Commerce going permanently to a 4-day work week

Commerce Township residents should continue to plan to conduct any business with the township from Monday through Thursday, as the trial four-day work week for township employees becomes a permanent fixture at the township offices.

The Board of Trustees voted to continue the 10-hours per day, four-day work week at its Tuesday, Aug. 9 meeting.

According to Commerce Township Supervisor Tom Zoner, operating hours will be from 7:15 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day.

These are the same hours the township has been keeping since starting the four-day week trial on June 10.

The rationale for the four-day work week trial was two-fold, according to Clerk Dan Munro. The first reason was to offer more work hours during the day for residents to have an opportunity to conduct their business with the township.

According to the township, the board has received positive feedback from residents so far, and contractors have found the early morning hours useful as they visit the Building Department. So far, there has only been one resident recorded as being unhappy with the Friday closures.

As for workers, the permanent four-day week has been met with positive results.

“This is not something that would happen if nobody is happy with this. We currently have 14 employees working in the township involved with the four-day work week, and 11 of them wanted to continue on with this,” Zoner said.

The other reason to go to a four-day work week was the potential to save money through the reduction of utility use and other costs. Through the summer trial, the township reduced cleaning services to one day per week for a 50 percent cost reduction, while also seeing a 20 percent decrease in DTE Energy cooling costs from July 2010 to July 2011, even with some of the hottest July temperatures on record this year.

The township plans to continue to keep track of the cost savings incurred by going to a four-day work week.