(Published July 28, 2008)
My husband was reading the newspaper the other day when he looked up and said, "We may be going to a four-day workweek pretty soon to save gas — you should write an article about that."
With gas prices as they are, a four-day workweek certainly makes sense in the abstract. It may make sense in reality, too, but that's something you'll have to decide for your particular company. Here are some of the things you might want to consider.
How will a four-day workweek affect production? In some cases, it won't make much of an impact at all. You can stagger your employees so that instead of having 10 employees in a position five days a week, you have eight employees in a position four days a week. Instead of eight hours a day, each of them works 10 hours a day. You have the same number of man-hours, and the employees don't lose any wage, but each of them only has to make the commute four days instead of five days.
Of course, if you have a lot of overtime, you need to consider that as well. Do you try to distribute it so that each employee works a certain amount of overtime, or is it done on a volunteer basis? Whichever way it works, you'll need to incorporate that into your new schedule.
In other situations it's not going to be so easy. If you have a position that has to be manned 24/7/365, do you have enough employees to keep it covered? Or will going from five eight-hours shifts to four 10-hour shifts mean that you have to hire new employees in order to have adequate coverage? You can always stagger your employees on multiple shifts as described above, but if the duties of a third-shift employee differ from those of a first- or second-shift employee, you might not have enough employees trained in each duty to keep the position filled. On the other hand, this might be an excellent opportunity to set up that cross-training program you've been dreaming about!
Of course, if you're unionized or have employees working under contracts of some sort, you'll need to be certain that such a change is allowed by the contract or collective bargaining agreement, and whether the union will back you on it.
Finally, if you are in a state that mandates that overtime be calculated on a daily basis, you'll need to take that into consideration when you set up your schedule. Also, check that making the change at all is allowed under state law.
I'm sure you'll think of other factors that affect your specific situation. But all in all, if you can do it, I'm sure your employees will appreciate the cost-saving measure, not to mention the extra day off!
Catherine Bannon is an HR consultant in Marshfield, MA (catherine.bannon@gmail.com). Bannon worked for 10 years in HR management before starting her consulting practice.
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