What’s the latest trend in employee benefits among many public and private sector organizations? According to a recent article in The Washington Post, it’s giving employees the flexibility to build their own summer work schedules. This flexibility allows individuals to work a compressed schedule Monday through Thursday and take a three-day weekend or take every other Friday off, or leave work at midday every Friday.

The Post article, “On Summer Fridays, More are Giving Work the Slip—With Bosses’ Blessing,” describes how the Corporate Executive Board conducted an informal survey of Fortune 1000 company personnel directors and learned that nearly half of the organizations had or were considering instituting a compressed summer work week that allowed employees to “put in longer hours Monday through Thursday in exchange for taking off all or part of Friday.”

Interestingly, shortened work weeks make sense during tough economic times, according to The Post. While reducing the income of some individuals, spreading the available work among more employees is one way of addressing the challenge of high unemployment rates, with a potential net result of increased productivity and a happier workforce. Before jumping into flexible summer hours, though, each organization has to assess which functions can work alternative schedules, while enabling the organization to still meet its business requirements.

Inspired by the flexible summer work schedule trend, beginning Friday, August 5, through Friday, September 2, ICMA's offices, which are normally open 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday-Friday, will close at noon on Fridays. This flexibility will allow most staff to work a compressed schedule Monday through Thursday and to leave at noon on Friday. The early-Friday closure is not a reduction in employee work hours. Instead, the organization is testing the feasibility of compressing the official hours of ICMA staff during the summer.

ICMA staff who are required to perform critical deadline work or essential operations have been notified and will maintain a normal office schedule.  

At the end of the four-week period, ICMA will evaluate the Friday early-closure program’s success to determine whether the organization should implement a similar program next summer.

For more information, contact Ron Carlee, ICMA chief operating officer, at rcarlee@icma.org.