Ready for a 4-day workweek?

[unhappycamper]

Navy officials have been pleased with early results from the four-day workweek schedule used by sailors aboard the destroyer Donald Cook.


Ready for a 4-day workweek?
By Mark D. Faram - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Jan 4, 2009 9:20:56 EST

ABOARD THE DESTROYER DONALD COOK — When the Navy offered commanding officers the chance to switch to a four-day workweek earlier this year, Cmdr. Bill Parker decided to take a gamble.

Ten months later, it appears to have paid off.

Parker, CO of the Norfolk, Va.-based destroyer Donald Cook, said he has not only increased his crew’s time off while in port, the ship also has “very few” discipline cases and a clean inspection record.

Despite the fact that anyone could have taken Big Navy up on its offer to shrink the workweek, the Cook, so far, is the only operational unit in the Navy that’s doing it, said Stephanie Miller, program manager for Task Force Life/Work. And now that Parker and his crew have proven it can work, the brass wants others to go for it.

The stakes are high. The Navy, as it draws down, still wants to ensure it keeps the right people in the right jobs. That translates to morale-boosting perks like this one that top officials believe will turn the Navy into an “employer of choice” as many highly skilled sailors weigh their career options in and out of the service.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/01/navy_workweek_010209/%2e

[Orrex]

1. That's a great idea, but

If Corporate America tries it, you can bet that the first week would run Monday through Thursday, and the second week would run Saturday through Tuesday, etc...

[MajorChode]

2. Some people do exactly that

The 10 hour day, 4 day workweek is nothing new. Corporate America has been doing it for many years.

It saves on energy costs, expenses associated with commuting, and cuts down on time away from work for doctor and dentist visits, etc.

So productivity goes up, expenses go down, morale improves. There's not too many down sides. In some places they alternate between Friday and Mondays off so that they alternate between 4 day and 2 day weekends.

[Orrex]

3. Four days on with one day off? Really?

So you're working eight days out of every nine?

I've worked four days on with three days off, and it's great, but that's not what I was describing in my post!

[MajorChode]

4. What I'm saying is there's an unlimited number of options available

...if you're willing to think outside the box.

And yes that means you may wind up working 8 out of 9 days, then getting 6 days off or whatever. There are lots of situations where this works very well for both the employee and the employer. Many corporations are figuring out that sometimes you CAN meet unrealistic production goals AND treat your employees well at the same time, but both sides have to be willing to be flexible. I don't see some businesses surviving if they continue to think in terms of what worked 50 years ago, and expecting employees to become slaves to their jobs is unsustainable over the long term.

[Orrex]

5. Well...

I've known plenty of people who've worked four days on with one day off, and all of them have hated it after about 15 days max. Four days on and three days off isn't bad, but it's far from common.

Of course there are options, but a great many people simply can't exercise those options: the stock market is open at certain times (and so are financial services jobs, for instance); day care is (currently) open only at certain times; public transport is available (in many places) only at certain times; etc. These are real factors that can't easily be dismissed or shoehorned into a non-traditional work-week cycle.

Thinking outside of the box (which is, by the way, one of the all-time most horrible phrases in the language) is fine as long as the burden of such thinking isn't heaped onto the worker, as it always has been. In calling for the workers to be flexible, you're casting your lot with employers who have strained employees' flexibility well past the breaking point for decades.

Let the employers be flexible, for a change. Historically, employer flexibility translates to "do whatever we tell you exactly as we tell you, or we'll flexibly find someone else who'll do it."


It's a much bigger issue than simply saying "let's work people longer and say that they're happier."

[MajorChode]

7. It is not necessarily always that way

The way such a scheme can work is when you use an interest based approach. The employer states their interest, the employee states their interest, and you match up the commonality and work through the differences together. Yes, there are jobs where M-F, 9-5, is the only option. But there are also many other situations such as where an employee is on the road most of the time. Let's say they are on a job that stretches past more than one week. Using the traditional way of thinking, the employee would have to either return home on the weekend or they can spend the weekend at a hotel playing solitare(more travel expenses and lost productivity), or they can simply continue working straight through perhaps with one day off in the middle. The employee gets the job done and returns home to his or her family sooner, then gets several days off that are more productive for the employee as well. This is just one example, but there are many more such as even in factory situations with limited production runs that only span a few days. So flexibility can work both ways.

Smart employers are learning there are many ways in which productivity can be increased without creating undue burden on the employees. Many businesses that don't seek out those solutions simply aren't going to survive because they do have employees at the breaking point in many instances, yet they still have to compete globally where a competetor may be paying their employees $5 per day. As the country moves from an industrial base to a service based economy, sometimes the old ideas just aren't going to work for either the employer or the employee. So call it thinking outside the box or inovative thinking or whatever you want, but it just makes sense for everyone involved.

[Angleae]

6. We've been on 4x10 where I work since 1999.

Except weekends which have been either 4x10 or 3x12. Very few people are willing to go back to 5x8. And no it's not 4 on, 1 off, 4 on. I'ts 4 on, 3 off.

[MajorChode]

8. I've seen a variety of situations that work well

One of my favorites is I've seen an employer that told employees...

"I want you to be at work 80 hours every 2 weeks. This is what needs to get done during that time. Keep me informed on your progress. The rest is up to you."

His logic was that employees will task themselves harder than he ever could and the more freedom he gave them to get the job done, the more productivity he received in return.

[Skittles]

9. I've been working a 4 night work week for five years