4-Day Week, Can It Fly?

The idea of a 4-day federal workweek is a win-win for everybody? Or is it? Yesterday’s column touched a nerve with feds from Baltimore to Kuwait, and points in between. This is what some of them said:

• “Mike, I do work a four-day week and it works very well for me and my wife, who works part-time three days per week. There are only two days per week where our children attend day care and we save on gas. However, I’m a computer programmer and I don’t see the public face-to-face in my job at the Social Security Administration. To be honest though, I think a standard 4-day work week would work for most and here’s why.

  “Various individuals work 4-day work weeks now and can choose the day that they have off. This means that I have to keep track of people’s schedules when trying to plan meetings or when I have questions because one individual may have off Wednesdays while another has Fridays off. Still, others like me take off on Mondays. Having a standard day-off would alleviate this problem. Whether the public is ready or not? The answer is probably no.” Jim S.

• “I have been trying a 4-day workweek for about 6 months now and love it… I’m on what SSA calls a 5/4/9 schedule where my regular tour for a pay period is eight 9-hour days, an 8-hour day and a day off. My scheduled day off is the second Wednesday of the pay period. When I started this schedule, the 9-hour days were a snap so I began working an extra hour on top of that to get another 8 hours of Comp leave per pay, which allowed me to take off every Wednesday… Recently, I requested a 10/4 schedule where I officially work four 10-hours days each week with Wednesdays off.

  “I do all my errands on Wednesday so I don’t need to shop or fight traffic on the weekends… It has allowed me to cut my gasoline consumption by 20 percent and has made my life much easier.” Wednesday’s Child

Postal Workweek

Reader Gary L. Arnold thinks the government could save money, fuel and manpower by going to a three-day postal schedule. Personal letter-writing has all but been replaced by e-mail and texting. So he asks: “Why doesn’t the post office go to a three day per week home delivery? Why not just Monday, Wednesday, and Friday? Business delivery should continue on a daily basis Monday-Saturday. I think the savings would be considerable.”

Four-Day Week Pitfalls

There are some downsides to the four-day week. Consider this from Greg P., a reader in Kuwait:

• I worked fixed 10-hr days in several combinations in the past. One combo was our crew of four people split the week. Two of us having Monday off, the other two having Friday off. We also varied the start time of the two on shift. Thus we had the office covered from 0700 until 1800 – 11 hours a day at no additional cost to anyone.

  “…but it was not to be. Two of the guys complained about working weekends…AND senior management about freaked out with the 2 1/2 hours of extra pay for Sundays, the 10 hours of holiday pay (this two extra hours was just rude they thought). The icing on the cake for senior management to raise hell about was the 6 day weekend that… so varied from the American way, They put us back on fixed 8 hour, 5 day schedules. Me I loved the 5 day tour of duty as my overtime went from almost nothing to around 8 hours a pay period and I still had long weekends taking annual leave when I wanted. So much for good ideas.

  “But know that 10 hour days will never work… In pay periods with a federal holiday, the tour of duty will actually be 3 days and management will have to pay 10 hours of holiday pay… This will NEVER become the American way, if (for) no other reason (than) the perceived lack of work time in the federal government by the public.”

Nearly Useless Factoid

A timely entry in Britain’s Worst Joke contest in the Daily Star News: What do you call a man in a pile of leaves? Russell.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com

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