WVU offers 4-day work week, other options

Higher gas prices have more people talking about flexible work schedules. The state Supreme Court announced last week that its employees may work four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days. West Virginia University meanwhile, has offered its employees flexible work hours for years.  

WVU’s had flexible work options in place for more than 20 years, but recently, the Human Resources office decided to revise its policy. It’s now asking people who want to work flexible hours to let HR know so they can track the trend. And Director of Employer Relations, Jim Morris, expects it to become a popular trend. In the last week and a half, he’s heard from 15 people who want to use the benefit.    

"We have employees who live in surrounding counties, and even some in Pennsylvania and so forth, so with $4 a gallon gasoline prices that commute becomes pretty expensive, and if they can work with their manager to work a four day work week, that reduces their travel expenses by twenty percent, which is significant," Morris said. 

WVU VP of Human Resources, Margaret Phillips, says offering four day work weeks is good for recruitment as WVU tries to attract a new generation of employees. "And what we’re doing is we’re also encouraging people to look at, it’s not just every Friday off," she said. "It might be a every Wednesday or Monday, and you could flex that also."

Phillips says younger workers like the flexibility and easily use technology to work outside of the traditional office setting.  Phillips doesn’t think compressed work weeks will affect productivity either. 

"Actually research suggests that offering flexible work schedules reduces employee absenteeism, increases productivity, and increases job satisfaction and commitment to the organization," she said. "So, we see this, you know, we encourage this where it’s operationally, it’s feasible, because there are some really positive, actually some very positive things are an outcome of offering flexible work schedules."

Morris says not everyone at WVU will be able to work a compressed work week, which means working 40 hours in four days instead of the normal five days.

"Like a front desk operation where there’s only one individual in that unit and there might not be a back-up.  That might be a problem for that unit to have the person, let’s say if they requested a four-day work week, what would happen during the fifth day?" Morris said. "So, from a service, one of our kind of guidelines and cautions to managers is that we don’t want to sacrifice service or quality."