Want to Retain Employees? Try a Shorter Workweek

The four-day workweek is the newest buzzy office pattern, with experiments and surveys touting improved worker morale, retention and productiveness.

In a single examine of 41 companies throughout the U.S. and Canada — the bulk with 25 or fewer staff — 40% of staff surveyed mentioned they had been much less harassed after making an attempt out a shorter workweek. As well as, 60% of staff reported a greater work-life steadiness and 32% mentioned they had been much less prone to stop, in response to a July 2023 report by 4 Day Week International, a nonprofit that promotes shorter workweeks.

ThredUp has seen this play out in-house over the previous two years. The net clothes reseller shifted to a four-day week for company staff in 2021. Voluntary turnover amongst that group dropped 55% in contrast with 2019, and hiring bought a lift. Most new hires cited the corporate’s shorter week as a deciding consider employment, Natalie Breece, chief individuals and variety officer at ThredUp, mentioned by electronic mail.

Can a shorter workweek do the identical for your online business? The brief reply: It relies upon.

“You may’t implement one thing like this if the underlying tradition doesn’t assist and nurture belief in your staff,” says Janet Lenaghan, dean of the Frank G. Zarb College of Enterprise at Hofstra College.

For a four-day workweek to work, you want a tradition that empowers staff and values outcomes fairly than face time, she says.

Planning, coaching and execution are additionally key for a profitable transition to a shorter workweek.

Asking staff to squeeze 5 work days into 4 doesn’t come with out changes.

Enterprise leaders should assess workload, aims and success metrics. In addition they have to spend money on instruments to streamline or automate duties, equivalent to accounting stories or different administrative tasks, so staff can higher prioritize their time. Lenaghan advises leaders to “deal with duties that drive bottom-line outcomes.”

Giant-scale pilots by 4 Day Week International, which have taken place globally, embrace two months of workshops, teaching and mentoring. Corporations that take part in trial runs additionally get ongoing assist.

Earlier than ThredUp initiated its four-day workweek, it held coaching periods on matters equivalent to “the way to lead an environment friendly assembly, when to cancel or take away your self from conferences, and the way to effectively talk with staff,” Breece mentioned.

Managers and homeowners should even be encouraging and set a very good instance, which includes refraining from sending emails or anticipating staff to work on days off.

A pilot program is a lower-stakes method to check out a shorter workweek and work out any kinks earlier than making it a everlasting coverage.

Ballot In every single place, a know-how firm that develops reside survey and suggestions instruments, dipped its toe right into a shorter workweek by implementing “Summer time Fridays” in 2022. The eight-week trial had bumps, together with firm holidays that squeezed the already shorter weeks into three days.

“Among the issues we noticed with execution and missed deadlines may need had as a lot to do with how the logistics had been arrange as with the thought of working 4 days per week,” says Rob Graham, CEO of Ballot In every single place.

The corporate revived “Summer time Fridays” in 2023 with some tweaks and extra coaching primarily based on worker suggestions and knowledge evaluation.

“We restructured the schedule in order that holidays at the moment are thought of the designated time without work for that exact week,” Graham says. Managers additionally acquired particular coaching to assist enhance communication and effectivity regardless of fewer conferences.

Some firms can function Monday by way of Thursday with out impacting prospects or the enterprise. Others want some degree of staffing five-to-seven days per week.

Ballot In every single place opted for a staggered schedule for particular groups, the place some staff had Friday off whereas others selected a unique day.

At ThredUp, its 273 company salaried staff work Monday by way of Thursday. In distinction, staff within the clothes reseller’s distribution facilities work from three to 5 days per week, relying on their shift.

No vital enterprise change is with out its challenges. Attempt to anticipate these and be proactive find options when attainable. And acknowledge that some bumps could be the brand new value of doing enterprise.

Busy instances, such because the push to complete a giant challenge or wrapping up end-of-quarter monetary reporting, will all the time be hectic. And it takes some effort to get again into work mode after an extended weekend, Breece mentioned.