Schoolteachers know the syndrome well. Friday rolls around and the kids stop hitting the books and start hitting the road – mentally, anyway. The same is often true of the workplace.
When many of us roll into the office on Friday, there’s either a general goof-off mentality or a fatigue from the rest of the week that makes Friday a “lost day” for many employers.
“Friday does seem to be the Shemp (the fourth of the Three Stooges) of the work week, the day that is hard to take very seriously,” says journalist and best-selling author Bob Rosner.
“It’s interesting. All of the studies say that we work the longest hours on the planet and our productivity is higher than ever, yet we have Friday when it seems like everyone goes right from lunch to happy hour,” Rosner says. “It makes me wonder if the people who do productivity studies are phoning it themselves, because in the trenches it seems like the work week is shrinking, not getting longer.”
Heidi O’Gorman, chief marketing officer at Capital H Group in Chicago, says she believes the quality of work can even be affected by the day of the week.
“I remember someone once telling me that there is a way to tell what day of the week that a car was manufactured and to never buy one made on a Monday or a Friday,” she says. “So there is probably some truth to the matter that Fridays are a ‘lost day’ for some businesses.”
Explanations for lack of productivity on Fridays vary, says O’Gorman, who says employees’ lack of productivity on Fridays often speaks to serious issues in the workplace rather than simple distractions over upcoming weekend plans.
“The best way to improve the Friday attitude is to figure out the extent of the issue at your company. Are people tuning out because morale is low? Are they tuning out because the pace of the work from Monday to Thursday just burns them out? Do they see their supervisors leaving early and assume that it’s therefore OK to check out themselves?” O’Gorman says. “Once you’ve figured out the root of the issue, then you can translate that into some ‘attitude’ adjustment to get the most out of your people.”
The problem is, the Friday slacking has been affecting businesses for so long, it’s hard to extinguish it. “Our sense is that people have always brought their ‘B’ game to work on Fridays,” says Rosner. “But it’s more pronounced now that we have e-mail, text and many other ways to fake that we’re at work. Fake Fridays are a trend that goes all the way back to the Model T. It’s just that today we’ve turned Aloha Fridays into an art form.”
Recouping some Friday productivity might involve some team-building time-outs or other creative management solutions. Rebecca Lee, a graduate student working within the Illinois public school system, uses the “specialness” of Friday to her advantage. “Fridays are seen as a kind of unofficial half-day,” says Lee. “So I save some of the more hands-on, group-building exercises till then. There’s a lot of energy on Fridays because people are excited; you just have to harness that, not fight against it.”
If that doesn’t work for you, creative scheduling might. “Some businesses have re-thought the workweek entirely and allow people to work two extra hours a day in order to complete a four-day, 40-hour workweek by Thursday evening,” says O’Gorman. “Others may take a closer look at morale and ask whether the way that they reward their employees — such as what performance standards they use to set raises — is helping or hurting productivity.”
For employees struggling with short attention spans and bad attitudes on Friday, this assessment of company morale is their job, too. Employees should be encouraged to speak up about management issues. Company-wide meetings and individual reviews are feedback forums that can effect change. If Friday is a zoo at your workplace and you’d rather get through a pile of work (that won’t be sitting on your desk Monday morning), then starting a dialogue about it will make you – and likely your management – feel much better.
Of course, there are those who aren’t too sure a little goofing off on Friday is a bad thing. “Sometimes I think people need to let off some steam,” says Lee. “Friday just isn’t going to be Monday, no matter how hard we try.”
“We’re not totally convinced that a ‘slack’ day is a bad thing,” says Rosner. “We work hard. We’re more reachable because of technology. Starting TGIF a bit early won’t mean the end of the world. In fact, it could mean that we come back to work on
Monday with a bit more bounce in our step.”
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