The days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer, and summer Fridays are getting closer.

Summer Fridays, a seasonal perk allowing employees to get a jumpstart on their weekends between Memorial Day and Labor Day, are on the rise. The number of job listings mentioning summer Fridays increased by 56% in 2022, ZipRecruiter found. Now, one company is considering making summer Fridays permanent.

Codeword, a communication design agency, launched an open-ended pilot program in January for “soft Fridays,” an initiative through which its roughly 100 employees can, along with their managers, decide if and how they work on Fridays. “Soft Fridays [mean] that we are trusting each other to get our work done and log off when we can on Friday,” Alli Ray, the firm’s chief of staff, told HR Brew.

Ray and her colleague Liv Allen, a VP on Codeword’s PR team, shared how soft Fridays have helped the firm’s employees be more productive and have more flexibility.

Keep reading here.—MC

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Still trying to convince the C-suite that a four-day workweek is the way to go? Maybe this will do the trick…

A four-day workweek may boost employees’ productivity, as well as their physical and mental health, according to the World Economic Forum. Countries around the world have been increasingly embracing the concept, with Germany and South Africa, among others, embarking on four-day workweek trials in recent years.

This is what inspired Bjorn Reynolds, founder and CEO of workforce management company Safeguard Global, to pilot a four-day workweek. In 2022, amid the Great Resignation, Reynolds said he was looking for a way to “appeal to the modern workforce” and its shifting expectations of employers. The Texas-based company was already remote, so he considered what else he could do to retain his 2,000 global employees.

He recalled hearing experts discuss the benefits of a four-day workweek and decided to try it with a group of about 20 engineers based in 26 countries, and a chief product officer based in Scotland. From January to July 2023, these employees had every Friday off. Reynolds shared with HR Brew the results of the trial and the lessons he learned.

Keep reading here.—MC

“You do you.” How often do you hear this phrase at work?

Employees at Exos hear it every Friday. In May 2023, the corporate wellness company launched a six-month, four-day workweek pilot program, during which its roughly 3,000 employees were able to choose how they spent their Fridays. Greg Hill, Exos’ chief people officer, told HR Brew the initiative was dubbed, “You Do You Fridays.”

As more companies implement four-day workweeks, or offer flexibility in how employees work on Fridays, leaders have noticed some surprising benefits, including improved productivity and mental and physical health, according to the World Economic Forum.

Since the Phoenix, Arizona-based company’s culture hinges on wellness, Hill said it felt natural to test out a shortened workweek. “We had tried half-day Fridays, summer Fridays, quiet Fridays,” Hill said, but “in a client/customer service business, it wasn’t working.” So, the company leaned into flexibility. “As long as you’re not interacting with other teammates within Exos, literally do you.”

Keep reading here.—MC

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