Poll: Does your company offer 'summer hours' ?

Does your company offer summer hours?

  • Yes

    Votes: 2 2.3%

  • No

    Votes: 32 36.4%

  • I have no idea what this is

    Votes: 54 61.4%
  • Total voters
    88
SideWinder said:
I am going to pitch 'summer hours' to my business and suggest a rota but obviously need to sell it.

For example, why would they let the business do it? Answer is morale but also I'm going to prove how little customer interactions we have from 3pm - 6pm on Fridays using Zendesk, phone and LiveChat data.

How does it work for your company?

Poll please, perhaps a simple Yes or No.
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Poll added
 
It's pretty popular in NYC, my company doesn't officially offer it but since most of the people we would need to interact with on a Friday afternoon are out driving to their Hamptons house we usually finish early anyway
 
Back in my MOD days I'd do 0700 - 1530 all week and then be out the door by 12 on a Friday, on the golf course by 12:30.

I miss POETS day now I'm private sector.
 
I'm done by 16:30 most days, 16:00 sometimes on Friday. Do start at 07:30 though.

Miserable in the winter, dark going in, dark going home. Just months of drudgery
 
HangTime said:
More generally to Roff's point above I don't particularly like the 'unwritten rule' that some follow about Friday afternoons being a wind down where you mess about, long lunch break, leaving early etc. Again that really creates resentment when you are there slogging your guts out until 6pm or later, people apologising for putting in a meeting at 4pm on a Friday etc like they are embarrassed at asking you to work during your contracted working hours.
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I can see how it's rather different if you're a consultant as slacking off when you're being billed at the same daily or even hourly rate and logging hours would be very bad form.

I guess in other cases, as a salaried employee (not contractor or lawyer billing a client or indeed not an hourly employee) it's a bit of give and take, if you're working well beyond your contracted hours on other days then they become somewhat moot and if someone were to be fussy about spending an hour and a half or two hours in the pub on a Friday lunchtime or leaving early at 4pm to catch a flight for your weekend break in Europe etc.. then that would be off.

SideWinder said:
I am going to pitch 'summer hours' to my business and suggest a rota but obviously need to sell it.

For example, why would they let the business do it?
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It might help if you clarified what it is you're pitching/selling? Let them do what?

Reducing hours across the board? Starting earlier and finishing earlier? Knocking off early on a Friday? (perhaps after having put in the hours earlier in the week?)

More WFH days?

What is the rota in reference to? That bit isn't clear at all?
 
Efour said:
a lot of Swedish company's and local government work 1 extra hour in winter times so can finish 1h early in summer.

Not me. :(
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Working for a Swedish company, I was assuming summer hours meant everybody disappearing for 6 weeks.
 
Though wish head office realise that hardly any customers come in after 5:30pm on bank holidays. Open normal hours every BH and its the same thing every time. We did have a couple of years where we did close at 6pm. Being on the kiosk (not allowed to leave for security reasons - about £60k of cigs, £2k scratchcards and goodness knows how much cash in the tills.) when serving no one is boring. Rather have my hours moved to more productive times.
 
There's talk of daily shorter summer hours and longer daily winter hours possibly being introduced, but a vast majority are saying they will have no chance to complete summer workload.
 
Rroff said:
a lot of companies seem to prefer less people on more hours as I guess it is easier to manage even though that gives you less options to fallback on when needed.
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Less people on more hours should be a lot more cost effective because the overheads are massively reduced. Less space needed, less training budget needed, less heads to cater for at events, less paperwork etc. Possibly might need to pay a bit more national insurance though.
 
UTmaniac said:
There's talk of daily shorter summer hours and longer daily winter hours possibly being introduced, but a vast majority are saying they will have no chance to complete summer workload.
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Not keen on this idea, makes it harder with childcare arrangements if you have changing hours like that plus I wouldn't want to do longer hours in winter as it would reduce the number of daylight hours when you are not working even further. I don't need shorter hours in the summer as there is plenty of daylight in the evenings.
Not great for travel either, would likely mean travelling home in the hottest part of the day (mid-afternoon) in the summer meanwhile also making it more likely to have to travel during icy conditions in winter, travel disruption impacting you etc.

Given the choice I'd probably take shorter winter hours and longer summer hours rather than the other way round. I get the point that for a lot of people they would probably find free time more useful in the summer (i.e. in the winter they might not want to go out anyway) but for me personally that doesn't outweigh the logistical factors and natural balance that the longer daylight hours gives in the summer anyway. Finish at 6pm and you still have 3 hours of daylight.
 
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Efour said:
a lot of Swedish company's and local government work 1 extra hour in winter times so can finish 1h early in summer.

Not me. :(
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I used to work for someone like that longer hours in summer less in winter, except he'd lay off a portion of his staff in the winter so he effectively got an extra hours work for free during summer
 
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