From Zach Patton of Governing.com
"Here's a typical Friday schedule for Jeff Herring, the director of human resources for the state of Utah: First, a leisurely breakfast with his wife and their two young kids. After driving his five-year-old son J.D. to kindergarten, Herring may go to the gym and run household errands. In the afternoon, he might pick J.D. up and take him to the zoo. Or maybe not. The schedule, Herring says, is wide open. "The world's my oyster on Fridays."
That's because Utah is closed for business on Fridays. The state is in the middle of an ambitious one-year trial to see whether this kind of alternative schedule can work. Most state employees now show up for four 10-hour days — Monday through Thursday — with every Friday off. The mandatory four-day schedule applies to 17,000 employees, roughly 80 percent of the state's workforce.
Last summer, as fuel prices spiked to record highs in an already flagging economy, states and cities across the country began looking at whether compressed work weeks — often referred to as "4/10s" — might provide some relief. Governments could save money by closing buildings on Friday. Employees could save money on gas if they had to commute to the office only four days per week. And who wouldn't want a three-day weekend?
Through the summer, cities across the country — the largest being Birmingham, Alabama — began adopting four-day work weeks. In August, Utah became the first state to implement a 4/10 schedule. And states everywhere are discussing whether a 4/10 might work for them. Georgia, Hawaii and Washington State are all experimenting with 4/10s in a handful of agencies.
The arguments for compressed work weeks seem pretty self-evident. But the governments that have moved to 4/10s are learning that adopting these schedules is complex. There are unanticipated challenges as well as some unforeseen benefits. Depending on how the experiments in Utah and other places progress over the next several months, more governments may make a wholesale shift toward compressed work weeks. Or it may turn out that states and localities simply can't run effectively when they have nobody working on Fridays.
Shorting the Week
Alternative work schedules themselves aren't all that novel. Companies in the private sector have implemented flexible schedules for decades. Even in the public sector, various state agencies have offered alternative schedules as an option for employees. "States have always had these types of flexible schedules," says Leslie Scott, the head of the National Association of State Personnel Executives. "What we've seen in the past few months, though, is that they're now sort of taking them out and dusting them off."
The same has been true at the local level, says Rex Facer, a Brigham Young University professor who has extensively studied alternative work schedules. In a survey this past summer of 150 human resources directors in cities with more than 25,000 residents, Facer found that 46 percent of the cities offered some kind of alternative schedule. That includes compressed work weeks, as well as initiatives such as telecommuting and job-sharing programs. But the most prevalent option at the local level is the 4/10 schedule — 19 percent of the cities in Facer's survey said that was the only alternative schedule option they offered. "Cities have been doing this for years, trying to cope with a range of fiscal stress they've been feeling," Facer says. "But there's been a significant uptick in these work week options in the past year."
High gas prices and strained public coffers drove much of the renewed interest in alternative schedules. But it was Utah's pulling the trigger that really got governments talking. Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. announced at the end of June that the state would implement a mandatory 4/10 schedule for most state workers, and the new policy went into effect just over a month later. "It was one of those things where we could have formed a commission, and we could study this for six, eight, 12 months and then decide whether to do it," says Lisa Roskelley in Huntsman's office. "That's exactly what we didn't want to do."
Instead, the state implemented 4/10s across the board. Results will be assessed in a real-world environment. "It's great that we can study something we actually have in place," Herring says. "It's not a hypothetical."
The state already is seeing big results. Energy consumption is down, on track to meet Utah's prediction of $3 million in savings over the first year. Employee sick leave is down, now that workers have a built-in day for doctor appointments and other necessary errands. Absenteeism is down 6 percent from a year ago, which Herring says could translate into $13 million annually in productivity savings. And employees really seem to like working on a 4/10 schedule. In a statewide survey in August, 80 percent of employees said they either were in favor of the new schedule or were neutral. The state conducted a follow-up survey last month. Once the results are in, Herring says he anticipates that number will be 90 percent."
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