Swampscott Town Employees To Begin 4-Day Workweek In May

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — A four-day workweek, seasonal beach passes and a concerted effort to shorten night meeting commitments are some of the ways Swampscott Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald hopes will help the town better recruit and retain staff as the COVID-19 health crisis wanes.

The recommendations are among those that came out of the Select Board's request last month to examine the reasons behind and possible solutions to the inordinate amount of openings at Town Hall at the time.

While Fitzgerald said some of the staff shortages were because of the "great resignation" challenges that many towns and businesses are now facing, and has since filled several of the openings, he did identify ways that he said he hopes will help staff better connect to the community and create the improved work-life balance that many have expressed as a priority.

"Given the challenges of Zoom meetings and how days just don't seem to end, and with more and more and more grants and projects, we're placing an extraordinary demand on a small staff," Fitzgerald told Patch. "We really wanted to drill into recommendations that make a positive difference in other communities.

"These are things that, frankly, we can implement without much-added expense to the town and seem to have the consensus that people would like."

Fitzgerald said the new Town Hall hours will go into effect on May 2 with the hours extended on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and offices open from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Wednesdays. Administrators will be available, in most cases, for any necessary issues that come up on a Friday.

"We found that Friday mornings were the slowest out of all of the workdays," Fitzgerald said. "Plus, we've had a few folks expressing some concern that we are not open later on some days for folks who work a busy workweek so this helps that as well."

Fitzgerald said the beach pass and a town beach day for employees as part of an effort to increase the connection between the staff and the town after two years of working remotely, under restricted office conditions and behind masks.

"We want to be making an investment in the culture of Swampscott," he said. "Staff shouldn't be thought of as part of the help, but part of the community.

"With the pandemic, we have been so isolated and so pushed by the virtual reality that there is a sense of connection that we’ve lost and I want to try to go back to those points of connectivity."

Fitzgerald said he will continue to work with boards and committees that town staff assists with to shorten the length and frequency of night meetings, and noted that residents have their part to play in being civil when it comes to dealing with public employees whose job it is to get things done in town, but who are also neighbors and members of a relatively small municipal staff.

"The sheer vitriol at the local, state and federal level has made it very difficult for a lot of these employees," he said. "There are some unreasonable expectations that people have of what these people can handle.

"We have to be more conscientious and thoughtful about how that affects not only the town officials but also their families."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)