Who’s holding down the fort on Friday afternoons? As summer approaches, it seems to be more common to encounter a good number of bounced-back e-mails and voice mails prompting clients to contact a co-worker or call back Monday. But some Greater Des Moines employers who have adopted flexible summer hours say it benefits both the company and workers, without sacrificing customer service.

At West Des Moines-based Hanser & Associates, for instance, employees have the option to take each Friday afternoon off between Memorial Day and Labor Day, provided they work extra hours earlier in the week and no events or projects require them to be in that afternoon.

“It’s really adapting our work schedules in the summer to be more in tune with our clients’ work schedules,” said Ron Hanser, whose public relations firm first instituted the policy three years ago.

“Looking at weekly and monthly work plans, we could see there wasn’t much scheduled on Fridays, so service needs were light on Fridays,” he said. “And with our already flexible work schedule here, employees said they wanted to be able to leave earlier to head out of town or get to the lake or whatever during the summer.”

Additionally, Hanser found that leading public relations firms across the country were taking similar approaches to summer time-off policies. “There are a lot of variations: one Friday off per month, or alternating Fridays with variations of that,” he said. “It’s always with the understanding that it’s flexing the time to serve your clients during other times.”

According to a May 2005 Society of Human Resource Management benefits survey, the most recent available, 56 percent of the HR officers who responded said their companies offered a flex-time policy, allowing employees to select their work hours from a range of allowable hours. That’s down from 64 percent in 2002, however.

Some experts at that time attributed the decline to economic conditions and say it’s a temporary dip that will come back up as the economy continues to improve. Others speculated that employees have been cautious about using flex time because they’re afraid it may make them more vulnerable if there are layoffs in the future.

In the same SHRM survey, 33 percent indicated that their companies offered compressed workweeks that allow employees to work longer hours during the week and then take all or a portion of Friday off.

“I think it’s a benefit that an awful lot of employers are looking at,” said Lori Strottman, employment services vice president for West Des Moines-based FBL Financial Services Inc. and president of the Central Iowa chapter of SHRM. “It doesn’t cost the employer anything, other than making sure your customers are being serviced. It’s something that companies need to consider to remain competitive.”

FBL makes early-out Fridays available to its employees during the summer, but whether it is offered in a particular department is left to the supervisor’s discretion, she said. Also, it may not work for every employee because of child-care schedules that prevent them from working longer hours Monday through Thursday. Only four of the 16 employees in Strottman’s department, for instance, use the summer hours.

“It’s a nice concept, a nice benefit,” she said. “I personally would love to do it. But it’s difficult to say, ‘This is my schedule,’ and leave everything on my desk at noon on Friday, especially with the professional staff we have.”

FBL allows employees to apply to take flexible hours during the remainder of the year as well. To do that, they must fill out a form detailing how their schedule would affect their department and co-workers, and essentially make a case for how the schedule would work, Strottman said.

Norm Hoffman, human resources manager for RSM McGladrey Inc.’s Western Iowa Corridor, said the national accounting and consulting firm established a Friday-afternoon-off summer policy last year.

“It’s really to offer more flexibility to employees, to give them a little bit more flexibility and to allow them a little bit more fun in the summertime,” he said. “If employees manage their work throughout the week so that their work is done by noon on Friday, then they can feel free to take the afternoon off. For those who are paid hourly, we’re not going to pay them for time they didn’t work, so we would expect that they would come in early or work through lunch. But it gives them some flexibility in case they want to take that Friday afternoon.”

Some organizations that don’t offer compressed workweek schedules or flex time do alter their hours during the summer. Des Moines Area Community College non-faculty staff members, for instance, go to a 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. schedule immediately following the spring semester, which ended the first Friday of May. The schedule pushes the workday hours back by one-half hour.

“You can go home at 4 and enjoy some activities, and you don’t have to come to work in the dark, either,” said Linda Miller, coordinator of health occupation education at DMACC.

For employees whose companies haven’t instituted formal flextime policies, WorkOptions.com has dedicated a Web site, www.workoptions.com/fridaysoff that outlines various flexible arrangements and details how an employee can successfully lobby for such an arrangement. The site may also be useful for employers who are considering adopting flex policies.