T.G.I.T...

...stands for Thank Goodness It's Thursday. It's a phrase that must be familiar to 17,000 state employees in Utah, where it's now been one year since Governor Jon Huntsman announced that those 17,000 would begin working a 10-hour a day, 4-day work week under his "Working 4 Utah" plan.

So how's it worked out?

There are savings in operational costs. Energy use is down 13% (officials hope to eventually cut it by 20%). There's less traffic and better air quality. But perhaps best of all is that most workers love this schedule, and their performance reflects that. Absenteeism has decreased, while productivity and work quality have increased (e.g., customer complaints at the DMV and other state agencies are down).

The five day workweek that's the standard in most of America came into existence 71 years ago with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. A lot has changed since then, and the results of the Working 4 Utah plan suggest that maybe it's time to rethink the 5-day work week. 3-day weekends every week? I could get behind that.