The City of Melville will be testing out a 4-day work week with its employees for one year.
The trial will be optional and while employees will work longer shifts, they will get 3-days off.
“Due to longer daily shifts, our offices would be able to be open an additional between 5 and 7.5 hours a week to residents,” noted Acting City Manager Chris Bruce, adding this would also address a frequent criticism of accessibility.
“We’re just structuring them differently. By rotating our staff coverage we can, again, increase those hours of service to the public while at the same time covering the same amount of days, so you won’t see offices necessarily closed on a Friday or closed a Monday.”
Bruce says the short work week would address increased turnover the City has experienced over the past year, which led to reduced cross-over training and knowledge gaps.
“And we could utilize the first 6 months of the implementation to ensure that a number of members are cross trained so that when we do have turnover, we aren’t left with a gap in skill set and we aren’t left with a gap in service provision to our community.” he added.
In Bruce’s report to council, only a few communities in Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have tried the short work week. He noted studies that showed 78 percent of employees with a compressed work week were more happy and less stressed, while 63 percent of businesses found it easier to retract and retain employees.
Melville City Council gave the go-ahead, but a letter-of-understanding with the union representing City employees needs to acquired first before selecting a start date.
