SOME UTAHNS ARE WORKING ALTERNATIVE SCHEDULES THAT PROVIDE WORK-LIFE BALANCE
The pandemic has many reconsidering the way they work and focusing on getting more balance in their lives.
The desire to have a more fulfilling existence outside of a job has led to renewed interest in alternative work schedules. Instead of the traditional five-day, eight-hour schedule, some workers – and their employers – prefer compressed workweeks.
Common alternative arrangements offered by governments and businesses have employees working four 10-hour days a week and being off an extra day, which is usually a Monday or Friday so they can have a long weekend (a 4/10), and over the course of two weeks, working 9-hour days Mondays through Thursdays and one 8-hour Friday, then taking the alternate Friday off (a 9/80).
Another arrangement found in the private sector is a four-day, eight-hour (4/8) schedule with no decrease in pay.
Advocates of changes in work shifts say they provide a win-win for employees and employers. Benefits include higher job satisfaction and productivity, more time for family and personal pursuits, a reduction in employee turnover and use of sick leave, lower energy bills and cleaner air.
The discussion of alternative work schedules (AWSs) is not new and in the 1970s, there was a major movement to offer innovative arrangements, Brigham Young University professors who have studied the issue say.
“Perhaps because of its Protestant roots, the United States adopted the view of continuous work as a necessity of human existence and maintained that view through the first half of the 20th century,” the professors – Lori Wadsworth, Rex Facer II and Chyleen Arbon, of BYU’s Romney Institute of Public Management – say in the study, which was published in 2010 in the Review of Public Personnel Administration. “In more recent years, however, employees view work as simply a means to seek recreation, leisure, and family time. Thus, the current trend toward AWSs seeks to accommodate these changing views of work.”
Work 4 Utah
In 2008, Gov. Jon Huntsman issued an executive order that implemented the Work 4 Utah program, which put thousands of state employees on a 4/10 schedule. A number of issues, including soaring energy costs and an effort to recruit and retain talented employees with the perk of a four-day workweek, played into the decision to implement the new schedule, said Lisa Roskelley, who was the then-governor’s spokeswoman.
The state projected saving about $3 million a year in energy costs by closing nonemergency offices an extra day (but that figure ended up being approximately $1 million) and keeping the air cleaner by eliminating employee commuting on Fridays. In addition, on the four days employees worked, they spent less time in traffic because they avoided rush hour by going into the office earlier and were leaving later.
For Huntsman, there was more to Work 4 Utah than those issues, Roskelley said.
“He really could see this element of having better work-life balance was becoming increasingly more important,” she said. “That was an important element of it for him. We want people to have a schedule that embraces their life outside of work rather than having to arrange their life outside of work around the office.”
The schedule also benefited members of the public, Roskelley said.
“Our government hours matched business hours exactly, which made it inconvenient,” she said. “The hope was that by being open earlier and open later that people would be able to take care of business that they had or needed to do in those hours that were outside of their own workday.”
Some employees had to make adjustments at first because the longer workdays interfered with their childcare arrangements, second jobs and attendance at their children’s activities but the schedule still became popular. In a survey by the state of its employees, 82% of respondents said they would prefer to stay on the four-day workweek rather than go back to the five-day schedule.
“We want people to have a schedule that embraces their life outside of work.”
Lisa Roskelley, Former Spokeswoman for Governor Huntsman
Some Utahns, though, were frustrated that they couldn’t take care of their government business on Fridays and state Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, sponsored a bill that required state agencies to be open at least nine hours a day, five days a week. The bill passed and was vetoed by Gov. Gary Herbert, but legislators overrode the veto.
Wadsworth said research shows Work 4 Utah was a success.
“It seems now, particularly since we’ve had COVID, this should be something of more interest to employers to try to figure out how do we make sure our employees feel satisfied with their organizations and can be good productive workers,” Wadsworth said.
Making government efficient
In 2008, West Valley City adopted the 4/10 arrangement and its business hours are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
Of the municipality’s 683 full-time employees, 458 work a four-day week. Some facilities, including the senior and fitness centers, are open all or most days of the week.
Assistant City Manager Nicole Cottle said the switch to 4/10 was an effort to make government as efficient and effective as possible. The top priority was customer service and the extended hours gave people greater access to their local government, she said.
“We recognized that many of our residents needed service before work and after work,” Cottle said. “The largest benefit to our residents is the accessibility.”
Other factors that played into the decision to go to 4/10 operating hours were savings in energy costs by closing buildings an extra day and pollution reduction, she said.
“We wanted to make sure we were doing our best to preserve the air quality in the Valley and we recognized that commuting into work four days instead of five days would help facilitate that,” Cottle said.
Cottle said employees had to make adjustments in childcare and other parts of their lives outside work. However, she believes that the benefits of a 4/10 schedule have outweighed the drawbacks.
“That three-day weekend time with families was attractive,” Cottle said. “Overall, I think it was something that has allowed us also to keep some of our very talented people here. We felt lucky that we have a very talented and tenured workforce that has seen the value of working in West Valley.”
A clamor for services on Friday
Spanish Fork’s experience with a 4/10 schedule began in 2004.
