Longer evenings, warmer temperatures, sunnier days. There’s definitely a reason summer is the most anticipated season.
Besides generally nicer weather, one of the things many workers look forward to is a perk that only comes at this time of year – summer-working hours.
Typically summer working hours come in the form of employers letting staff leave early on a Friday afternoon – so they can start the weekend off early, and make it last a bit longer. Limited to the summer months, when temperatures are more welcoming, it’s a benefit that for obvious reasons is highly coveted.
Employers appear to have realized this – with recent data from Gartner finding it’s a perk that’s grown in recent years.
In fact, 2019, the majority (55%) of organizations in North America were offering their employees “Summer Fridays”. This was a 9% increase over 2018, and a 43% increase from the number of organizations globally that had similar benefits back in 2012.
But something seems to have changed. This year, Gartner has researched summer Friday prevalence again, and found a significant change.
In a poll of more than 1,100 organizations – only 11% said they would be offering staff Summer Fridays this year – a huge decline in just five short years.
So what exactly is going on?
“While the sample organizations are different, and might explain some of the differences, it can’t explain this dramatic fall, says Caitlin Duffy, senior director in the Gartner HR practice.
She adds: “My hypothesis is that because organizations have had to adopt flexibility as a response to Covid-19 and its aftermath, they probably feel that they give staff enough flexibility, and so there’s no need for additional Summer Friday flexibility.”
She continues: “Our research finds 31% now offer flexible work hours, and a further 15% now offer a 4.5 day work-week. While both these benefits may not necessarily be taken on a Friday, they are nevertheless there, and so could be seen by employers as sufficient, without the need for this further summer perk.”
This obvious question this provokes is whether post-Covid flexibility could spell the end of Summer Fridays for good – and whether this is a good thing, given there’s something special, one feels about time off just during summer months:
“It’s definitely the case that this summery-ness of this, is what makes this special – that it’s a seasonal perk to be looked forward to,” accepts Duffy.
She adds: “It would be a pity for it to go completely, and simply get absorbed into normal flexibility. While Summer Fridays have been around for a while, perhaps they’re not ‘tradition’ enough, and employers want to take them away before they start to be part of what they see as the slide to a four-day week.”
Duffy says: “Businesses have a big concern about four-day weeks, because they see it as having a big impact on productivity – even though data doesn’t actually stack up about this.”
According to Duffy, while Summer Fridays are certainly starting to become endangered, they won’t become extinct altogether, and will likely remain “an officer on the table.
“For those that do offer it, it could become a competitive advantage, if there aren’t many others doing it,” she adds. “We’ve got to remember that the labor force does still favor flexibility, and companies that offer it would now stand out.”
Perhaps the biggest finding of Gartner’s latest Summer Fridays research, is the fact a worrying 32% of organizations it polled ‘don’t’ offer any flexibility around work hours.
“These companies really do need to consider the benefits that this provides, rather than not offering it at all,” says Duffy.
