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

NEW YORK (AP) — With summer got off to a scorching startworkers across the country may be dreaming of a seaside getaway or leaving early to watch a movie in an air-conditioned theater.

For some, this may be a reality. Business owners have discovered 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 can cope with summer child care interruptions, 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. And it takes some trial and error to find the best option for each business.

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. Employees 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 enjoy spending time with their families or taking trips, and we want to be able to reward our employees by allowing them to spend additional time with their families. »

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

“It just helped us retain our team during the ‘Great Resignation,’ people were losing people left and right,” he said. “And I think we went 23 months without any employees quitting. That’s a huge advantage and a huge 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 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 give to the people who worked in her physical store, who also fulfill online orders, because they had to work normal hours to keep the store running. He decided to give logistics employees Friday afternoons off, while the six employees who work on the physical side and provide customer service for online orders take Mondays off, when the store is closed. Some employees can log in remotely to answer customer questions if they wish, but this is 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 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 small, so it’s easy to have a discussion with everyone about what’s real and how everyone is feeling, if they’re feeling stressed, can they do their job,” he said .

If he has a big project to do, 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 doing the work throughout the week, but the day (off) was much more rewarding,” he said.

Of course, summer hours aren’t right for every business. Retail stores may lose 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. Effective May 1, it has changed its opening 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 45 to 50 employees, and it cut their hours, which rightly upset them,” 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 really believe that consistency is the key to everything,” she said. Customers need to know they can count on you to stay open. You can’t always change your hours, because that’s a quick way to lose customers. »