TGISF: The Guide to Implementing Summer Fridays In Your Office
If you’ve ever heard your gainfully employed friends talking about summer Fridays and asked yourself what makes Fridays during the summer so special, strap in.
Normally taking place between Memorial Day and Labor Day (yes, not the official summer to all of you seasonal sticklers), Summer Fridays are designed to give employees more flexible Friday schedules. Though the arrangement may vary depending on your workplace - from leaving by happy hour to taking whole Fridays off - it’s the idea that you’ll get to enjoy even more of your summer time.
Whether you’re just now hearing about this (if so, we hope you’re not reading this late on a Friday afternoon at work) or you’ve long dreamed about easy-going Fridays, we’re here to help.
Though many of us may still be adjusting to (or even enjoying!) new work-from-home arrangements, there’s still something refreshing about a formalized understanding of a summer Friday.
Below, we’ve assembled a short guide that’ll get you shouting TGISF every Friday. Here is the Guide to Implementing Summer Fridays.
How To Ask Your Boss For Summer Fridays
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Know Your Business - Before you barge into your boss’s office and demand a more relaxed Friday schedule, think first about how it affects your specific industry. As Indeed shares, flexible Fridays aren’t ideal in food service, entertainment, shipping, or retail, and could end up hurting the company (resulting in Fridays that are *very* free of work). Instead of being fixated on Friday, you might see what room there is to negotiate some other summer flexibility.
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Speak to the Benefits - The benefits of summer Friday to you are clear. How does the company benefit from giving you the time off? Like Max Freedman shares in Business News Daily, this is an opportunity to lower burnout, increase productivity, and boost overall happiness. It can also contribute to lower turnover, and if you work in an industry where other companies do offer summer Fridays, you can argue this helps your boss’s competitive advantage.
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Can’t Fight Facts - A study from Captivate Networks once showed that productivity dropped 20% over the summer months, with some workers being up to 45% more distracted. While you may want to be careful about just outright saying “I’m going to be distracted this summer!’ you can find a way to phrase it that the incentive of having some actual time off would lessen the amount of time wasted in-office.
- Be Flexible About Your Flexibility - Maybe you have in mind that you want to get off every Friday at 12pm sharp. If your boss doesn’t immediately agree, you might end up at a standstill. Instead, take a look at this list Owl Labs assembled about the different kinds of summer Friday arrangements. From working a bit more to earn Friday off to staggering Fridays for different teams, being open to the possibilities could help get you the summer Friday of your dreams.
Having more time off or even just arranging your time in a different way can help you to take more advantage of the longer days and warmer months of summer. Whether you’re looking to unplug, travel, spend time with family, or just be, it’s worth having the conversation with your team and your company to see what kind of arrangement works for everyone.
What about you? Do you get any sort of summer Friday with your work?