If you are familiar with country music, you might know “Nine to Five” by Dolly Parton. Now, you might be asking yourself, what does that have to do with you or me? Well, if I didn’t have to get a nine to five job when I graduated but still earned a full time salary, how great would that be? But is it really realistic to work much less and be able to accomplish much more? I recently read an article by Darryl Ohrt titled Still Working Nine to Five? Why? The article talks about how many people are bringing their personal lives into the workplace and work into their personal lives. Ohrt poses the question, why are people still working from nine to five in the office?
I can say from my own experience as a busy senior in the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University and being so involved on campus as the president of my sorority, I haven’t had time to work the usual nine to five schedule. But I have learned quite a bit about myself. I still feel I have been very successful and accomplished by my goals but I’ve also realized that I am not a morning person (a large amount of coffee is the only way I’ll make it through the morning). After talking to several other people in the office, I realized that many other people share these similar qualities, but we will get back to that later.
I have been an intern for almost six months at GCG Marketing and this agency has been more than flexible with my schedule. I always thought companies didn’t care if someone had a family emergency or was sick, but working at GCG Marketing has shown me it is quite the contrary; It’s more like working with a family. They understand. However, the fact that GCG will provide flexibility to its employee’s schedules doesn’t mean that the entire company could run, or more importantly succeed, by ditching the nine to five schedule. So, to find out more about the idea of an alternative schedule, I went on a mission to hear what others in the office had to say.
First, I spoke with Senior Account Executive Allyson Cross, who told me that our account executives and creative team must work together in person to get the job done. We also have to be here for our clients when they need us and being in the office less could make us less accessible.
Senior Copywriter Becky Johnson agreed that advertising professionals have to be available because things come up quickly and issues are easier to resolve when everyone is in the office. Then I asked Account Service Director Michelle Clark what she thought about a shorter workday. She talked about her experience working in an accelerated week schedule for a school district where she had Fridays off. She said people work a lot harder, and remembered the feeling of having to get a lot more accomplished throughout the day.
Although, it worked well for the school district, Michelle mentioned that working in an agency is very different because you need to be in the available when clients need you. Michelle made a great point, especially since communication between an agency and client is crucial.
The last person I talked to was Willette Hall, Office Manager of GCG. She used the example and her experience with banks, where, much like an agency, its primary responsibility is to serve clients’ needs. Her opinion was simple: “We work for people who are paying a certain amount of money for our time, so we need to be there to render the service.”
After listening to what everyone had to say, I came to the conclusion that even though we are working in an era full of technology and social media, our clients, especially the ones we work with across the United States, expect us to be in the office from nine to five. Marketing is a service-oriented business, and we aim to please our clients. Even though the idea of working less in the office and more wherever you want sounds great, agencies have to keep the schedule to continue working effectively. GCG will not be changing its hours anytime soon; you can call us anytime and see.
