The Story of “Social Friday”
A few years ago we read this research that confirmed something we all sort of already knew – Friday is the least productive day of the week.
Whether you are at work in the office or you are a student in a lecture hall, Friday is a day for checking out early and starting the weekend. This is nothing new or surprising, but it got us thinking: what if we could do something to change this?
We, a business ourselves (in case you were wondering, we are an engineering studio), were pondering on the subject to see if we can improve our own office Fridays. So we had a “big idea”, an “aha moment”!
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We thought, why not utilize this time to get our employees doing something that’s not typical, everyday work but would still have a positive impact on our team and our company? Maybe something out of the office, maybe something fun and social, maybe something out in the community… and voilà, SOCIAL FRIDAY was born.
Our idea was to use those unproductive Friday hours to do a short volunteer activity in our neighborhood – a very simple idea that’s worked wonders for our team.
It fulfills your corporate social responsibility and needless to say, it really helps the community. And trust us, your community, much like ours, needs the help! Look around and you’ll see dozens of opportunities where you and your team could plug in and with just a few hours of work, could make a real difference.
That’s all a SOCIAL FRIDAY is – you use your unproductive Friday hours to get out of the office and do something that inspires your employees and helps a local cause.
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We do it at least four times a year and we focused our initial efforts on a neighborhood orphanage. The kids there are in desperate need of mentorship and a positive influence and our team is proud to provide that. We’ve done arts and craft classes with them, cookouts and basketball games. Some folks on our team have even formed ongoing mentorship relationships with a few of the children.
SOCIAL FRIDAY is now a part of our office culture. It’s a day we celebrate. We’ve seen the impact it’s had on our team and the local organization with which we partnered, so we decided to share it with the world and invite everyone to take part in what we believe, with time, could make a global difference.
Social Friday is an ever-changing and evolving initiative that’s always a work-in-progress. We are open to new ideas and feedback. If you’d like to share some input on how to increase the visibility of the initiative, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
SOCIAL FRIDAY not associated or based on any religious or political platform.
