Lorna

If your business is really able to function with everyone off on Friday afternoons then it is an excellent idea. Have you considered extending it beyond the summer or is it that July and August are quieter months for your organisation?

Have you considered part-time employees? Would you envisage doing something similar - i.e. 100% pay for 90% of hours. This very recent thread touches on this also.

community.cipd.co.uk/.../work-from-home---part-timers

Thats a really great idea. What would you do with any part timers that say don't work a friday? Would you let them take Thursday afternoon instead?

Hi Lorna, while I happily endorse feedback from Robert and Kelly I would also sound a voice of caution as my current employer adopted a similar approach during the pandemic. A number of Fridays were designated as wellbeing days whereby all employees could take the day off without any impact to their annual leave. While I wholeheartedly welcomed this initiative it did also cause some stress to some individuals who felt it affected their ability to keep on top of their workload, and some even felt compelled to working at the weekend to compensate. That said, I think the flaw here was devoting an entire day as opposed to the half day in your post. So yes, I am largely in agreement with the proposal. I would also agree with considering the part time colleagues and how that would be managed especially if they would need to work at times when colleagues are potentially unavailable.

In reply to Kelly Hodkinson:

Thanks Kelly - to be fair we would need to something. A solution would be to give them the pro rata time back to take at an agreed time..

In reply to Lorna:

thank you Kelly for raising a very useful point.