“The world is just going so fast right now and the news can be overwhelming. Life can be overwhelming,” she told Fortune. “It’s nice to take a breath and reflect on the week, and just have that time back for yourself again.”
“The increasing prevalence of hybrid work and the flexibility of work from home arrangements have led some companies to eliminate or scale back on summer Fridays,” Mae Mendoza, senior manager at Robert Walters, a recruitment company, told Fortune. “They reason: ‘We’re giving so much flexibility to our employees already.”
Among workers who do have a hybrid schedule, Friday is by far the most popular day to work from home. Around 33% of workers were in the office on Fridays in 2023, compared to 63% of workers who came into the office on Tuesday and Wednesday. Or as the Gallup report put it: “The office tends to be a ghost town on Fridays.”
“Employers are still feeling, ‘With hybrid work, people have more flexibility. So why do we need to do summer Fridays?’ And employees are feeling, ‘I’m on 24/7 and I would like to officially be able to cut out early,’” Laurie Chamberlin, head of recruitment solutions for LHH North America, a human resources provider, told Fortune. “Companies are looking more at outputs and work products and hitting deadlines.”
“Employers [reason], ‘You’re already working from home Mondays and Fridays. I already don’t get the level of output I want. Why would I reduce your schedule even more, and then even get less output?’” Chamberlin said.
O’Rourke added that PwC wasn’t alone in looking to find pockets of productivity where it could. “It’s in line with the market getting more difficult for employers to make profits,” he said. “They’re trying to get a little bit back.”
Not every company has killed summer Fridays.
“Summer Fridays enhance employee retention and attraction, improve morale and engagement, and reduce burnout,” said Mendoza. “Apart from that, it’s a benefit for the company’s positive image that they have work-life balance.”
Josiah Chambers, an account executive for a New York City PR agency that has summer Fridays, told Fortune that he closed his laptop at 3 p.m., and spent that extra free time going outside and exploring new restaurants in Brooklyn—something he had a harder time doing on his regular schedule.
“I’m much more prepared to come in on Monday, and I don’t feel like I’m coming into the next week flustered,” he said. “It definitely contributes to me feeling less burnt out. When we are going through the week, it’s something to look forward to.”
