Energy costs drive move toward 4-day workweek in La.

New Orleans CityBusiness, Jul 28, 2008 by Emilie Bahr

Weekends this summer start Thursday afternoon for students and most faculty at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond.

Since June 23, all but a select few business and academic offices have been closed Fridays, remaining open one hour earlier and later Monday through Thursday to make up the difference.

"I haven't heard any complaints," university spokesman Rene Abadie said of the compressed schedule. For most, he said, the longer hours required four days a week are a meager price to pay for a long weekend and money saved by dropping a day's commute.

Abadie said a number of day camps and child care centers have extended hours to accommodate university employees and students with children. From his experience, getting up an hour earlier was only tough for the first few days of the change.

"Most of the people I've talked to enjoy it," he said. "It's really not a big hardship."

The four-day week that runs through Aug. 8 at SLU is technically designed to ease student and faculty commuting costs, though the move is also expected to save the university money on energy bills. Southeastern projects it will save $85,000 this summer by turning off the lights and air conditioning at most campus buildings on Fridays, Abadie said.

On-campus housing at Southeastern is limited to about 2,400 spots. Many of the university's roughly 15,000 students drive in from surrounding communities that often are 30 miles away or farther, Abadie said. Much of Southeastern's faculty and staff are in the same boat.

The idea of the four-day workweek, which first gained ground during the oil crunch of the late 1970s, is starting to catch on again nationwide in these days of $4 gasoline.

Next month, thousands of Utah state employees will switch to four- day weeks. Birmingham, Ala., adopted a similar policy for city workers in May.

The Society for Human Resource Management said a May poll of its members revealed 26 percent of respondents had opted for compressed workweeks and other flexible schedule options to help ease the burden of rising fuel costs for employees. Another 4 percent were considering making the switch.

Southeastern is the first academic institution in the New Orleans area to implement a four-day week in response to the recent run-up in energy costs, and other employers say they are considering following suit.

"That's been on people's minds," said Molly Jahncke, spokeswoman for Delgado Community College, noting the high rate of commuters among students and faculty members.

Suzanne Parsons Stymiest, a spokeswoman for St. Tammany Parish government, said officials are discussing schedule changes among other options to reduce energy costs.

James Ross, a spokesman for the city of New Orleans, said the city is "researching all options" but that the post-Katrina recovery likely would make a four-day week impractical.

"Offices that serve the public, such as planning, revenue and safety and permits, need to be open as many hours as possible to allow maximum access for those working to rebuild their homes and businesses," Ross said.

New Orleans Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Sandra Gunner, unaware of any chamber members implementing such practices, said four-day workweeks and other flexible schedule and work-from-home options make sense, helping to save on energy costs while maybe even bolstering retention rates.

"I would encourage it," Gunner said. "We are in the new age of virtual offices and that certainly is another way to create employee loyalty and provide a cost-effective benefit."

Southeastern will return to a five-day schedule at the start of the fall semester Aug. 20 since the fall class schedule had been set before the adoption of a four-day week this summer, Abadie said. But officials say there is serious consideration being paid to reverting back to the four-day week in the spring based in part on the success of this summer's experiment.

One energy-saving measure SLU implemented this summer will extend into the fall: an online carpool matching system.

Physics professor David Norwood, who commutes to Hammond from Baton Rouge, is among those taking advantage. He's also planning to trade his pickup for a small, fuel-efficient car.

"I'm convinced this is only going to get worse," Norwood said of rising energy costs.