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I run a ~20 person digital marketing company and we are experimenting with a 4 day week this summer. Everyone has Fridays off in June and July. Pay is unchanged

by le205 7y ago

I run a ~20 person digital marketing company and we are experimenting with a 4 day week this summer. Everyone has Fridays off in June and July. Pay is unchanged. Fundamentally it seemed like a cool thing to do for staff - more time to enjoy a summer in London. Doing whatever you want on a Friday - life admin, hobbies, long weekend away, recovering from a hangover... your call. But then it also seemed like an opportunity to experiment with this new constraint. Could we avoid losing 20% of our output? We certainly didn’t want to work 2 extra hours per day. So the idea was to really take the chance to look at how we work, how we organise ourselves, how we prioritise, how we communicate and share. What can we automate or improve processes for. How we use meetings as a tool for value. And also how we really dive into our work with intensity and drive for the hours we are there. Overall, sentiment across the company has been extremely positive. We certainly haven’t made up for the lost day in measurable improvements or efficiencies. But we have maybe got half way there - without inducing increased stress during the four days. The team feels more together. And we have probably all learned some skills that will make 5 day weeks that more productive when we restart them. So overall I would be surprised if it wasn’t win-win for all involved. I can certainly see us doing this again next year - and maybe also again for a month like December. It really just feels good/right overall.

rosser 7y ago
Best of luck in your experiment! Please consider writing up your thoughts afterwards, and perhaps sharing them with HN.
nbrempel 7y ago
I love that you're doing this! If you are interested in sharing some of your experiences doing this, email me at nick@30hourjobs.com People love reading about this kind of stuff and I would be happy to feature your company on the site/newsletter. If you're hiring, past featured companies have received some quality candidates from this!
julienreszka 7y ago
French?
- Gabriel_Martin 7y ago
  "summer in London"
  - julienreszka 7y ago
    Parisians often go to London for weekends
- sp332 7y ago
  The comment mentions London. Not impossible by train, only unlikely :)
  - julienreszka 7y ago
    Parisians often go to London for weekends
biztos 7y ago
I think you're on the right track, best of luck with it! I am quite sure I would get at least as much -- and probably more -- done if my week were formally four days long instead of five. I'm also sure this could be true, depending on motivation, of everyone I work with and almost everyone I ever have worked with.
mac01021 7y ago
If you can really make up for the lost time through increases efficiency, would you consider keeping the four day week all year round?
jsharf 7y ago
This deserves to be its own hackernews post/writeup, and would easily make the front page!
CalRobert 7y ago
1) It's fantastic you've done this. This sort of thing would make me crazy about my employer. 2) "We certainly haven’t made up for the lost day in measurable improvements or efficiencies" Maybe that's OK? Humans have tons of stuff already (at least in the rich world), and most of the things that are expensive are going to stay that way because we create false scarcities to soak up any extra income (housing, mostly). I suppose that's why we need controls to level the playing field, or else the company willing to push workers for another day will lower the bar for everyone.
iamnothere 7y ago
If you are doing this for only part of the year, one thing to be aware of is the Hawthorne Effect [0]. We're wired to seek novelty, and you may see a temporary increase in productivity each time you change working hours because of this. It's actually a reasonable argument for changing things around periodically, as long as it doesn't happen too often. (Note, however, that the effect may be limited to actual experiments where you're making careful observations. There isn't good consensus on it.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
doh 7y ago
Years ago, when I lived in Boston, when Summer arrived, half of the city went on water or did something outdoors. When I moved to CA, there was no such pattern as there is "Summer" the whole year around. I'm wondering how different would your approach be if you are based in this kind of climate. For instance, we give our employees 30 days of PTO. If they wanted, they could easily use 8 days to take day off each week during Summer (or any other period), but we have not run into any that would do that. This is definitely an area that I would like to explore more in the future. Thank you for sharing your experiences!

by le205 7y ago

rosser 7y ago

Best of luck in your experiment! Please consider writing up your thoughts afterwards, and perhaps sharing them with HN.

nbrempel 7y ago

I love that you're doing this! If you are interested in sharing some of your experiences doing this, email me at nick@30hourjobs.com People love reading about this kind of stuff and I would be happy to feature your company on the site/newsletter. If you're hiring, past featured companies have received some quality candidates from this!

julienreszka 7y ago

French?

Gabriel_Martin 7y ago
"summer in London"
- julienreszka 7y ago
  Parisians often go to London for weekends
sp332 7y ago
The comment mentions London. Not impossible by train, only unlikely :)
- julienreszka 7y ago
  Parisians often go to London for weekends

biztos 7y ago

I think you're on the right track, best of luck with it! I am quite sure I would get at least as much -- and probably more -- done if my week were formally four days long instead of five. I'm also sure this could be true, depending on motivation, of everyone I work with and almost everyone I ever have worked with.

mac01021 7y ago

If you can really make up for the lost time through increases efficiency, would you consider keeping the four day week all year round?

jsharf 7y ago

This deserves to be its own hackernews post/writeup, and would easily make the front page!

CalRobert 7y ago

1) It's fantastic you've done this. This sort of thing would make me crazy about my employer. 2) "We certainly haven’t made up for the lost day in measurable improvements or efficiencies" Maybe that's OK? Humans have tons of stuff already (at least in the rich world), and most of the things that are expensive are going to stay that way because we create false scarcities to soak up any extra income (housing, mostly). I suppose that's why we need controls to level the playing field, or else the company willing to push workers for another day will lower the bar for everyone.

iamnothere 7y ago

If you are doing this for only part of the year, one thing to be aware of is the Hawthorne Effect [0]. We're wired to seek novelty, and you may see a temporary increase in productivity each time you change working hours because of this. It's actually a reasonable argument for changing things around periodically, as long as it doesn't happen too often. (Note, however, that the effect may be limited to actual experiments where you're making careful observations. There isn't good consensus on it.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

doh 7y ago

Years ago, when I lived in Boston, when Summer arrived, half of the city went on water or did something outdoors. When I moved to CA, there was no such pattern as there is "Summer" the whole year around. I'm wondering how different would your approach be if you are based in this kind of climate. For instance, we give our employees 30 days of PTO. If they wanted, they could easily use 8 days to take day off each week during Summer (or any other period), but we have not run into any that would do that. This is definitely an area that I would like to explore more in the future. Thank you for sharing your experiences!