The council reviewed the trial period during the work session prior to the council meeting Oct. 4 and gave the approval to keep the changes that started May 28 in place.
The hours for Keller Town Hall, the Municipal Service Center and records department for the Keller Police Department will remain 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and closed on Fridays.
“Most of them, 99%, were in favor of it after they did the trial period,” Keller City Manager Mark Hafner said of the employee’s response. “We found different ways to be more efficient and more laser focused on what to get done in four days rather than five days. We find it more family friendly, and work/family-life balance is good. I think it is good for customer service, and that is the must ... that customer service is No. 1. I think we will find it is a win-win. We are still here serving customers. They have liked us being open a half-hour earlier and later in the evening.”
According to city data, Friday had the fewest customer visits to Town Hall with an average range of 19 to 22.
Hafner, previously the Keller police chief, changed the Keller Police Department from eight-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts, which allowed for an extra day off every other weekend. He noted the police and fire-rescue departments have been working on a compressed schedule for years. Hafner said the city applied what worked well there to the employees at Town Hall and the public works department.
The city tried to tackle shortages in various departments with this change, rather than pay increases that Hafner said might not be sustainable.
Marcia Reyna, Keller’s director of human resources and risk management, recalls getting numerous calls after the city announced the change, even from unlikely places.
“Several cities reached out, I even had someone reach out from Georgia,” Reyna said. “I’m not sure how they got our information, but it definitely spread. People were wanting to know more about it and how we got the City Council to approve it. We are trying to find alternative ways to recruit and retain staff. We had employees rank us fair on work-life balance, and this is one of the attempts to improve on that.”
