Business Tips

Just as any Friday when we log into our Facebook and Twitter accounts here at JSN, we hear everyone rejoicing that Friday has finally come.  It’s come to be that these daily status updates are pretty predictable:  “Ugggh, I have a case of the Mondays”, “Why is it just Tuesday?”, “Happy Hump Day” (Wednesday), “Almost the Weekend!” (for Thursdays) and the omnipresent “TGIFF” (thank goodness it’s finally Friday).  You know you all have friends whose statuses and tweets are just as predictable as these.  You might also have occasional cases of “The Mondays”, and as of now, good, strong coffee is perhaps the only cure for those.

The Summer Friday is something that many companies (especially out here in the New York/New Jersey area) have adopted to allow their employees start their weekends early, with some companies letting their employees out and closing the doors as early as noon.  For others, the Summer Friday policy is one that needs to be earned, whether it is based on performance or seniority.

However, when the economy started to take a turn a few years ago, this policy was widely abandoned.  Companies in many competitive industries such as advertising, finance, staffing, marketing, public relations, need to keep a regular schedule to keep their offices staffed, keeping business on track and not separating them from the competition.  What if your company needed a last-minute temporary associate and you called your trusted staffing firm to find that everyone was gone for the day, headed to the beach or happy hour?  You wouldn’t be so ‘happy’.

Part of JSN’s philosophy is to have a strong work/life balance.  We don’t just preach it, we live it, and that’s why we are effective at our jobs.  We have balance.  And in this age of technology, we are always connected.  Everyone on our team has either an iPhone, Blackberry, Droid, or other smart phone that keeps us connected to our clients.  If you have that same type of flexibility in your industry, turn your ‘out of office’ off and respond to the important emails as they come in.

Our friend Gary Vaynerchuk at winelibrary.tv, posted his ‘two-cents’ on Summer Fridays on his blog and asked for his audience’s opinion on it.  We want to know what you are all doing this Friday afternoon?  Us?  We’ll be reachable, tweetable and facebook-able all day.