Compressed workweek

What It Means

A compressed workweek lets a full-time employee work the standard hours in fewer days by making each day longer. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which sets the rules for federal employees, describes compressed work schedules as fixed schedules that finish the 80 hours of a two-week pay period in fewer than 1010,000 stepsA popular daily step goal that began as the name of a 1960s Japanese pedometer; later studies find health benefits begin well below it. See more workdays. The best-known pattern is 4/10, four 10-hour days a week; another, 5-4/9, spreads 80 hours across nine days in two weeks.

How People Say It at Work

• "I'm on a 4/10, so Fridays are mine."
• "We switched to compressed schedules for the summer."
• "Is your day off Monday or Friday this pay period?"

The Breakdown

Common patterns, using OPM's federal examples

How to ask for one (Buhata's suggestion)

1. Pick the pattern you want and the day off you'd take, and check it against your busiest days of the week.
2. Work out coverage: who answers for your work on your day off, and whether a teammate could take the opposite day.
3. Check how overtime works for you. A 4/10 week is 40 hours, but a 5-4/9 week 1 runs to 44, which matters for an hourly worker.
4. Put the request in writing to your manager, with the start date and how you'll handle meetings that land on your day off.
5. Agree on a trial period, such as one quarter, and a date to review how it went.

Try it today. Look at last month's calendar and count how many meetings fell on the day you'd take off. That number tells you how much moving a compressed schedule would need.

Good to Know

For federal employees, OPM says a compressed schedule is fixed by the agency, with no choice of start or finish times, and hours a full-time employee works beyond the compressed schedule are overtime. An agency also has to negotiate the program with the union for employees in a bargaining unit, or win a majority vote of the affected group for those who aren't.

In private jobs, the Fair Labor Standards Act requires overtime of at least time and one-half for covered nonexempt workers after 40 hours in a workweek. The Department of Labor defines a workweek as a fixed, repeating 168 hours, and each one stands alone. Some states have their own overtime laws, and you get whichever standard pays more, so check with your state labor department.

Related Terms and Categories

• Four-day workweek

  A schedule with four working days a week, either 40 hours packed into four longer days or fewer total hours at the same pay.

• Flextime

  A work schedule that lets employees pick their start and finish times within limits, as long as they work the required hours and are there for core hours.

• Core hours

  The fixed part of the workday when everyone on a flexible schedule must be working, with flexible start and finish times on either side.

• Work-life balance

  How your time and energy divide between paid work and the rest of your life, such as family, rest, health and interests.

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