Fridays were very slow at municipal offices, while on the other four weekdays, residents would be waiting at the door before opening time or trying to get into the building at 5:05 p.m., a few minutes after closing, according to City Manager Seth Perrins, who began working for Spanish Fork after the switch.
The Utah County city decided that it could better serve the public by being open earlier and later for four days rather than retaining Friday hours, Perrins said.
A 2008 study by Wadsworth and Facer that was published in the Review of Public Personnel Administration says Spanish Fork employees on the 4/10 schedule reported higher job satisfaction and productivity than coworkers on traditional schedules.
The professors also say in their study that nearly 64% reported fairly strong agreement that citizen access had improved. In addition, fewer than 3% said childcare arrangements were more difficult under the 4/10 workweek, according to the research.
But Perrins said energy savings were negligible and residents weren’t as happy with the schedule.
“It was met with some immediate resistance because of the now unserved Friday customer,” he said. “We couldn’t deal with issues because the staff wasn’t available.”
Arrangements were made almost immediately for on-call employees to deal with issues that popped up on Fridays. A later tweak provided for building inspections on that day.
“In the end, we kind of began to erode the days of being on a pure 4/10,” Perrins said. “There was enough clamor for it that the elected officials said let’s go back to the 5/8.”
Now Spanish Fork has a 9/80 schedule and operates with a half crew every Friday. The city has done cross-training “so when you walk into my office you can get the service that you need,” Perrins said.
The schedule also benefits the public, he said. Doors are open from 7:30 a.m. to about 5:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday, which extends the time for residents to get their government business done.
“It’s worked out really well and I think the employees have come to find that as a good compromise,” Perrins said.
Getting more done in less time
In Lehi, employees at eFileCabinet have transitioned to a four-day week with no reduction in pay. As of Aug. 1, software company headquarters are open Monday to Thursday and eight hours is still considered a standard work day.
eFileCabinet executives say improving employee work-life balance will benefit their customers.
“It’s going to sound a little counterintuitive but we believe that we can actually deliver better business outcomes for our customers and experience better culture, better employment for our employees and frankly, it’s a little bit better for the environment by saving the commute on one day a week,” Mike Plante, chief marketing officer, said of the 4/8 week.
Plante said tests and pilot programs conducted by companies around the world suggest that productivity increases when employees are fully recharged after a three-day weekend and “there’s so much energy and passion that in four regular business days, they could get more done than in five.”
eFileCabinet started experimenting with taking one or two Fridays off a month and the business results were so compelling that the company went all in and migrated to the four-day schedule. To get everything done in 32 hours, employees focus on what will drive the business forward, Plante said.
Customers are still able to reach support services via live chat on Fridays and a small number of tech support members work Wednesday through Saturday. Occasionally, a customer meeting needs to be held on a Friday but after that, an employee has the rest of the day to rest of the day off.
“It’s not something we can measure quite yet but we are seeing what we believe to be increases in creativity, in innovation and energy levels,” Plante said.
Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) wants to reduce the standard workweek under federal law from 40 hours to 32 hours, saying the change would benefit employers and employees.
“At a time when the nature of work is rapidly changing, it’s incumbent upon us to explore all possible means of ensuring our modern business model prioritizes productivity, fair pay, and an improved quality of life for workers,” Takano said in a news release issued July 27, the day he introduced the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act.
The legislation would not mandate a 32-hour standard workweek. It would require overtime pay for non-exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act to begin after 32 hours.
Studies show that employees with shorter workweeks have better work-life balance, less need to take sick days, heightened morale and lower childcare expenses because they had more time with their family and children, according to Takano.
“Shorter workweeks have also been shown to further reduce healthcare premiums for employers, lower operational costs for businesses, and have a positive environmental impact in some of these studies,” the news release says.
Takano said people continue to work longer hours while their pay remains stagnant and that “we cannot continue to accept this as our reality.”
“After the COVID-19 pandemic left so many millions of Americans unemployed or underemployed, a shorter workweek will allow more people to participate in the labor market at better wages,” the congressman said.
The bill has been endorsed by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Economic Policy Institute, Service Employees International Union, the National Employment Law Project and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
“Reducing overall working time without any reduction in pay – through shorter workdays and a four-day workweek – makes all the sense in the world because it spreads work hours to more workers and minimizes unemployment,” Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, said in the release.
But GovTrack (www.govtrack.us/), which tracks congressional bills, reports that opponents believe the legislation could end up reducing workers’ hours, rather than increasing their pay.
GovTrack gives as an example the impact of the Affordable Care Act, which requires employers to provide health insurance for employees who work at least 30 hours a week. After the law went into effect, the percentage of employees who worked 31 to 34 hours a week declined, while the percentage who worked 25 to 29 hours a week — just under the threshold to get overtime — increased.
4 Day Week Global, a not-for-profit coalition advocating for a worldwide 32-hour workweek for the same pay and benefits, says Takano’s bill, if passed, will benefit 100 million workers.
“COVID-19 made it clear we can find a better balance between work and life,” the coalition says on its website (www.4dayweek.com). “Let’s make the move together.”
