Posted on 07/03/2008 12:17:18 PM PDT by 300magnum
Beginning next month, most Utah government employees will not go in on Fridays. Many cities and counties already have four-day workweeks, and some states have voluntary programs for shorter workweeks, but Utah is the first state to institute the four-day week as a policy.
Brigham Young professor Rex Facer, who has studied changes in workplace schedules, says workers often like the change, but employee satisfaction is not the main reason government employers are taking new looks at alternative work schedules. Facer says employers are looking for ways to reduce commuting costs, congestion and pollution.
Facer started studying alternative workweeks in 2004 when his own hometown, Spanish Fork City, implemented a four-day workweek. He found that many employees really liked it, mostly because they felt that it helped to ease conflicts between work and family.
But Facer says the four-day workweek didn't appeal to everyone. One-third of people surveyed said they preferred it, one-third said they didn't really care one way or the other, and the final third said they actually preferred going in on Fridays. As a result of the mixed sentiment, Facer says, his hometown has gone back to more traditional work schedules in some cases.
But it isn't as though no one will work Fridays. The government won't shut down totally on Fridays; essential services will still be provided. Still, Facer notes, "Most cities, when they've looked at it, have found that Friday is a very low usage day for city services."
That would be great, unfortunately, we have to do what our govt guys do, and they don’t seem to want a 4-day week.
The only thing better, in my view, is telecommuting (where practicable).
That extra weekend day is great!
My wife is in the medical field and works a 3-day, 12-hour shift work week. This really benefits our kids since she works 2 of those days on the weekends. She’s pretty much a stay-at-home mom so far as my kids are concerned.
They should make Friday a “work from home” day.
For some govt. workers, they might as well take Fridays off because they can get everything they need to do in one or two days during the week. The other two days is to gripe about how good they have it and how hard they don’t work.
Sounds great, except those must be some tough 12hr days.
Not around here, our govt guys are 120% all the time.
That would be great. There are definitely days that we could do our work from anywhere that had an internet connection.
You in France???
Never mind that. I want 4-day weekends.
They worked 4 10hr days or the weekend shift which was 3 12hr days, Fri, Sat, Sun that was paid 40 hrs pay.
Working the weekend kinda sucked but they liked the 4 days off every week. They still got overtime for anything extra.
Sometimes I wish, at least they get more than 10 days off combined vacation and sick time.
Increasing their work load by 300% doesn't seem reasonable to me ... does it seem reasonable toy ou?
Nope, I understand why they don’t, but I can still wish. Of course, they could always hire more people, but budgets are budgets. Besides, who knows what’s going to happen to defense contracts after the next election.
Unless they are making them stay home on this extra day off, this does nothing.
France west
???
Are we the taxpayers really getting an additional 2 hours of work each day out of these government employees when they go to a 4-day work week?
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