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The idea of a four-day workweek continues to gain traction, especially with the recent release of data from the world’s largest trial testing the model. This comes nearly a century after industrialist Henry Ford championed the switch from the six to the five-day week that many employers use today. Yet most knowledge workers, who engage in abstractions and novel situations, are still following a schedule intended to maximize productivity on assembly lines.
Researchers continually provide evidence that the traditional 40-hour, five-day week results in diminishing returns, making people more fatigued and less productive and creative. But the reason many employers are considering a shorter week has more to do with recruiting and retaining talent in response to the pandemic and subsequent Great Resignation.
“This would’ve been a difficult sell pre-COVID — it would’ve struck a lot of people as pie-in-the-sky, and not feasible for companies,” said Juliet Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College who serves on the academic board of the nonprofit 4DWG that supports the four-day week. “But the pandemic created such levels of stress and burnout, and led many employees to say, ‘I want to live my life differently,’ and this created more of a space for reimagining work — and, as part of that, the four-day week.”
Even if companies are not convinced by the increases in output by having their workers log fewer hours, many employers are at least considering such measures as a job perk, especially for organizations that can’t offer higher salaries or an option for remote work.
But what about higher education?
An estimated dozens of colleges and universities have adopted four-day weeks, either for class schedules or days that individual staff members report. Neither of the following types of four-day schedules means campuses are closing their offices an extra day:
Type One: Flexible Hours for Staff
Some institutions have experimented with four-day weeks for staff, especially in the summer months, by having them work an extra two hours each day they come in. Even fewer have reduced staff members’ hours.
Saint Paul University is one of the first institutions in Canada to pilot a four-day workweek with administrative staff working 32 hours per week. Offices are still open five days per week, but staff members are working four days and coordinating their schedules with supervisors so everyone is not taking off the same day each week. Instead of having a bank of paid leave days to use, employees have one day per week to take off if they don’t already use it as a sick day or for bereavement.
“People are reporting that they feel more productive, more rested, and there’s better work-life balance,” said Carole Audet, associate vice rector for talent, diversity, and culture. “There’s been a shift in the culture. People feel invested in their job, and they’re going to be giving their 110% because they know that there’s a day coming along during the week where they’ll be able to unwind.”
According to Audet, departments have rethought operations during the pilot program, becoming more efficient and adaptable. They’ve made improvements such as automating processes or eliminating certain tasks to create more capacity and greater focus.
Condensing work corrects for Parkinson’s law, in which work expands to fill the time available for its completion. For example, meetings that are scheduled for an hour typically last 60 minutes, even if the objective could be achieved in 30 minutes. Organizations are finding that the same work — and even more, better quality work — can be done by employees in 32 hours instead of 40, without creating more stress and overwhelm.
At the very least, the 32-hour week provides staff more flexibility with their schedules similar to professors, who maneuver their personal lives around classes and office hours instead of the rigid expanse of an institution’s business hours. Some professors might even teach all their classes two or three days per week. That’s not to say faculty work fewer hours, but it gives them what modern workers desire most: to feel in control of their schedules.
Employers are willing to give workers more control if they are getting something in return. It’s cow psychology: happy cows produce more milk. But in higher education, happy students matter more than happy employees. They both need to be optimized to produce better student outcomes, but one’s well-being can come at the expense of the other.
Students need access to classes, advising, and other services, especially when they are often working jobs four or five days a week themselves.
Type Two: No Friday Classes
Some institutions have adopted a four-day instructional week to boost enrollment and better serve students’ interests. Pfeiffer University in North Carolina is piloting a scheduling model next fall in which there will be no Friday classes. Named “Falcon Fridays” for the school mascot, the fifth day of the week will be dedicated to enrichment outside the classroom: internships, research projects, athletics, field trips, community service, and other events.
“It’s not a true four-day week where people go home on Thursday and don’t come back until Monday,” said Mark McCallum, a professor of biology at Pfeiffer who is also the school’s director of academic initiatives. “We’re trying to create opportunities for students that don’t interfere with the class schedule. It’s not a day off, but a day of exploration.”
Staff will still report on Fridays, and faculty are expected to be available for their students. The challenge, according to McCallum, has been compressing class schedules and having enough classrooms available.
“We’re going to have a few more faculty with eight o’clock classes or teaching in the afternoons, but it is easier for smaller institutions,” McCallum said. “We’re not offering 2,000 classes. We only offer a couple hundred classes.”
The University of Akron, with nearly 15,000 students, switched to a four-day instructional week in 2019 but reverted back after one semester. A university official said they phased their “Five-Star Friday” model out because students had difficulty balancing their schedules in and out of the classroom with classes condensed from Monday through Thursday. It’s also worth noting that the president who implemented it at Akron, Matthew J. Wilson, had since left and went on to start “Gold Fridays” at his next institution, Missouri Western State.
Three Types of Spaces
The four-day schedule may sound like a strategy used by a few small, ambitious schools that have the classroom space. There’s more to consider, according to Mitch Holder, dean of instruction at North Central Missouri College, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the topic of community college employee perceptions of the four-day schedule.
There’s also mind space and geographic space to consider.
“It really comes down to the content area,” Holder said. “In math and science courses, the credit-hour load and contact hours are typically higher and possibly not feasible for Monday through Thursday. Also, having more frequent interactions from faculty helps with student success. Math is a subject where the frequency helps students retain that learning, and the bigger the gap (between classes) can make it more challenging. I’ve also heard concerns from (participants in) my study for neurodivergent students and the ability for them to focus during longer class periods.”
On the other hand, a four-day schedule might be a preferred option depending on the location of the school, especially community colleges in rural areas.
“There are a lot of students who are commuting to campus for upwards of 30 minutes to an hour one way,” Holder said. “Being able to reduce the number of times that the student is coming to campus can be a positive.
“The four-day schedule is not going to be a fit for every institution, but for some institutions that need to reconsider their strategies, maybe concerning trends with their enrollment, then it can reposition them (…) and knock down the barriers to make higher education more accessible to the students that need us.”
Final Four-Thought
The four-day week can work for some institutions. And if Fridays eventually become part of the traditional weekend across most sectors, institutions would have to adapt to societal norms. But don’t look for higher education to be among the first industries to collectively move to a four-day schedule.
Although most colleges and universities have the shared governance structures in place to have input on progressive labor policies such as the four-day workweek, they must first accommodate students and the people they serve.
“I don’t know that higher education is necessarily the leader in this,” Holder said. “(They need to be) reactive to the environment. For any higher education institution, your role is to be a partner to the industry and to the community that you serve. (It’s about) making sure that you’re consistent and able to deliver your campus services to the best of your ability.”
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