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Are Half Day Fridays the Best Perk Ever?

The job I started this summer comes with a lot of perks. In addition to the standard insurance options that most jobs have, there are a few things that are unique. We have a fridge full of Red Bull, Tropicana orange juice, and Snapple. I also have my own office, which is more of a coincidence than anything else. There are three desks in the room and the other two are vacant (one person left the company the day before I started).

But the one perk that stands tall is half-day Fridays. Each week on Friday at 1pm, everyone packs up for the weekend and goes home. It’s definitely the perk that I appreciate most. It lets me start my weekend early and gives me half a day to do anything I want. I’ve used that time to run errands, and for those who run a side business, half a day a week makes a world of difference.

A typical day runs from 9am to 6pm, but based on the hours my friends work, this is totally reasonable as rarely do people work from 9-5 anyway. So while I’m still putting in my 40 hours a week, I think it’s an easy trade-off that most people would take.

Mike from The Financial Blogger works 4 days a week and it pays huge dividends as he has built a blogging empire as well as a budding advertising company with his spare time. When work gets in the way of a side business or vice versa, it creates a big problem. Two incomes are extremely valuable, and risking one for the other is not a good idea.

It’s really hard to put a value on the half-day Friday. It means I don’t have to take vacation if I am going out of town for a mini-vacation and it reduces the number of personal days I might have to take to run my business. I’d definitely rather have that time than another $5,000 in salary, but at what point would I be willing to work those extra 4 hours a week? $10,000? More?

I’m trying to think of a perk that rivals this one. Being able to work from home is another great one that saves the time it takes to commute each day plus lots of other costs depending on the family situation. Not needing another car could mean huge savings for a family.

Readers, is my perk the best ever? What great perk does your work offer?

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16 COMMENTS

  1. As long as my work gets done, I can work any hours I want. I usually have meetings during the day, so I have to be available through most of the work day. I don’t get every Friday afternoon off, but if I want one, I can take it no problem as long as I’ve gotten all my work done. It’s pretty nice.

    • @Kevin @ Thousandaire.com, That’s pretty nice, a lot of commission jobs are like that, too. Flexibility is huge, I hate jobs that make you sit there from 9-5 even if there’s nothing to do. What a waste!

  2. Flexible hours is my favourite perk.

    So, instead of working a 9-5, I show up sometime between nine and ten (ish), and work for seven hours, taking some sort of break in between, and then I leave. If I want to leave early one day, I just do, and maybe take a shorter lunch the next day. If I’m running late one morning, no biggie. I’ll just stay 15 minutes later the next day.

    And the best is that it allows me to be someone cavalier with my seven hours (i.e., not actually working them) when business is slow, and then put in extra hours when business is busy, as opposed to always working a solid 8 hours, whether or not there’s eight hours worth of work to do on that particular day.

    • @Melissa, That sounds perfect, it gives you time to work on other stuff and worry about other priorities when business is slow. Flexibility is the best!

  3. I wished a million times when I was teaching that we could have had Fridays off! Actually, I would have been willing to work an extra hour Mon-Thurs in order to take the entire day off.

  4. That’s pretty cool. I get to work flexible hours in my position, so that I can get in at 7am and leave by 4pm. Not as good as everyone getting out at 1pm but it is still pretty nice.

  5. My wife (on salary) only works a half day on Friday and gets one Thursday off a month. Personally, I rather that she would earn more. As we get older, time off is nice, but not instead of money.

    • @Financial Samurai, Nah, we’d probably just work less the other days. It’s more of rescheduling things as we still work 40 hours + whatever is necessary. If it was a choice, it’d be interesting to say where I’d draw the line. Would I work an extra 4 hours a week for $10,000? $20,000?

  6. That is one sweet perk. Although I take off the odd Friday afternoon here and there for comp travel time, having it as a policy I think does nothing but motivate employees.

  7. One of the great things about the job I’ll be starting in May is that you work an extra hour Monday-Thursday and get every other Friday off. It will really come in handy for the first six months since I’ll only get a small amount of time off that first year and it will allow me to feel a little less restricted.

  8. This is similar to having Friday’s off, but I love start-ups that stock the fridge with beers and start the weekend off early on Fridays allowing you to have a few before quittin’ time.

    I’m also extremely jealous of the Google perk of an onsite masseuse. Maybe someday when I’m raking it in I’ll offer that as well…

  9. I work for myself, so as long as my work gets done, it doesn’t matter when I do it. Now that I’m used to this schedule, its hard to imagine anything else …

  10. As a manager, I’ve toyed around with the idea of going to four nine-hour days plus a half-day on Friday. All my employees are salaried-exempt and are (effectively) paid to work however long it takes to complete their tasks, not for a straight forty-hour week. I often have people ask me if they can leave early one day and “make up the time” some other day, which is an attitude I’ve tried to change. If I were to implement half-day Fridays, I’m fairly certain most employees would see that as tacit approval that 40-hours was all that is expected, regardless of project status or due dates.

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