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Businesses The Almighty Buck Technology

More Than 40 Percent of Companies Now Offer a 'Summer Friday' Perk (washingtonpost.com) 57

Posted by msmash from the good-call dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Leaving early on a Friday afternoon in June? There's a growing chance your boss has endorsed it. The percentage of companies that offer some kind of "summer Friday" arrangement -- in which companies officially permit workers, almost entirely office ones, to leave early on Friday afternoons in the summer -- is on the rise. According to a new survey of Fortune 1000 companies by CEB, the Arlington, Va.-based research and consulting firm, 42 percent of companies now officially sanction starting the weekend early (press release), a doubling of the percentage who offered the benefit in 2015, when 21 percent of companies said they did so. That big jump, says Brian Kropp, who heads the firm's human resources practice, is because the benefit is such a no-brainer for companies to offer. As flexible work arrangements have grown and the average office worker is just a text or phone call away, many people already duck out early on Friday afternoons, especially before long holiday weekends. Making it official gives the company a way to plug their generosity without spending much at all.
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More Than 40 Percent of Companies Now Offer a 'Summer Friday' Perk More

More Than 40 Percent of Companies Now Offer a 'Summer Friday' Perk

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  • I'm glad my workplace treats me like a professional and lets me come and go as I please as long as I get work done that I need to.
    • It should be noted how narrowly this is being applied. It looks like they arrived at the 40% number by only looking at specific companies, and specific positions within those companies. I guess it's good that some companies are slowly shifting to focus on the important things (productivity, not timeclocks) but this is hardly the 35-hour-workweek standard we should be implementing.

    • Shame so many companies out there still don't get it

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Where is this workplace? ;)

    • Seriously. I was told on day one at my current place of employment that the company's policy was to treat us like adults. If you need to go to the doctor, go to the doctor. Tell us about it as soon as you can, please, but seriously, go to the doctor and don't worry about work. Same thing if you have a sick kid or spouse. Or car trouble. Or any of those other sorts of things that just kinda come up unexpectedly. Let us know when you can, but take care of those priorities.

      As far as leaving early goes, we work

  • Way back in the day I worked at a place like this. Put in 4 hrs extra during the week and kick off at noon on Friday during the summer. It was amazing. Then the parent company 500 miles away decided that it could possibly run afoul of labor laws or something, and made us stop.

    That's a great way to crush morale. A better way? Have nobody in your corporate offices on Friday afternoons in the summer while we're being forced to work.

    Getting laid off from there was the best thing ever. A dozen

    • At a previous building I noticed very quickly that the parking lot on friday had many many more free spaces when I'd arrive than normal (I'd show up 10-ish). In summers it felt practically deserted at times, even if there was an urgent deadline. Got so bad they stopped serving lunch on Friday. Ship's been tighted up a bit since then.

    • Productive people will work, and appreciate a company that gives them some work/life balance. OTOH, you have another segment of the population who does not produce nearly as much. I'm sure you know who they are, because all of us A-type people learn very quickly who slacks and who produces (we have to have connections to get things done ourselves).

      Those second type of people are what blow things for the rest of us. Not just through getting caught abusing policies, by killing our moral to the point where

    • Put in 4 hrs extra during the week and kick off at noon on Friday during the summer... Then the parent company 500 miles away decided that it could possibly run afoul of labor laws or something

      It doesn't just "possibly" run afoul. The arrangement you describe is explicity ILLEGAL in many states, including California [ca.gov].

      It doesn't matter if you like the arrangement and agree to give up your rights, it is still illegal.

    • My current employer used to have the same policy during summer, and it was great. They cancelled it though - but only because we switched to an unlimited leave policy, where you could basically take as much time off as you wanted if your manager was okay with it. Thus, as long as you had your work done by noon Friday, nobody cared if you cut out early (my Boss would come out at 2pm about to leave and give the "What are you still doing here? Go home!" to anyone still around).

      Really, the big difference is b

  • Ironic that I read this in the office... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...at 4:15 PM on Friday. And it's a beautiful day outside.

  • I'm glad my workplace allows us to set hours with some degree of flexibility and absolutely DOES NOT consider us "a text or phone call away", except for jobs where such arrangements are specifically part of the job description. When I walk out the door, I don't think about work till I come back. Same for vacation.

  • Subject heading says it ... I'll say these companies can pat themselves on the back without spending much at all, especially when "being able to leave early on Friday" comes with the proviso that you must have completed a full eight-hour day of work before you leave. As long as those are the terms, shit, why not extend the policy to the rest of the week, too? Then, once everybody is working until their fingers bleed, you can gradually start dialing the policy back again, so you're getting 16 hours worth of

  • under trumpcare your 39.5 hour work week has no benefits other then getting out 30 min early each Friday.

  • If you leave early on Friday afternoon, this surely means that you've worked less than the expected X hours per week? Most office-based firms probably have some sort of clock in/out system, so this shortage of working hours will be recorded. So is anyone expected to make up the shortfall later (and if they don't, do they get docked pay?) - the article didn't make this clear.

    One practice I don't particularly like is being allowed to leave at lunchtime on Christmas Eve (which is often the last working day of

    • If you're being dinged a full day of holiday when the office is only operating for half of it you should be bringing that to the attention of CFO and legal as they owe you that half day by law.

      Or, alternatively, work somewhere better. Everywhere I've worked where the office closes at lunch on Christmas Eve has always declared it as a half day for holiday as well.

      • That is actually the letter of the law for exempt employees. If you are exempt, it is simply a day off; if you are non-exempt then it is the number of scheduled hours off. When you do something different you run the risk of the department of labor considering your exempt employees to actually be non-exempt.

        • GP implied he was in UK, where different laws apply for employment. Ones that are of benefit to the employee.

    • We do a 4-9-4 schedule year round at my company-- 9 hours Monday through Thursday and 4 on Friday. I don't think I could do Friday afternoons again...

      For people with long commutes, we let them work from home for the short Fridays as well.

      There is an efficiency hit for sure, but it is nice to see the office empty on a Friday afternoon.

    • "If you leave early on Friday afternoon, this surely means that you've worked less than the expected X hours per week?"

      I can tell you how it works in other countries: you don't have a week hour stand (40 hours) but a yearly one (depends on your contract, somewhat around 1750 hours/year). It results that if you were 40 hours/week for roughly 48 weeks/year you end up working too many hours, so companies compensate by a combination of leaving early on Fridays and/or having a 7 hour days on summer.

  • This is a side effect of low unemployment, as companies are once again having to compete for workers. And, it will disappear with the next serious recession.

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