Summer Fridays In South Florida

If you're like me you probably wonder why the office building parking lot gets so empty on Friday afternoons after 2 PM. Are there really that many people getting an early start on the weekend?

Maybe.

Summertime and the living is easier -- at least in some Miami offices.

Summer Fridays, the traditional long weekends in New York publishing houses, have trickled down to Miami in the past decade, especially in the advertising and public relations fields.

``In New York, it became apparent a few years ago that media people we were trying to reach had already gone to the Hamptons,'' said Cheryl Andrews, owner of Coral Gables-based Cheryl Andrews Marketing Communications, which specializes in travel. ``I said, `You know what, we work plenty hard and [keep] long hours. Let me give my team here a little breather in the summers.' ''

For a decade or more, many offices nationwide -- including those in South Florida -- have dubbed the end of the business week Dress-down Friday, encouraging employees to wear casual clothes unless they have client meetings. The early Friday exit pushes that perk a step further.

[...]

Israel Kreps, CEO of Coral Gables-based Kreps DeMaria Public Relations and Marketing, has a similar view.

``Most businesses are doing more with less staff,'' Kreps said. ``Consequently, all the more, you need to make your staff feel like they're getting something back.'' Exit hour for his 15 staffers on summer Fridays: 4 p.m., versus 5:30 p.m. normally.

For those of us who aren't so lucky there is usually a bright side: less traffic on the way home.

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