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I remember people laughing when Executive Update magazine, a precursor to ASAE & The Center’s Associations Now magazine, ran a 2004 feature by Brazil’s two-time businessman of the year Ricardo Semler, who had just written a book called The Seven-Day Weekend. The article, “Where Radical Design Meets Effective Business,” details Semler’s “crazy” but highly successful approach to generating tremendous organizational growth while simultaneously creating “the happiest employees on the planet.”

One way he did that was to leave all work scheduling—whether manufacturing shifts or executive work sessions—to the employees themselves. The focus was on the work—not the when or how, but the what—as in, “What were the results, and did they achieve our goals?”

Today, though, the laughter is long gone, and in its place are serious discussions of how to conduct work differently to achieve a wider range of goals. High on the agenda are flexible work schedules. Just this week I saw that the Birmingham Convention and Visitor’s Bureau is piloting a voluntary four-day work week program through July and August to help employees and the business reduce fuel and energy expenses and commuting time.

State governments, too, are re-envisioning work parameters, with Utah Governor Jon Huntsman leading the way June 26 with an announcement that the state’s non-essential service agencies will move to a mandatory three-day weekend (employees will work four 10-hour days) to conserve energy, cut in-state vehicle miles, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.

Other states pondering (West Virginia, Vermont, Oklahoma, and Arizona), piloting (Kentucky, South Carolina), or even mandating (New Mexico) work schedule alternatives have found great enthusiasm among their employees.

And are associations following this lead? Eh, some are, some aren’t. What I don’t understand is that in a period of such high concern about retaining talent, cutting expenses, reducing environmental footprints, and doing-too-much-with-too-little, doesn’t it make sense to at least try some fresh approaches to getting work done? And that’s no joke ...