Summertime, and the Zooming Is Easy

This article originally appeared on No Jitter.

There are workplace practices that seem almost fantastical in 2024 — things like a 9-to-5 schedule with a whole hour in the middle for lunch, or the two-martini business lunch, or the idea of Summer Fridays.

For those of you who thought Summer Fridays was only a skincare brand, a primer on a workplace perk that was once ubiquitous enough to drive any number of plots on midcentury novels and films: "Summer Fridays" is the umbrella term for an office schedule that either gave employees the whole day off or allowed them to depart the workplace around lunchtime.

Summer Fridays started in the New York City-based advertising industry in the 1960s — nearly a decade after the Eisenhower administration's move to curb federal employees' lunches to only 60 minutes prompted this New York Times coverage:

The first two weeks of the Eisenhower administration almost brought about the downfall of an old and cherished capital institution — the two- martini lunch. This pleasant noon-time custom was banished outright in three government agencies. New Republican bureau heads let it be known that lunch hour for Federal employees should consist only of lunch for an hour. Anyone who takes an extra 30 minutes or so to toss off a couple of pre-lunch cocktails is in danger of losing his job.

Related:Even Remote and Hybrid Work Can Burn You Out. Here's How to Avoid It.

A whole hour for lunch! Summer Fridays may seem equally quaint, but the truth is, they were flextime before flextime was a thing, and Summer Fridays are a perk still going strong at companies today, including IBM, Pfizer, and Viacom.

But how does this perk of early release fit into a hybrid workplace, or one where employees are always reachable via their cellphones, or one where employee performance is judged on deliverables, not office presentee-ism? Some workplace strategists argue that year-round flexibility in terms of scheduling and sites has superceded the need for perks like Summer Fridays. As the Charter newsletter recently wrote:

"It used to be a 'summer Friday' was an exceptional thing," says Alexia Cambon, a senior director of research at Microsoft. "Now, flexibility is pretty normalized. It's not something that you have to ask permission for. It's not something you have to earn. It's not something you have to get to a certain level to deserve… As a result, maybe 'summer Fridays' aren't so exceptional."

One of the things that Summer Fridays did was allow fancy New York City types to leave the city, putting both physical and psychological distance between themselves and their work. As we've taken advantage of the flexibility of remote or hybrid work, we've lost some of that distance and we're working more as a result.

Related:4 Best Practices for Hybrid Meetings

Flexibility is important in a workplace; it gives workers a greater sense of autonomy, which boosts their employee engagement. But maybe there's something to be learned from the world of martini lunches and Summer Fridays: giving people a definitive break gives them time to recharge and bring the best of themselves back to that first Monday Zoom.