RD415 - Assessment of the Merits of a Ten-Hour, Four-Day Seasonal Workweek
Executive Summary: At the request of members of the 2010 General Assembly, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has conducted an assessment of the merits of a 10-hour per day, 4-day work week (4-day work week) for work conducted by the Division of Shellfish Sanitation’s (DSS) shellfish specialists and field directors. DSS has three field offices (White Stone, Norfolk and Accomac) and they all perform the same type of work: inspect onshore properties for sources of fecal contamination and collect seawater samples for fecal coliform analysis to use in the evaluation of the shellfish growing waters for direct harvest; inspect and certify shellfish and crab meat processing facilities; and conduct the microbial laboratory analyses of samples in support of both of these programs. Since the geography and population densities vary in the areas served by the field offices, the challenges associated with performing these uniform tasks vary somewhat in each field office. Each field office director convened with their staff and reported on the anticipated effects of implementing a 4-day work week. DSS central office staff reviewed the findings of the field directors. The results of that assessment indicate that if DSS were to switch to a 4-day work week during the warm weather months, it could potentially save as much as $8,577 per year in personnel time, equipment and gasoline costs. However, the productivity of the program would likely decrease significantly. Each office’s current operational mode has been honed over many years experience to provide the most work output when dealing with the vagaries of weather, tides, personnel absences, etc. By compressing 5 days’ work into 4 days, the negative impacts of these vagaries are amplified when work is lost on a given day. Since DSS’s ability to collect seawater samples is particularly affected by weather and tides, and since much of the work must be conducted by two people in one boat as opposed to one individual, this activity is impacted more by external condition than are other activities within the shellfish sanitation program. Furthermore, shellfish and crab processing facilities do not work late in the day, so with a 4-day work week more inspections would have to be conducted when facilities were not operating, thus decreasing the value of the inspection. As such, switching to a 4-day work week is not deemed practical for this program. |
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