Hybrid Workweek: ‘Thursday Is the New Monday’

Your bosses’ schedule should be your schedule when you return to the office, managements professor Peter Cappelli said.

With hybrid work schedules now the norm, how are events industry professionals returning to their workplaces? Only 22 percent of planners who responded to Convene’s most-recent COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard have returned to their offices part- or full-time compared to 42 percent of their supplier partners who participated in the survey. Thirty-seven percent of planners — and 17 percent of suppliers — remain fully remote but plan to go back in the office in the future.

Those who have returned — and those who have yet to — may want to consider which days of the week they’re in the office if they’re following a hybrid schedule. A recent Wall Street Journal article says that overachievers looking to make the most out of the hybrid workweek should consider the days they will have the most face time with their bosses. “The consensus among many managers and leadership coaches for companies where showing up to the office matters: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are shaping up to be peak office face-time days,” according to the Journal article.

After reopening its Sydney office, Salesforce.com Inc. found that Thursdays were the most popular day for people to come in. “Thursday’s the new Monday,” Brent Hyder, the company’s chief people officer, told the Journal.

Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said it is inevitable that employees with the most in-person access to leaders will get the first crack at promotions, so he suggests following your boss’s schedule.

But Cali Yost, the chief executive and founder of workplace-consulting company Flex+Strategy Group, told the Journal that the old workplace rules no longer apply. Employees should focus more on scheduling their time in the office to coordinate with their teams “for optimal collaboration” rather than just aiming for face time with leaders.

And Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book Remote Work Revolution, advises employees to maximize office days by setting up coffee chats with managers, power lunches, and project powwows with co-workers. “You want to coordinate activities for the week whenever you have in-office days,” she told the Journal.

Michelle Russell is editor in chief of Convene.