Workers, employers welcome 4-day week

The finance director of the northern exurb of St. Francis has come to realize that she needed to include a new item in her personal budget -- a $12 clock.

"My husband used to wake me up when he left for work," said Gayle Bauman. "But now I've got to get up earlier, so I went out and bought an alarm clock."

Bauman's hours have changed because the city's have as well. St. Francis is joining a nascent national shift to a four-day workweek instead of the traditional Monday-to-Friday grind.

Public employers are at the forefront. In Minnesota, cities from Albertville to Zimmerman, counties and schools are making the switch or considering it. Even some private businesses, although more tentatively, are embracing what they call the compressed workweek.

Higher energy costs are triggering the change, with employees saving 20 percent of their commuting gas money while building costs drop with less heating, cooling and even toilet paper used when the doors are locked on Friday.

"We've talked about this on and off for a few years, but until this energy crisis started hitting us, we didn't get too excited," said Craig Oscarson, the Mower County coordinator in Austin. His board recently asked him to analyze the potential savings a four-day week would reap.

For Bauman, the switch means working from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, instead of the old 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. shift. On Fridays, she can sleep as late as she likes.

Of course, what's turned into a nice perk for St. Francis' city staffers is a potential inconvenience for anybody stopping by for a building permit at the end of the week.

School district gives it a go

For 700 students in the MACCRAY school district about 100 miles west of the Twin Cities, the change means most Mondays off, with 65 more minutes added to the rest of the school day. There will be 23 fewer school days this year, but the exactly the same number of minutes in the school year.

"When I brought it to the board a few ago, one board member said it was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard," said Gary Sims, MACCRAY High School's principal.

But when the district, which includes Maynard, Clara City and Raymond, learned it could save about $85,000 on school bus bids instead of cutting a Spanish elective, the community bought into the idea.

The district is the only one in the state using the four-day week this year, making Minnesota the 16th state to give it a try.

"Unless the Legislature really gets serious about funding education," Sims said, "I guarantee that we won't be the only school district in Minnesota on a four-day week next year."

A kick start from Utah

As a doctoral student in education in the 1980s, Prudence Gushwa wrote her thesis on the two dozen schools in Minnesota that experimented with the four-day week.

"Parents resisted because it was too much of a surprise," said Gushwa, now an education professor at Minnesota State University-Mankato.

"In the 1920s, many Americans found it hard to accept a five-day workweek when the six-day week was so common," she said. "Sometimes it takes a generation. And these parents today grew up with flex schedules and both parents working. So now we're ready."

Utah has been in the lead of the four-day shift, mandating that 17,000 state workers (20 percent) adopt the change. The yearlong trial will shut down 1,000 Utah buildings on Fridays, reducing carbon emissions by 3,000 metric tons and saving $3 million.

Municipalities are following suit, from Wisconsin's Walworth County to Birmingham, Ala. Nearly one-sixth of U.S. cities with more than 25,000 people now offer employees the four-day option, according to the Romney Institute.

"It's kind of the buzz right now," said Matt Hylen, the city administrator in St. Francis (pop. 7,320), which began using the four-day week Sept. 1 and will reassess the switch at the end of the year.

"The worst-case scenario is you go back to five eight-hour days," he said. "The best case is we save money on energy and have better customer contact because we're open earlier and later. To me, that's a win-win."

The days do get a little long, though.

"I have been running to church meetings and soccer practices in my suit after work," Hylen said. "There's less time at the end of the day."

But Gushwa points out that workers and students miss less time from the job or class because they can make appointments with dentists, doctors, lawyers or grandmas on that off day.

"You have a day to schedule your life," she said.

Legal and image issues

As he crunches the numbers, Oscarson fears taxpayers in Austin might bristle when they show up to do business and find locked doors.

"The public might look at this as a decrease in government service," he said.

There's also a potential legal thorn for counties trying to go to four days. State law requires county office be open on business days, Monday through Friday. There is an exemption for emergencies, if they allow for public business "at other reasonable times and places, [if] the public interest is served."

Oscarson said courts need to stay open five days because of rules allowing 48 hours between booking suspects and their first court appearance. And unions would need agree to longer days and changes in negotiated holidays.

Thank God it's Thursday?

At Bermo Inc. in Circle Pines, a metal parts manufacturer with 120 workers, about 40 members of the administrative staff shifted to four 10-hour days this summer.

"I think people love it," said Jane Cote, Bermo's credit manager. "The more we get strapped by gas prices, the more employees appreciate flexibility with hours."

A national workplace newsletter, put out by the Minnetonka-based WFC Resources, devoted this month's Trend Report to "compressing the workweek."

"Hardly a day goes by without a press release announcing that someone is either offering a compressed workweek or thinking about it," editor Susan Seitel said. She notes that governmental employers are leading the trend but points to a cartoon in the Christian Science Monitor, showing a guy on a ladder changing the name of TGI Friday's restaurant to TGI Thursday's.

Back in St. Francis, where finance director Bauman spent a recent Friday at a Wisconsin lake home with her parents visiting from Arkansas, everything so far is positive.

"It seems to be working well," Bauman said. "I think this has been an idea in the back of a lot of peoples' heads, but everybody's been afraid of taking the first step -- until now."

Curt Brown • 612-673-4767