Midwest is trying out a new work schedule for the months of June and July. During those months, Midwest will operate on a “Four Tens” schedule. That is, regular work hours are 10 hours per day, four days per week. In our case, our hours are 6:00 AM to 4:30 PM Mountain Daylight Time. Some utilities operate on a Four Tens schedule during part of the year – usually during the summer – and that is what Midwest is trying this year.
There are many different reasons that companies may choose a Four Tens schedule, but Midwest sees three primary benefits. The first is travel time. We have a large service territory, and we spend a lot of time traveling to job sites. A Four Tens schedule allows for a longer workday so that we can get more done on a job or in an area once we’ve traveled to get there. This is particularly helpful for our Construction and Underground crews who may return to the same job site on multiple days to complete a job.
The second benefit we hope to realize is providing better service to members by responding to service calls earlier in the morning. All summer long, our Maintenance crews spend a significant amount of time running on service calls to investigate and repair issues on irrigation wells. It is easy for a long list of service calls to stack up quickly when everyone is wanting to get their wells running. We feel that an earlier start will allow us to get to these service calls faster and get everyone back up and running more quickly.
The third major benefit of this schedule is to allow our crews to get more work done in the cooler temperatures of the morning. We strive to provide the safest work environment possible for our employees and part of that is minimizing heat exposure. Working outside in the heat can cause serious health issues if proper precautions are not taken, especially when wearing the protective equipment that our linemen need to wear for their protection. Allowing them to start their days earlier in the morning helps minimize this exposure.
This is a trial period for Midwest. No matter the schedule, our On Call crews remain available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to respond to any outages or emergencies whenever they occur.
Jayson Bishop
*Midwest Electric is an equal opportunity provider and employer.*