We are thinking of implementing/permitting 9-80 flex schedules here, but we have a few employees who's job functions require them to be here 5 days a week. The group is a mixture of exempt and non-exempt employees.

Has anyone dealt with this before? While it would be nice to offer this benefit to the employees, we also want to keep things fair and equitable to those who cant take advantage of it.

I worked at a place with 9/80 in a group that did not have the ability to follow the 9/80 schedule.

The solution was to allow employees that couldn't go 9/80 to have one "flex" day per month. That is, if you worked 8 additional hours some time during the month, you could schedule one day off. The trick to making that work is to have a viable system for logging extra hours worked and the flex day. Otherwise, the actual use of the system ends up on a pure case-by-case basis, gets abused, etc.

You also have to consider how to overcome 1/2 the company being off at the same time.

My former company tried to implement it where you could only take off every other Friday (half the company one Friday and the other half the next Friday) as part of the 9/80 but then quickly had to reverse it and allow Mondays...it ended up being a pain, because on any given Friday or Monday 1/4 of the company was out and that led to things just having to wait.

I personally would have preferred having the ability to set my day off at the beginning. I probably would have chosen something like Wednesday to break up every other week.

Another thing to consider is how to handle vacation requests. #1 - they have to ask off for 9 hours per day now and #2 - what happens if they ask off for a day that their counterpart is already off as part of the 9/80. My old company would deny it most of the time which meant you couldn't really take vacation time unless it was Tues-Thurs.

It became a giant pain and they cancelled it as soon as the new year hit.

Why are you thinking of doing this in the first place?

Ours is a small group in a smallish public agency. Flex scheduling is a nice added benefit for the non-exempt positions to help compete with positions in private organizations.

Some groups in our department are already on flex schedules (maintenance crews do 4-10s, etc). A few folks in our group have requested it, but we just have a couple of positions that require a typical 5 day work week for their job functions. These positions are exempt and paid overtime when they work over 40 hours/week. Was just curious if others had offered flex schedules to some and how it worked out with employees.

I've worked in traditional 5/40, the 9/80 schedule, and the 1/2 day Fridays.

My favorite is obviously 9/80 because it essentially amounts to 25 extra days of vacation, but the 1/2 Fridays isn't far behind and seems to make the most sense form the employer side of things.

First off very few people in the office leave right at 5 anyways so having to stay until 6 pm Mon-Thurs is not a big deal. Second, between people slipping out early or taking PTO or whatever not much work gets done in the office Friday afternoons anyways so leaving at noon every Friday isn't that big of a deal. It also makes a nice time slot to get misc overheads tasks completed on Friday mornings and turns Monday mornings into a productive time slot.

It just makes a lot of sense to me to spread the Friday afternoon out with an extra hour Mon-Thurs then close shop at noon every Friday. Seems like you get more productivity that way. Granted there are instances when staying past 12 is necessary, but I think the 1/2 Fridays works well for both employee and employer.

9/80s are great, we're a small team and the whole team is out on the same Friday.

This is the direction that most companies are going. Increased flexibility/flex hours/work-life balance.

Companies like mine give the dream triple of 9/80, flex hours (not a rigid 7:30-5:30) and work from home time

I worked at a place that gave the 9/80 day off on Fridays and Mondays. That meant you could only hold a project meeting Tues-Thurs, which of course jammed up the conference rooms.

As an employer, I would ask myself if the extra hour from 5-6pm would be as productive as the hours from 8am-Noon on a Friday. My guess is probably not. It does allow employees to schedule a lot of their doctor appointments, etc on their 9/80, but what do you do with sick time? Decrease it?

youandwhosearmy said:

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We are thinking of implementing/permitting 9-80 flex schedules here, but we have a few employees who's job functions require them to be here 5 days a week. The group is a mixture of exempt and non-exempt employees.

Has anyone dealt with this before? While it would be nice to offer this benefit to the employees, we also want to keep things fair and equitable to those who cant take advantage of it.

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Ask 'why' you're considering a 9/80 work schedule. It comes down to staying competitive and retaining talent. If you can't offer that benefit to some groups, what benefit can you offer them? Work from home? More compensation? More vacation days outright?

The company I work for only has two groups that get 9/80s. Those groups are employees at far flung locations that historically have trouble retaining talent, and very experienced technical folks in a group that constantly gets picked off by a different set of competitors than the rest of the company.

I cannot add any personal experience with it given that I have honestly never heard about 9/80 before today. I can say that it sounds like a bit of a scheduling and/or HR nightmare but that may just be my experience working with companies that consider work-life balance a selfish employee desire or that those companies had offerings so service-centric that they always required people to be available even more than 10 days a pay period.

Good luck with whichever you choose.

When I started my company, we had 9/80s in some departments where others had work from home every other Friday or Monday. Eventually, we all went to WFH one day every other week (which day is left up to the department manager). The 9/80s were great but they didn't work for every department due to responsibilities. We also agreed to the Friday only being if business needs weren't there, which means if it's your Friday and you had a meeting you had to be at (customer/supplier, etc), you were here. There were a few Friday's I'd come to the office for a meeting, but I'd leave right after and go about my business. Your employees need to be responsible enough to understand that business needs trump everything.

