| January 2000 |
9/80 work schedule starts next month
Following a successful pilot program, ORNL will begin the 9/80 work schedule in early February. The 9/80 schedule allows employees who work a nine-hour day Monday through Thursday to take every other Friday off. An initial sign-up and approval round ended on December 22.
Human Resources Director Mike Willard says other salaried employees who wish to change to the new shift may do so later; this first round will help business systems evaluate how they can accommodate the new shift and the employees who have been initially approved.
Participation in the 9/80 shift is subject to the approval of an employee’s supervisor. Willard says that although all salaried employees can consider the shift, it’s mainly designed to give nonexempt weekly employees more job flexibility.
Exempt monthly employees already have much of that sort of flexibility under current shift business rules, he says.
Under the plan, a worker works four nine-hour days during the first four days of the first week; then that week ends at noon after four hours of work on Friday morning. The new week then starts at noon Friday, for four hours, and continues four more nine-hour days. That adds up to 40 hours each week. The subsequent Friday is then a day off.
Again, as with most of the flexible shift work arrangements, supervisors have discretion over approval, with consideration given to an organization’s staffing and scheduling concerns.
More information about the 9/80 shift is available on the internal Web, www-internal.ornl.gov/980 or by calling Bob Martin, 574-4402, Systems Operations, 241-2979, or your HR generalist.
