4-day week a response to staff shortage

“One size fits none. So forced flexibility isn’t going to work anywhere,”Kate Lister, president of the consulting firm Global Workplace Analytics, said in a Stateline.org article.

Bienvenue said she began experimenting with the four-day week in February because —like many businesses in the Upper Valley — Houseal was struggling to find qualified employees to meet a strong demand for their services. The New Hampshire unemployment rate just hit a 40-year low at 1.9%. Vermont’s rate is a little higher at 2.1%. The four-day week proved to be a selling point for one new hire for Houseal.

“Our lead guy, which was a great hire, said he came on with us because of the four-day work week,” Bienvenue said.

The biggest challenge for Houseal has been scheduling projects, Bienvenue said.

“These projects have lots of moving parts, so we need to coordinate ever ything,”she said, adding that in one instance they needed their plumber to work on a Friday so the customer would not go all weekend without a functional kitchen sink.

Customers don’t seem to mind having their projects done during four- instead of five-day weeks. One client told Bienvenue he was glad not to have people he really didn’t know in his house on Fridays, Bienvenue said.

“That has been a bonus for us,” Bienvenue said.

While the four-day week may never become standard, remote work and flexible work schedules have become more common in the wake of COVID-19.

“The pandemic has perhaps shifted employers’views on more flexible work arrangements,”Smith said. “That has been a pretty big shift as employers see employees can be productive outside of the workplace and I think that change in the workplace will remain with us.”

Brian Gottlob, director of the Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau at the New Hampshire Department of Labor, has seen that shift in that department’s job postings.

“The percentage of postings noting remote work has really jumped, beginning last summer,”Gottlob said. “I think it is an indication that

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