'They had more creative energy, they were showing up with more interest in the work and that was really positive'
When Toronto-based health-care industry consultancy Fresh Squeezed Ideas began to send its workers home during the initial days of the pandemic, its workforce initially struggled with new demands.
“We were getting that feedback from people just saying the stress they were under during the lockdown, so we had probably 40 per cent of our workforce decided to actually exit the industry,” says Karen McCauley, CEO of Fresh Squeezed Ideas.
This caused them to step back and evaluate the entire “burnout” culture of the company, which has about 20 employees in Canada and the U.S.
“We just took a good hard look at ourselves and our vision of the company is to lead the transformation of a health-care system into more human care experience for people but we needed to turn that lens on ourselves and say, maybe we need to figure out how to create a more caring experience for our culture, and our people.”
One of the company’s employees heard about a four-day workweek pilot run by 4 Day Week Global and decided to take the plunge.
Initially, the company did a multiple-month “runway” in which various procedures and policies were tweaked to accomplish the weekly schedule through a “pain points exercise.”
“As we moved through the pilot, people got into their rhythm and learned how to do the work in less time, and be more productive and when we would ask them how they were doing from an emotional standpoint, they really felt like they were in a more positive place: they had more creative energy, they were showing up with more interest in the work and that was really positive,” says McCauley.
Fresh Squeezed Ideas mirrored what the vast majority of other participants were experiencing, according to study of its effectiveness that was completed by researchers at Boston College, University College Dublin and Cambridge University.
Some of the positive numbers released by the study showed that 90 per cent had a positive experience and none will go back to a five-day week.
As well, revenues rose an average of 38 per cent over the same period last year.
The six-month pilot included more than 30 employers with almost 1,000 employees in the U.S., Ireland, Australia and Canada.
“Companies who have been struggling along on several different fronts, with recruitment, with retention, with work-life balance, with gender disparities in the workplace, with burnout overload, one of the things that they’re finding is that giving people back time, in a way that also empowers them at work and encourages and provides a structure in which they can be thoughtful and innovative in ways that aren’t going to end up costing them their own jobs,” says Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, program director at 4 Day Week Global in Menlo Park, Calif.
“It turns out to be a great way to address all of those problems.”
One Montreal company has permanently switch to a 4.5-day workweek with great success.
For those companies who worry about the impact on clients, who suddenly might have less access to service providers, this isn’t manifesting itself, says Soojung-Kim Pang.
“The good news is that clients are often some of the biggest supporters of four-day week trials because they are facing the same kinds of challenges with recruitment and retention and burnout that you are, and if you can figure out how to solve them, then maybe they can learn from you.”
For Fresh Squeezed Ideas, a similar experience has occurred, according to McCauley.
“When we originally introduced the notion, most clients that we were working with in partnership, were really excited about it.”
The company regular meets with clients after a project is completed and it has asked them how they felt about the four-day workweek.
“We’re happy to not book meetings on Fridays because that’s what we asked, they’re happy. It helps them out, less meetings for our clients on Fridays as well So I would say there’s interest in seeing how it goes,” says McCauley.
“Overall, it’s been a positive experience for our employees and our clients are, for the most part, unaware that it’s happening.”
A previous four-day pilot was “seamless” according to survey results gleaned after the project’ completion.
Employers are also winning the retention battle when they make the switch, says Soojung-Kim Pang.
“What companies have told me after having a four-day week in place for several years is that they are seeing substantial improvements in their ability to recruit good workers and to retain them and especially in marketing or nursing, industries in which there is traditionally a lot of turnover. This can mean both company performance is better but also they end up saving a whole bunch of money in recruiting and spending on temp agencies and so there’s an indirect benefit there.”
And the four-day week is particularly good for working parents and mothers who are looking to get back into an industry they may have left due to having children, he says, “and that company now becomes super attractive to them and they’re able to perform at a level that is appropriate to their skills and professional experience in a way that is often difficult for them to do at larger companies that are still, for all of the progressive talk, suspicious of the seriousness of working moms.”
This change will be permanent at Fresh Squeezed Ideas, despite some early reservations.
“One of our team members actually acknowledged partway through that they used to when Sunday night would come along, they used to experience a fair amount of anxiety as they thought about the five days ahead of them but now Sunday comes in, they’re like, ‘I can already see Thursday, it’s not too far away.”
“It eliminated that stressful feeling of having the weight of five days on their shoulders and I think that’s true for a lot of people within the organization.”
The four-day week could be standard by 2030, found another survey.
