Monday, May 22, 2000
Firms motivate workers
More allowing their employees to leave early on Fridays
By John Eckberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer
If having Friday afternoons off sounds pretty good, Sandy Smith says, it's because it is pretty good.
Ms. Smith is among a growing number of employees in the region who work for a company that lets employees leave early on Fridays, a policy designed to retain good workers and attract others.
“I was at another business for 28 years where we worked nights and 8-to-5,” said Ms. Smith, administrative assistant at U.S. Financial in Blue Ash.
“These working conditions are just phenomenal,” she said. “You can still have a life and a career. At most places you work, you are either married to your job to survive, but here, the quality of life is very, very important.”
Atlanta-based Coca-Cola announced this month that in order to keep its loyal employees on the payroll and happy, workers can go home early on Fridays in the summer. It also planned to increase wages and give workers another day off.
The company decided that its future would be pegged to a reconfigured workweek.
That is nothing new to U.S. Financial Life Insurance Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mony Group Inc. in Blue Ash.
Friday afternoons off started as a summer initiative in 1999, said Steve Shaw, vice president/general counsel of the company, which employs 125 and sells specialized life insurance products.
“In essence, we asked employees to work an extra 45 minutes the other four days and then that way they could have Friday afternoons off,” Mr. Shaw said.
When September came, the employees liked the schedule change so much that executives decided to make it permanent. It was also advertised on a sign announcing that the firm was moving to a new building on Alliance Road.
“It has worked,” Mr. Shaw said. “We have also adopted business casual in the summer, and that policy has remained in place throughout the year with Fridays jean-casual.”
Since the policy was advertised, 20 employees have joined the company.
“We've been very successful in recruiting new employees, and this is part of it. It has worked,” he said.
Geralyn Curtis, founder and owner of the Chesapeake Group in the Baldwin Building in Eden Park, started letting her 20 employees head home early on Fridays back in 1996.
“It definitely reduced turnover,” Ms. Curtis said last week. “It's not the only thing that has contributed, but it is an example of our flexibility and teamwork. And we've found that productivity on Jammin Fridays is as high as on normal workdays.
“What needs to be done happens in two-thirds of the time, and it is not a let's-slap-it-together-and-go, either. Designers take great pride in what they do. What does happen is that teams give the work to the person who does it best.”
The package design company boasts a prime roster of clients, including H.J. Heinz Co., Elmers Glue by Borden, Andrew Jergens & Co. and Columbus-based T. Marzetti Co.
“We also give employees time off between Christmas and New Year's. This is one of those things management can do and do broadly, and it definitely sends a message to an organization,” she said.
Senior designers are also encouraged to take time off in addi tion to paid vacation to pursue a professional interest.
One designer took an all-expenses-paid trip to a ghost town in Arizona to climb rocks and learn glass-blowing, while another went to Chicago to tour buildings designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Trips are offered as a recognition of the employee's value to the company and as an incentive to the junior designers to excel.
“I don't believe we've had anybody leave in two years,” she said. “We've added people, but we've not had anybody leave.”
Diane Dixon, 41, encourages some of the 65 agents affiliated with the Ron W. Beshear Agency of Northwestern Mutual Life to take time away from the job, but cautioned that productivity must not suffer.
“What you wouldn't want is that by giving the half-day off, less work gets done,” she said. “Probably all of us could trim some fat from our week.”
Robert McConkey, a facilitator at the Tom Peters Co., an interna tional consulting firm based in Cincinnati, has advised Coca-Cola on workplace issues — though not the Friday afternoon-off initiative. He said companies must not lose sight of what truly motivates employees.
“Friday afternoons off is a temporary motivator. It provides a jolt and surely helps people, but it becomes an entitlement quickly,” he said.
Instead, research shows that workers want to feel that they have a voice and are part of a broader effort that makes a difference. “They want to feel that they have a valid voice in determining a future for a company,” he said. “They want to know that their work matters.”
The Friday strategy has clearly had an impact on retention at Chesapeake. About half of all the people hired have remained on the payroll.
“Anyhow, by Friday afternoons, particularly later in the afternoon, people are fried from the week,” Ms. Curtis said. “So why not?”
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