You know how your Fridays are and whether or not you think it would work. Be aware thougt, that the Fridays people are in the office, they should leave an hour earlier (only work an 8 hour day) because they'd be at 81 hours if they stayed their whole day. Also, if vacation is taken by the hour rather than the day, a scheduled day off would be 9 hours as opposed to 8, unless they take off on a Friday they're scheduled to be in the office.

I've only worked a 9/80 schedule, except for when I was rotating. It seems almost all of Houston works a 9/80 schedule.

I've never done a 9/80. My favorite was 12 hr 4 on - 4 off. Long weekends half the year, and 12 days off for a week of vacation.

One of the perks at a public agency, is the hours are (typically) very good. During construction season, things pick up and people put in extra hours. Some get overtime with that, while others just have to suck it up.

The 9-80 is another perk for the straight salary folks who end up working extra hours with no compensation. They at least have the chance for some extra time off the rest of the year. I realize thats par for the course in other industries, but public pay isnt as high as the private side but benefits and work/life balance make up for it.

Most of the non-salary people are currently on 4-10's as it both gives additional time off and makes more sense with some of the work they do which requires longer shifts.

I think the half day Fridays may be a good option for some of those who need to be here 5 days a week for their job duties, if they even want to do the flex schedule at all.

I currently have 9/80's. It's an awesome perk and holds pretty significant value as a benefit. It's pretty huge to load up your weekend chores for every other Friday and no longer have that crap consume your weekends. For example, on my Friday's off I wake up, get my work out in, wash my wife and my cars, then do stuff around the house. Last 9/80 I power washed the driveway, patio, and house. This 9/80 I'm going to re-grout and seal a bathroom.

To the complication of 9/80's, they can be as complicated or simple as you make them. They were fairly complicated in the past at my company. To the point they put them on hold, reassessed, did manager training, and re-implemented them.

They're pretty straight forward now. Correct, not every business unit can have them, kind of is what it is. Those that can, it's up to the manager to allow the benefit and to manage it. You can only use them on Fridays, no swapping for Mondays, Thursdays, etc. It's much easier to manage just Friday, when the office is generally slower anyways. Becomes a lot more of a pain to the rest of the company when you can't hold meetings on Mondays, etc. Also more difficult to manage coverage when days are constantly changing.

If your scheduled 9/80 falls on a holiday, for example Thanksgiving, you basically just lose it. No, you can't take Wednesday off. See above, just adds to the complication.

The manager splits the 9/80's evenly. So half my team is in every Friday. I have a counterpart I keep up to speed on any projects/questions that may come up. You also have to be available on your 9/80. I don't stay logged on my computer but I have my phone with me and access to my computer so I can log on and answer any questions quickly. If you're going out of the country, won't have access to internet, etc., you have to take a vacation day, you can't just use your 9/80.

If you have a meeting, project, etc., you have to come into the office. It may just be for an hour, but come in for the meeting. We aren't giving other business segments reason to gripe about our 9/80's.

If your 9/80's are mismanaged, you aren't responsive, etc., your team loses them. It's as simple as that.

As for the employees, we all greatly value them so will do whatever we need to keep them, i.e. everyone on my team goes above and beyond to answer questions in a timely manner (w/in minutes) when they are off on a 9/80. For the business units we work with that don't have 9/80's, we don't really hear or see any grief from them anymore. They know they can still count on us to get our work done. They also get to the office before me and leave after me.

TexDill15 said:

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Tree Hugger said:

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I've noticed a lot of younger applicants are asking for things like this. I interviewed one person for an entry-level position a few months back that took it to the extreme though. I opened the interview with the usual overview of the company and the asked if she had any questions about the company as a whole before we started discussing the duties of the position she applied for.

She started by asking about a 9-80 schedule and I responded that we have some people that work on that schedule but it doesn't necessarily work for every position but it can always be an option down the road. She then asked about working from home and I responded similarly that some people do that, but it isn't always the best fit for every situation but it always something that can be evaluated further down the road after a person has been on the job for a while.

She responded that she couldn't possibly consider accepting an offer from us unless the 9-80 was an option from day 1 and that she would need to work from home 2-3 days per week because going from not working to having to go into the office 5 days a week would be too much of a sudden change for her. (Backstory here: She finished her undergrad degree and then took a two year victory lap for travel and "self discovery"). She also mentioned that she would NOT work in a cubicle and would have to have a proper office with a door.

Obviously I was pretty soured on this person by now and I told her that the 9-80 and work from home options are only available AFTER a person has proven themselves on the job and IF they were proven to be capable doing their job with an alternate schedule. To turn it back to how she worded things, I added that I couldn't possibly consider making her a job offer unless she was capable of accepting these very basic and very reasonable requirements.

After we stared at each other in silence for a few moments I asked if she was interested in continuing the interview, she replied with a very sassy "definitely not."

I need to go back and find her name and look her up on LinkedIn to see if anyone aside from Starbucks has been dumb enough to hire her.

