Many publishing companies allow employees to leave early on Fridays during the summer months–what do you think about the practice?
Last month we published a short piece called “Why Publishing Needs Summer Fridays.” Below, we’ve rounded up three reader responses about why publishing might not need summer Fridays.
1. One anonymous reader wrote: “I’m one of those publishing people who lost her job recently, and I would gladly work on Fridays if I had an office to go to.”
2. Another reader wrote: “I work at a large publishing company as a staff sales manager. We provide Summer Fridays to our staff, and I have been against it from the start. As our company has laid off more and more people, the work doesn’t go away: less time to perform more tasks. Next, the time has to be made up during the week, so you actually work longer hours the other days of the week. But, the biggest point about not wanting Summer Fridays is . . . of all the benefits to give employees, that is the weakest. More vacation time throughout the year and more company holidays are a lot more rewarding for employees. In our current high stress, high workload environment, paid time off is precious, and promoting summer hours kind of lets corporate off the hook. Remember that many Americans don’t even take vacation because their work load doesn’t allow for it. If we have to be more compressed: less staff, more responsibilities, then extending benefits like vacation offer superior value for mental & physical health, and actually supports job focus. Publishing needs to recognize how fiscal compression has negatively impacted staff and operations, and needs to support active employee wellness benefits.”
3. Marley Magaziner wrote: “Real vacation time, flex time, additional benefits like discounted gym memberships would all go further in the employee-satisfaction area, IMO. I am one of those publishing professionals who wont take time off if there’s work to be done…and there’s always work to be done. I barely went to BEA because I needed to be in the office. Many companies have offices worldwide so it’s not productive or fair to have folks in New York who think they’re special taking off early on Friday afternoons and leaving everyone else hanging. If we really wanted to improve working conditions for office workers (who already have it pretty good, comparatively) we could add in additional benefits or additional vacation time. Suggesting that everyone take that time on a Friday in the summer, while it seems nice, isn’t really a benefit for most people.”