A select group of workers across America are currently partaking in a niche but powerful lifestyle benefit: summer Fridays.
They’re a longstanding corporate tradition in which employees leave the office around midday to get a jump start on the weekend. Whether it involves a trip to the beach or running errands, workers get some extra time to relax, decompress, and enjoy the weather.
Nicole Houston, who works as a media relations specialist for a New York City communications company and is based in Texas, leaves work at around 1 p.m. on Fridays. She uses the afternoon to spend quality time with her dog Zelda, and go on balmy strolls to clear her head.
“The world is just going so fast right now and the news can be overwhelming. Life can be overwhelming,” she tells Fortune. “It's nice to take a breath and reflect on the week, and just have that time back for yourself again.”
But that relaxed summer benefit, which can range from a few hours off to an entire day, is quickly becoming a relic of the past. In 2019, about 55% of North American workers surveyed said they took summer Fridays, according to a report from Gartner, a research and consulting firm. But in 2023, only 11% of employees said their workplaces offered the benefit.
Summer Fridays have been under threat for years because of an emphasis on worker productivity and a corporate push for higher profits. But HR and recruiting experts tell Fortune that the rise of flexible work schedules during and after the pandemic is what finished the job. With most employees already working from home at the end of the week, companies are uninterested in encouraging a "leave the office early" mentality.
“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, tells Fortune. “They reason: ‘We're giving so much flexibility to our employees already.”
The changing legacy of Friday
While remote work was once enjoyed by only a small percentage of employees, pandemic lockdowns forced a huge number of white collar staffers to work from home. Although many people have been forced back into the office, those lifestyle changes have had staying power.
Only around 8% of workers were exclusively remote in 2019. That number rose to 70% in 2020, according to data from Gallup, and still remains significantly higher today than before the pandemic. Around 27% of workers were exclusively remote in May of this year. And while 32% of workers were hybrid in 2019, that number is now around 53%.
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 puts it: “The office tends to be a ghost town on Fridays.”
With employees out of sight and out of mind, experts say the urge to allow workers time off on that day in particular has become less pressing to bosses. Many bosses also think that their employees aren’t giving their all when they work from home. The CEO of Frontier Airlines said in 2023 that workers got “lazy” working from home. And Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman said that remote employees “didn’t work as hard.” That mentality has likely factored into companies’ choice against allowing even a little bit of extra time off.
That suspicion from the C-suite is likely feeding into a renewed obsession with productivity, another reason why some employers are doing away with the summer perk. Even when Goldman Sachs took a hard line on RTO and demanded that employees come into the office five days a week, it did away with summer Fridays in 2023.
“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, tells Fortune. “Companies are looking more at outputs and work products and hitting deadlines.”
Consulting firm PwC's UK unit experimented with flexible summer Fridays back in 2021, and although three quarters of its employees said the benefit improved their well-being, the company has gradually reeled back the offering. What started as half-day off for 12 Fridays in summer was cut down to eight in 2023, and now UK staffers can now only take six summer Fridays this year. The reason? Expectations that a stricter workweek will increase productivity.
“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 says.
O'Rourke adds that PwC isn’t alone in looking to find pockets of productivity where it can. “It's in line with the market getting more difficult for employers to make profits,” he says. “They're trying to get a little bit back.”
The wisdom of summer Fridays
Not every company has killed summer Fridays.
IBM, KPMG, Pfizer and Estée Lauder all still offer a relaxed end-of-week schedule for their employees. KPMG thinks about the benefit as an opportunity for staffers to spend valuable time with friends and family.
But experts say they're not holding their breath for summer Fridays to make a comeback. The companies most likely to offer the perk are already offering hybrid options to employees. Despite the perk’s plummeting popularity, however, they add the practice could still offer some big upsides for corporations, especially considering the current burnout crisis among workers.
Workers whose companies still offer the perk say the benefit helps them manage burnout, supports their emotional well-being, and gets them refreshed for the work week. Easing their stress could also improve their drive—about 66% of workers with summer benefits including reduced hours say it increases their work productivity, according to a 2023 Monster.com poll.
“Summer Fridays enhance employee retention and attraction, improve morale and engagement, and reduce burnout,” says 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, tells Fortune that he closes his laptop at 3 p.m., and spends that extra free time going outside and exploring new restaurants in Brooklyn—something he has 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 says. “It definitely contributes to me feeling less burnt out. When we are going through the week, it's something to look forward to.”
