Attracting and retaining quality employees sometimes requires a little creativity.

The town of Sahuarita, Ariz., a fast-growing community of nearly 40,000 people in the Tucson metropolitan area, faces stiff competition for job candidates, especially in the area of pay, Town Manager Shane Dille said. Knowing many younger workers prefer a flexible work schedule, the town embarked on a one-year test on Aug. 28 of having most of its nearly 200 employees work four, 10-hour days per week and get every Friday off.

“The pilot program concept is a good way to introduce a big change like this, leaving the foot in the door for going back in case it doesn’t work,” Dille said.

More U.S. cities and towns are offering a four-day workweek or flexible work schedules to recruit and retain employees while maintaining a high level of service to their residents. In at least one case, the change has created budget savings, too.

Sahuarita’s Dille experienced four-day work weeks while employed previously in Queen Creek, Ariz., a community on the outskirts of Phoenix. “The fact is that it was very popular with employees to have a longer weekend,” he said.

He brought the idea with him when he became Sahuarita town manager in February 2022. Most Sahuarita employees previously worked 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, except for those in the police, public works, and parks and recreation departments.

“If we really want to be an employer of choice, we have to look for ways and opportunities to compete. What that means for us is a change in our culture, how we view productivity. Old school would be that productivity means that you’ve got somebody in a seat plunking away on a keyboard. To really move into the 4/10 (four 10-hour days per week) arena and flexible work schedule options, you have to view productivity more as outcomes: Look at your number of permits issued in a day. Look for the number of lane miles maintained in a week.”

Most Sahuarita employees now work 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, which also affects their families, according to Dille. Town hall closes on Fridays. But town offices actually are more accessible now for many residents because they can stop in before or after their workday, as well as during lunch hours. The town’s enhanced website also allows residents to access many services online without going to town hall, he said.

In addition, Sahuarita increased flexibility for its employees, such as being able to work remotely.

“Sometimes that’s really helpful when you can attend a meeting virtually in the mornings or in the late afternoons and still be able to address your personal or family needs,” Dille said.

The parks and recreation department launched a pilot after-school program for town employees’ youngsters while those parents work later. The project gives the parks department a better understanding of what it takes to provide that service to the entire community.

The biggest adjustment with the 4/10 schedule has been the longer workdays, according to Mark Felix, a town of Sahuarita management assistant.

“What I found out is that the mornings — coming in early — are absolutely very easy to do for me,” Felix said. “… The hard part is when five o’clock hits and your body automatically thinks it’s time to wrap up your day and go home. But you have to stay that extra hour. … But I tell you, that extra day that I get (off) on that Friday makes it all better.”

He uses his Fridays off to attend medical and dental appointments, visit friends or do chores around the house. “It gives me that extra day to just do whatever my life requires,” he added.

Employees who have young children face a bigger adjustment, he noted. Felix has seen no change in his productivity, however. “I’m able to get all my work done in the four days,” he said.

Greater flexibility

Casey Jensen-Richardson, who manages the Parks and Recreation Department office for the city of Los Altos, Calif., also appreciates the 4/10 work schedule she has used for about a year. Los Altos, which is northwest of San Jose, employs 192 people to serve 31,625 city residents.

Jensen-Richardson describes the flexibility to choose a 4/10 schedule as “a really nice morale booster.”

“I work Tuesday through Friday,” she said. “And I know then that I can schedule things for myself or for my four children on that Monday off.”

Staggered work schedules with other staff allow the parks office to stay open Monday through Friday, she said.

It took a couple of weeks to adjust to working a 10-hour day, she said. She now tries to take a one-hour lunch break daily to split her workday into two manageable time blocks. “So, as far as productivity, I feel that having so much time here means I can focus on bigger projects in one chunk rather than splitting it into multiple days or multiple sittings,” she noted.

