Riverview joins list of N.B. towns trying out four-day workweek for municipal staff

RIVERVIEW, N.B. -

Every weekend will seem like a holiday for Town of Riverview employees in New Brunswick this summer. 

The town announced a new pilot project for a four-day workweek that will start next Monday.

Colin Smith, the town's chief administrative officer, said the pandemic caused a lot of stress for their staff, so they started exploring ways to focus on employee engagement. The idea of a shorter week came out of discussions with colleagues in Sackville, N.B., and Quispamsis, N.B., who have started similar projects.

"Guysborough County is actually the one that did it through the pandemic in Nova Scotia, so they were the one that we started doing some research on. It's not just unique to here, there are a lot of organizations that have done it, not just municipalities. Organizations have seen great benefit to it for their employees, the morale, the engagement," said Smith.

The roughly 100 full-time employees will still work the same number of hours and there will be no disruption of services to residents. 

Tyla Finlay, the town's director of human resources, said employees are ecstatic about the plan. 

"When we sent out the email for the pilot program to introduce it, within seconds we had responses back saying, 'I'm in.' People are really looking forward to having an extra day off. It's all about a work-life balance," said Finlay.

The workforce will be split into two groups. Team A will have Fridays off and Team B will take Monday. 

"When we designed the program, we didn't make it mandatory, but we wanted to have the majority of employees sign up for the program," said Smith. "Because operationally, it would be too difficult to have some working five days and some four days."

The pilot project runs until Sept. 6.