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Is this a real story?? I hate my generation.

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I'm not from this generation, but I do work in a field where many companies NEED to offer these types of benefits if they are going to attract the best talent. I'm not justifying this particular person, but she won't be able to keep that attitude unless she's got some highly desired skills.

IrishTxAggie said:

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The difference is attracting best talent vs. a stuck up little nitwit with no work experience and zero skins on the wall

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Yeah I agree

Our business is on a 9/80 schedule (both manufacturing & administrative). When we first began the system, we tried to balance out the two Fridays (with exception to production), but it was too difficult to make work. So now everyone is on the same 9/80 schedule, and we close the building on the off Friday. We have a few support folks that are on call for customer issues (they get comp time for that), but otherwise, the only expectation is that you monitor e-mails just in case something comes up. It has worked very well.

TexDill15 said:

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Tree Hugger said:

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I've noticed a lot of younger applicants are asking for things like this. I interviewed one person for an entry-level position a few months back that took it to the extreme though. I opened the interview with the usual overview of the company and the asked if she had any questions about the company as a whole before we started discussing the duties of the position she applied for.

She started by asking about a 9-80 schedule and I responded that we have some people that work on that schedule but it doesn't necessarily work for every position but it can always be an option down the road. She then asked about working from home and I responded similarly that some people do that, but it isn't always the best fit for every situation but it always something that can be evaluated further down the road after a person has been on the job for a while.

She responded that she couldn't possibly consider accepting an offer from us unless the 9-80 was an option from day 1 and that she would need to work from home 2-3 days per week because going from not working to having to go into the office 5 days a week would be too much of a sudden change for her. (Backstory here: She finished her undergrad degree and then took a two year victory lap for travel and "self discovery"). She also mentioned that she would NOT work in a cubicle and would have to have a proper office with a door.

Obviously I was pretty soured on this person by now and I told her that the 9-80 and work from home options are only available AFTER a person has proven themselves on the job and IF they were proven to be capable doing their job with an alternate schedule. To turn it back to how she worded things, I added that I couldn't possibly consider making her a job offer unless she was capable of accepting these very basic and very reasonable requirements.

After we stared at each other in silence for a few moments I asked if she was interested in continuing the interview, she replied with a very sassy "definitely not."

I need to go back and find her name and look her up on LinkedIn to see if anyone aside from Starbucks has been dumb enough to hire her.

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Is this a real story?? I hate my generation.

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Yep, it happened.

She is probably comparing herself to her friends that have been in the workforce for a couple years and have earned those perks while she was off "finding herself". And now suddenly thinks that's what she should be getting day 1.

Anybody working the 9/80 have anything bad to say about it, or is it universally accepted as a good perk?

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Anybody working the 9/80 have anything bad to say about it, or is it universally accepted as a good perk?

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I work 9/80 and the only bad thing I will say is if you live an hour commuting time away from work it makes for some long days being gone 11+ hours. Especially in the winter when you won't see the sun if your office has no windows like mine.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Anybody working the 9/80 have anything bad to say about it, or is it universally accepted as a good perk?

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Office culture for 9/80 locations is different than the rest of the offices. Very few people take a lunch break because if you eat at your desk you can count that hour towards your nine hours. If you view lunchtime socialization as a break your job that can be a change in pace.

Its a minor complaint, but you made me dig for something bad. Tex's comment is spot on about the commute.

Even with the 9/80 locations there is a lot of schedule shifting where people will work from 7:00-4:00 with no lunch break to try to catch some traffic relief. I've know of employees that work an even more shifted schedule to 6:00-3:00AM, but that is usually for non-exempt employees.

Tree Hugger said:

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Tell us more. What type of role was this for and how did she make it to an in person interview?

Just curious what your company's PTO policy is too?

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Anybody working the 9/80 have anything bad to say about it, or is it universally accepted as a good perk?

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It had a tendency to cause drama at a former job. Some folks started treating Thursday's like Friday and would cut out early. Folks who came in at 8:30 would get butthurt about those who came in at 6 and left before 4. Management always threatened to switch back to 5/8. Not surprisingly most of the drama magically disappeared after a big layoff of poor performers.

The one place that had zero drama was the production field office I worked at for a couple of years. We had 9/80s with set hours of 6:30-4. Everybody came in and left at the same time with zero issues. Corporate offices tended to have more busy bodies who would stir up trouble. Overall, it's a great perk and I miss the schedule. I work straight days now and really don't feel anymore productive. Friday's are a complete waste to try and get teams together for meetings. Those who are around tend to check out mentally after lunch anyway so it often feels like a wasted day.

1/2 day Fridays is probably the most productive corporate schedule out there, in my opinion. It's more representative of typical office patterns with busy Monday-Thursdays and a light Friday to catch up on emails and paperwork.

I always assumed all of Houston worked a 9/80.

Also I agree on the half day Friday. I end up doing that anyway even though my "official" schedule is a 9/80.

Why is this apparently a perception? I've worked in houston since graduation and this is my first job with 9/80's. I don't know many people with them either, less than a handful of people....