Los Altos added the 4/10 workweek to the Pick Your Own Schedule options it offered employees beginning in July 2022, City Manager Gabriel Engeland said. The goal was to provide employees with greater work flexibility and to expand city office hours and service to residents. City offices, which had been closed every other Friday, now serve residents five days a week and during lunchtime.

In addition to the 4/10 schedule, employees except police, who work their own schedule, can choose a traditional five-day, eight-hours-per-day workweek or the 9/80 schedule, where they work eight nine-hour days, one eight-hour day and get a day off during a two-week period. Each of those work schedules also allows employees to work remotely up to 50% of their time, Engeland said.

The 9/80 remains the most popular schedule, he said, in part because some employees’ commutes would add even more time to the beginning and end of a 10-hour day.

Los Altos hasn’t worried whether the Pick Your Own Schedule options save the city money. Engeland noted, “We just wanted it to be a better way to operate.

“What we have found is that focusing on that quality of life and that flexibility, our employees are more productive or more efficient in the tasks we do,” he said. “But most importantly, our employees rate Los Altos much higher as a place that they either feel satisfied or that they are happy to work for.”

Golden, Colo.

Saving money also wasn’t the goal in Golden, Colo., but it may be an extra benefit of the new 4/32 work schedule being tested by the Golden Police Department.

Beginning July 10, Golden Police began working four, eight-hour days per week (32 hours) while getting paid for 40 hours of work. City officials chose the police department for the pilot program because it has flexibility in work schedules, various types of staff positions, a multigenerational staff and already tracks numerous productivity metrics. The department has 53 sworn officers and 20 non-sworn personnel, Police Chief Joe Harvey said.

The police 4/32 pilot program, which runs through the end of the year, will help city officials decide if they want to move other city departments to a four-day workweek, the city announcement said. Officials hope a four-day week improves employee retention, engagement and well-being; increases efficiency in city operations; and creates a better community in the city of more than 20,000 people just west of Denver.

Harvey already sees positive results.

The approximately $18,770 the police department spent on overtime pay from July 10 through September is similar to what it paid in overtime each month during the previous year, he said.

“This was so revealing that I told the city manager I was cutting $200,000 out of my overtime budget for 2024,” said Harvey, who has budgeted $330,000 annually for police overtime pay.

The department has less overtime pay under the 4/32 work schedule because, if officers have to work longer than eight hours, Harvey can draw on some of the eight hours of gifted time between the 32 hours they work weekly and the 40 hours for which they get paid.

If they don’t have to work longer than their normal eight hours, they can use the gifted paid time to recharge, focus on their families or health, or do things they enjoy, he said.

When an officer left to join another law enforcement agency, Harvey said he had two applicants within a few hours of posting the job opening. Both applicants cited the 4/32 work schedule as one reason they applied.

The new work schedule has eliminated the shift overlap that took place previously when police officers worked four, 10-hour days per week, Harvey said. Sick leave hours have declined, and the number of case reports, arrests, field interviews, traffic enforcement and other productivity measures all have stayed comparable to past levels. Community engagement with the public has increased, though that could result partly from a request that officers be more intentional about calling in self-initiated field activity and contacts with the public, he added.

Weekly employee surveys provide feedback so the police department can fine-tune the 4/32 work schedule, Harvey said. As of mid-October, about 95% of employees who completed the surveys said they liked the 4/32 work schedule, he added.

There have been a few challenges. Because officers’ shifts no longer overlap, it has eroded some of the camaraderie that developed from officers working together during overlapping shift hours, Harvey said. He also used to arrive at the office in the morning before the overnight shift went off duty. Now they complete their shift before he normally arrives, so he goes in extra early some mornings so officers can talk with him. In addition, he and other staff have to keep meetings shorter because officers work a shorter eight-hour day now. “So those have been some of the things you can look at and say, ‘We’re still learning how to really work through some of that stuff,’” he said.

Next Article: North Las Vegas pursues lateral recruitment to secure more officers