Summer hours are a benefit small businesses can offer workers to boost morale

NEW YORK — With summer off to a roaring start, workers across the country may be dreaming of a seaside getaway or stopping early to watch a movie in an air-conditioned theater.

For some, that may be a reality. Business owners have found that offering summer hours — a reduced schedule on Fridays, typically between Memorial Day and Labor Day — can be a way to boost employee morale. Workers are able to cope with child care interruptions during the summer, return to the office refreshed and feeling valued in their work, owners say.

Reduced hours during the summer months can also help small businesses stand out to potential employees in a competitive talent market.

“When small employers have fewer resources and want to be more competitive in attracting and retaining quality talent, they want to be creative with the benefits they offer. And one of the benefits they can offer would be a flexible schedule in the summer,” said Rue Dooley, knowledge advisor at the Society for Human Resources Management.

However, special summer hours are not suitable for all types of industries. It is therefore necessary to proceed by trial and error to determine the best option for each company.

Michael Wieder, co-founder of Lalo, which makes baby and toddler products, felt that summer schedules worked well for his 32 employees because many of them — about 75 percent — are parents .

His employees work remotely and are spread across the U.S. and several other countries. Since starting the company in 2019, he has tried various summer scheduling programs, such as offering every other Friday off, but the current system works best, he said. On Fridays, the company closes at 1 p.m. local time. Staffers also get four-day weekends for Memorial Day, Labor Day and the Fourth of July.

“We know that child care is more difficult during the summer,” he said. “Summer is a time when people like to spend time with their families or go on trips, and we want to be able to reward our employees with extra time with their families.”

Greg Hakim, owner of Corporate Ink in Boston, which provides public relations services to emerging technology companies, said he uses summer hours as both a recruiting and retention tool. He highlights summer hours in job descriptions and said the benefit has helped him retain his staff, especially during the pandemic when others have struggled to keep employees.

“It just helped us retain our team during the ‘Great Resignation,’ people are like losing people left and right,” he said. “And I think we went 23 months without anyone resigning. And that’s just a very significant advantage and a competitive advantage.”

Jim Christy is co-owner of Midwest Cards, a trading card retailer based in Columbus, Ohio, with approximately 30 employees. He began offering summer hours — Fridays off after 2 p.m. — in 2021, a year after the company was founded, as the pandemic upended normal ways of working.

The hardest part was figuring out what to offer the people who worked in his physical store, who also fulfill online orders, because they had to work regular hours to keep the store running. He decided to give the logistics employees Friday afternoons off, while the six employees who work the physical side and provide customer service for online orders take Monday off, when the store is closed. Some employees can log in remotely to answer customer questions if they want, but it’s not required.

“We couldn’t apply one situation to everyone. So it was a bit complicated,” he said.

For some companies, summer hours work so well that they even go further. Chris Langer, co-founder of digital marketing agency CMYK, has 14 employees who all usually work in the company’s studio.

In 2014, instead of offering Friday afternoons off, he started offering full Fridays off during the summer, every other week. Then, last year, Langer started hearing about the four-day workweek, so he decided to try it out during the summer.

Communicating with the company’s close-knit staff, who have worked together for years, makes the four-day week feasible, Langer said.

“We’re a small company, so it’s easy to have a discussion with everyone about what’s real and how everyone feels, if they’re feeling stressed, if they can do their job,” a- he declared.

If he has a big project to do, he might call people on a Friday, but so far that’s only happened twice since CMYK instituted the four-day week.

“It’s more stressful doing the work throughout the week, but the day (off) was much more rewarding,” he said.

Of course, summer hours are not suitable for all businesses. Retail stores risk losing customers to big box stores or others that are open longer. And employees who are paid hourly rather than a fixed salary may be reluctant to be paid fewer hours.

Jennifer Johnson, owner of True Fashionistas, a consignment store in Naples, Florida, thought she would try summer hours in 2022 because Naples is seasonal, with the busiest part of the year ending around Easter. Starting May 1, she changed her hours from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. to 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. But the change didn’t work.

“We have a staff of 45 to 50 employees, and this has reduced their hours and it has upset them, and rightly so,” she said. “It also upset our customers who were used to our schedules and wanted to shop.”

She gave up her efforts after two months and didn’t try again.

“I truly believe that in everything, consistency is key,” she said. “Customers need to know they can count on you being open. You can’t always change your hours because that’s a quick way to lose customers.”