Dear Bob ...How do you feel about compressed work weeks? As an employee I love working 4x10s. But as an IT manager it's a real headache. I work as an IT supervisor for a large, 24x7 service organization. Its staff work compressed work weeks, 4x10s starting on various days of the week.Most of my IT staff prefers to work 4x10s as well. This practice was well established before I got here and even though it's stres Dear Bob …How do you feel about compressed work weeks? As an employee I love working 4x10s. But as an IT manager it’s a real headache. I work as an IT supervisor for a large, 24×7 service organization. Its staff work compressed work weeks, 4x10s starting on various days of the week.Most of my IT staff prefers to work 4x10s as well. This practice was well established before I got here and even though it’s stressed that having an RDO (regular day off) during the week (Friday or Monday) is a privilege, not a right, it’s become blasphemous for managers to expect them to come in on their RDO for whatever reason, even if it’s just for a one hour meeting to tackle a problem. So if I have a project team that needs to meet, I’m pretty much restricted to meeting only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I’ve seen time and again where we I’ve had to put off meeting with customers, or working an issue for up to 5 days until I have my entire IT staff available. On Fridays and Mondays I’m basically at half staff. We’re swamped with work and with severe cash problems we can’t get our open positions filled, let alone get new positions created. I’ve been slowly pushing my own IT team to see the benefits (from the customer’s perspective) of working 5x8s as opposed to 4x10s, but it’s hard going. Especially when I get flak from other IT supervisors who think it’s such a great perk for their folks that they’d never think of “doing that to them”. I’m retired military and I feel my perspective must be too jaded because I try to satisfy the needs of the department first, then the work units, then the individual. And that rubs some folks the wrong way. What’s your thought on something like this where budgets are getting very tight and we’re constantly expected to “do more with less”, yet folks aren’t willing to give an inch? – FrustratedDear Frustrated … It (of course!) depends on a number of specifics.A point to get out first: Times are tight, which likely means everyone has more work without getting more pay or support. A minor perk like a 4×10 work week is worth preserving under these circumstances. You need everything you can get in the way of providing a great work environment in order to prevent defections.Other thoughts: One big advantage to the 4×10 work week is that employees get two hours a day when their ability to focus on a single task is much improved. This isn’t an advantage to be sneezed at.On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of having everyone scheduled either Monday through Thursday or Tuesday through Friday. As you point out, you end up staffed only 50% Mondays and Fridays.While the employees wouldn’t like this as much, a switch to weekends plus a rotating third day off would fix the coverage problem without causing undue hardship. Employees would get a three-day weekend two weeks out of five. The remaining weeks they’d be off Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Employees on project teams would have identical rotations, so that while you couldn’t get them all together on Friday (perhaps), you’d have four days a week when the whole team can meet.That’s one approach I’d think everyone could at least live with.From your description, I don’t think your issue is the 4×10 work week. It sounds to me that your IT organization suffers from CWS – Clock Watchers Syndrome. I am sympathetic to employees who would prefer to not drive in to work for a one-hour meeting. Teleconferencing in would seem to be an adequate solution to many of these situations. I’m less sympathetic to IT professionals who worry about getting paid for every minute of work, and who spend more time worrying about time off than about getting the job done. CWS wouldn’t go away if you switched everyone to 5×8 schedules. It would just look different: They’d be unwilling to work an extra half-hour if that’s what it took to finish something.So I’d say you should focus less on changing the work week and more on changing attitudes. To answer the question employees will likely ask you as you try to get some traction on this subject (“What’s In It For Me?”) the answer is, employees who do only their jobs and nothing more will get a paycheck and nothing more. Employees who go an extra mile or two – and only employees who go an extra mile or two – will get opportunities in the future.– Bob Technology Industry