Say ‘So Long’ To The Five-Day Working Week

Last month, Workforce Management, a newsletter for human resources professionals, published an article with the rather startling headline “Gas Price Crisis Could Revolutionize U.S. Workplace.”

The story featured an even more striking quote from the CEO of a Chicago outplacement firm who argued that telecommuting, four-day weeks and other changes to our jobs will dismantle the idea of work as a place you clock in and out of at any particular time. “The idea of a set workday or a five-day workweek doesn’t make sense,” he said.

Cost Concerns

Of course it’s not the first time anyone’s announced the death of employment-as-we-know-it. Back in the mid-1990s, a study by the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources and the Massachusetts Highway Department found that telecommuters were at least as productive as their office-bound counterparts, happier and more dedicated to their employers. Still, there was no mass drive to get workers out of their khakis and into pajamas.

But these days, people from several area staffing firms say things may be different. With $4-a-gallon gas prices, they say, many employees are rejecting jobs that would require long commutes every day, and companies are scrambling to come up with alternatives.

“I feel we’re getting to the point where it’s really kind of breaking the bank for people,” said Chris Stewart, an account manager at CoWorx Staffing Services LLC in Marlborough. “I think we’ll see a big change.”

He said two manufacturers that his company finds workers for have switched to four-day, 40-hour work weeks. Stewart said most employees he works with like the schedule, both because they can save on gas and because they get to enjoy three-day weekends.

Some jobs in high-tech fields are changing in even more radical ways, says Bill Katter, president of Radius Staffing Resources, a Southborough firm specializing in fields like accounting, IT and financial services. Katter said employers don’t typically advertise their jobs as telecommuting positions, but they’re often willing to consider the idea, especially for project-based jobs that involve little interaction with others.

“When clients are calling and asking about it, we’re getting very favorable responses,” he said.

And employees are more likely than they once were to make those demands, or to simply refuse to take a job if it requires a long commute, the staffing agencies say.

Good-Bye Long Commutes

Mark Carlson, senior vice president of The Suburban Group in Westborough, said most of the temp jobs his agency fills demand a warm body in the office. But he’s noticed some big changes in how far employees are willing to drive. Years ago, he said, people would travel 45 minutes for a $10-an-hour job.

“Today I think we’re down to like 17 minutes,” he said.

Katter said that pattern holds in higher paid jobs as well, meaning that offering telecommuting options gives employers a much larger talent pool to draw from.

Meanwhile, some relatively low-paying jobs, such as answering phones at call centers, mesh perfectly with telecommuting, according to Paul Bordonaro, vice president and regional manager for Kelly Services’ Boston area, which includes Worcester and MetroWest.

“That’s a very popular work-from-home solution because you just need the technology and the phone line,” he said.

Another place the staffing agency reps say they’ve seen telecommuting work well is in their own offices. Because recruiters have to communicate with clients at odd hours, they often end up working from home at least some of the time. Katter said he likes to have staff spend a fair amount of time on site to build camaraderie among the team, but when it comes to day-to-day work, it makes little difference where an employee is sitting. Even keeping track of employers’ productivity depends on software that tracks their calls and conversations.

“If the supervisor was sitting at the next desk he would still go to his computer to find the answer,” Katter said.