Longer Days, Shorter Week?
Utah this summer will become what experts say is the first state to institute a mandatory four-day work week for most state employees, joining local governments across the nation that are altering schedules to save money, energy and resources. How this is accomplished is having employees work 10-hour shifts, four days out of the week, thereby satisfying the 40-hours for full-time employees.
Even though this will be mandated for state employees in Utah, a good number of the states are encouraging their agencies and managers to offer a four-day work week whenever possible and not necessarily just state employees.
A 4-day work week brings both pro’s and con’s, I would think. In a company such as ours, where attendance is crucial to running day-to-day work, having too many employees out for an entire day might not seem as feasible; at least for certain departments. How would that work for tellers or member service reps? Or even for departments that only have two or three employees to begin with?
Beyond the energy and financial implications, the four-day work week is a quality-of-life issue for many. We’d have more time to ourselves or with loved ones. And I’m sure it’d be widely popular among younger employees. But that also brings about some issues. Obviously not everyone would get to partake in getting a Monday or Friday off, so how would others compromise to getting, say a Wednesday off when that doesn’t seem to be as attractive as the beginning or end of the week? And one would think that working 10 hours four days straight might get a little tiresome. You’d need that fifth day to rest, ultimately defeating the purpose of getting an extra day off in the first place.
So like everything else, there is some glamour to the concept of a four-day work week as well as some “side-effects”. What do you think? Would this change really work for us?
July 21, 2008 at 2:32 pm
It’d be great if this could work for us. Unfortunately, we are in the business of money…and money never sleeps. In my opinion, it’s a little too unrealistic for a financial institution. It could be possible if we were all trained sufficiently in every aspect of our departments and then rotated our duties when one person leaves (like when one person goes on vacation and the rest of the department makes up for it). However, that could lead to internal control conflicts. I hope we get a chance to try it though. It’d certainly be an interesting social experiment.
July 23, 2008 at 11:25 am
I think it is a great idea. I know that I would be willing to stay later a few days a week. I know that there are several people who end of working more than 8 hours a day anyway, so why not get a day off out of it. I am ready!
July 28, 2008 at 10:52 am
I really don’t think this is actually something logically for us to do at the credit union. We need everyone here for the most part to work it’s already hard enough when a few people are out on vacation and you have to pick up the slack on top of your work but hey don’t get me wrong we do it because we know when our vacation comes up we appreciate everyone for taking up the slack. I personally am not a morning person so I wouldn’t be able to get here earlier than 7:45 which would have me leaving at 6:45, it just wouldn’t help me I have a daughter at home I love to spend time with each and everyday. Having an extra day off is a nice thought but I’d miss too much of her since I’d be working. Not to mention our household is a working one so while daddy watches her during the day and I watch her at night with me working more hours we would have no time to spend together as a family. This does sound good for younger employees with no children and older employees as well but I have a young daughter and working later all I would be able to do is feed her dinner, bathe her and put her to sleep. It’s just not worth it.
August 1, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I think going to 4 days a week is a great idea. There are banks that do this and I think we should at least give it a try. We can always go back if it doesn’t work out.
August 1, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I think this would be a great idea. I have a child as well and would prefer working a couple extra hours to have another 24 hour day off with him. This could work for a credit union as long as you limited employees being off on Mondays and Fridays (payroll fridays) when we are primarily busy. My vote is yes lets do it!