they are probably working which amounts to a 5 day work week for them (by choice!).

Considerations for a small company looking at this option primarily depend upon the demands of the customer. Since most work places are M-F, there will be an expectation that a supplier (your business) is available each of those days. But if your business is one where your customers expectations in this area can be managed, I would certainly suggest considering a 4 day work week. Your business WILL benefit from it on many levels.

Thanks for reading my blog and please visit again.

Vincent out.

Tags: 4 day 40 hours, benefits, morale, productivity, recruiting, retention

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Human Resources, Management, Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.