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

NEW YORK — With summer off to a flying start, workers across the country may be dreaming of a beach getaway or stopping in 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 businesses have fewer resources and they want to be more competitive in attracting and retaining quality talent, they want to be creative in the benefits they offer. And one of the benefits they can offer would be flexible summer hours,” said Rue Dooley, knowledge advisor at the Society for Human Resources Management.

However, special summer hours do not suit all types of industries, so it takes trial and error to determine the best option for each business.

Michael Wieder, co-founder of Lalo, which makes baby and toddler products, thought the summer schedule suited his 32 employees because so many of them — about 75 percent — are parents.

Its employees work remotely and are located across the United States and several other countries. Since founding the company in 2019, he has tried various summer hours programs, such as offering every other Friday off, but the current system works best, he said. On Fridays, the business closes at 1 p.m. local time. Staff members also receive four-day weekends for Memorial Day, Labor Day and July 4th.

“We know that child care is more difficult during the summer,” he said. “Summer is a time when people enjoy spending time with their families or going 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 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 struggled to keep workers.

“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 Columbus, Ohio-based trading card retailer with about 30 employees. He started offering summer hours (Fridays off after 2 p.m.) in 2021, a year after the company was founded, as the pandemic upended traditional 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 little complicated,” he said.

For some companies, summer hours work so well that they go even further. Chris Langer, co-founder of digital marketing agency CMYK, has 14 employees who all typically work out of 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.

Communication with the company’s tight-knit staff, who have all 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 a big project is planned, he might call people on a Friday, but so far that has only happened twice since CMYK instituted the four-day week.

“It’s more stressful to do the work throughout the week, but the day (off) paid off a lot more,” he said.

Of course, summer hours don’t work for every business. Retail stores may lose customers to big box stores or other stores that are open longer. And employees who are paid hourly rather than a fixed salary may balk at being paid for 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 a seasonal city, with the busiest time of 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 has also upset our customers who were used to our hours and wanted to shop.”

She gave up her efforts after two months and did not try again.

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