Company reduced the working week for their staff with interesting results

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Hi Eddie,
Earlier in the year we announced that we were trialling a 4-day working week.
The trial was limited to our weekday Support team, who worked the same hours each day but for 4 days instead of 5 (32 hours per week instead of 40). Support coverage remained the same as before; seven days a week, from 06:00 until midnight.
The hope was that the extra time off would reduce stress and make staff happier and more productive. Unfortunately, we found the opposite was true.

What happened during the trial
While team members did have the benefit of an extra day off, we discovered that the extra recovery time did not increase output by the 20% necessary to replace that which had been lost.
Furthermore, and this is squarely on my shoulders, because I wanted staff to have a 3-day WEEKEND, and not just 3 days off a week, I proposed a schedule that cut the team into 2 groups, with one half having Fridays off and the other half Mondays.
In retrospect, this was an obvious mistake as it meant we only had 50% of our helpdesk available on Mondays, our busiest day. Our week starts busy and it often took until Thursday to be truly back on top of things, then the pattern would repeat. This put staff in an impossible position; either stay late to clear the backlog or feel guilty about leaving with the helpdesk busy. Either way, a stress-inducing position to be in.
While the team fought admirably to keep on top of work and turned around responses as quickly as possible it came at a cost - work time was now much more stressful than before. The opposite of what we were trying to accomplish.
During the trial you may have experienced support that was slower than you're used to or not the usual quality. If that's the case then I'd like to apologise and can reassure you that things will be returning to normal next week.

What we're going to do about it
We deliberately launched this trial to coincide with the lower seasonal support levels we experience during the summer holidays. Support volume picks up as the days get shorter and we realised after the summer holidays that we wouldn't be able to continue the trial without either damaging staff morale, the quality of support, or both.
The fairest thing is to end the trial as quickly as practical and revert to 5 days. So from Monday, October 2nd staff will work 5 days a week, Monday through Friday. Crucially, this will provide full coverage on Mondays and ensure that the working week gets off on the right foot.
While the outcome isn't what we expected, I'm glad that we tried. Our heart was in the right place and the exercise hasn't been a total failure. After listening to feedback we've made a major adjustment I hope will improve staff work-life balance with fewer tradeoffs - staff can now finish at 17:00 instead of 18:00 and have more evening time.
We're also hiring for 5 additional support staff to bolster the team by 20% (in addition to the 20% output we're aiming to recover from going back to 5 days). I'm confident that support levels will be back to the usual levels you've come to know and expect in no time at all.

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Eddie

Interesting experiment. Bad that it affected their customer service. Lessons learned - at least they were brave enough admit and to reverse bad decisions.

And yet all I hear is people wanting a 4 day week or WFH, I personally think the WFH is a joke when i've observed it in the company I work for, lots of stuff getting missed which had an impact on our operations. My partner now works from home and I still say she misses the interaction with her colleagues and being co'op up in her bedroom which was converted to an office was a mistake, she won't have it.

Fair play to the company trialling this and admitting its findings.

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Originally Posted by Martylaa

Fair play to the company trialling this and admitting its findings.

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Fully agree, seems like a decent guy.

And here's me thinking the point of this concept was work 4x10hr instead of 5x8hr...

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Originally Posted by GraniteQuarry

And here's me thinking the point of this concept was work 4x10hr instead of 5x8hr...

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There are companies who have done this with some success

https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...uccess-pattern

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Originally Posted by wileeeeeey

Fully agree, seems like a decent guy.

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How do you know it is a guy!? haha

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Originally Posted by GraniteQuarry

And here's me thinking the point of this concept was work 4x10hr instead of 5x8hr...

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I thought that too. This trial seemed to be destined to fail given the maths doesn't really add up. I guess it can't due to it being a helpdesk that needs maintaining in core hours. At least they tried and have been honest.

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Originally Posted by Boss13

How do you know it is a guy!? haha



I thought that too. This trial seemed to be destined to fail given the maths doesn't really add up. I guess it can't due to it being a helpdesk that needs maintaining in core hours. At least they tried and have been honest.

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Please, no gendered language. Very triggering.

I apologise.

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Originally Posted by Martylaa

And yet all I hear is people wanting a 4 day week or WFH, I personally think the WFH is a joke when i've observed it in the company I work for, lots of stuff getting missed which had an impact on our operations. My partner now works from home and I still say she misses the interaction with her colleagues and being co'op up in her bedroom which was converted to an office was a mistake, she won't have it.

Fair play to the company trialling this and admitting its findings.

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I’ve been in the office 8 times this year. When I’ve been in there are probably only 1-2 people in that I work closely with as I’m across a global remit.

My interactions in the office are still 95% through Teams, so for the pleasure of sitting where I’m visible I have:

A small, low-res monitor and not a 32” 4K one.

A cheap common denominator chair vs an HM Aeron or an Eames lounge chair for longer calls.

An hour each way and £50 worse off per day.

My work life balance is through the roof improvement wise. Can pop to the gym before work / at lunch, work when and how I want as I’m across so many time zones.

I’m more productive at home, as there isn’t the inane background office chat going on, people talking loudly on calls, open plan meeting space noise. I can wear my NC headset but may as well just stay at home. Just a silent house, and my cat - in a shared house or with family at home I can see it being less perfect, but my work space is lovely & can move around the house / outside depending on what is required of me.

Even pre-Covid as a new joiner only went in 3 days a week. If they reverted back to that, I’d leave immediately to find a remote role elsewhere.

Work force and location has moved on tremendously and tbh if things are getting dropped / missed, then it’s the staff not the remote aspect of working. There is enough tech to keep everyone aligned and up to speed through sharing platforms etc.

If I could get around the taxation perspective I’d not be based in the UK and fly in for my monthly visits. Alas global is based out of London offices, so restricted there.

If your wife denies that she’s missing it, why do you not believe her and simply trust her judgement?

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Originally Posted by wileeeeeey

Please, no gendered language. Very triggering.

I apologise.

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Shame on you Wiley!

Thought you were young enough to get that lol.

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Originally Posted by Mj2k

Shame on you Wiley!

Thought you were young enough to get that lol.

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Too many things happening at once! Just had the open reach guy leave so can now crack on with the important things like TZ and replying to the person who has sent me 18 emails across 6 different threads/subjects today. The absolute joy of dealing with people for a living.

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Originally Posted by Mj2k

If I could get around the taxation perspective I’d not be based in the UK and fly in for my monthly visits.

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From what I can tell from my research into it, the only thing preventing working remotely from another country is how willing your employer is to do it, not UK tax/employment law. You can tell HMRC you're tax resident elsewhere and they'll amend tax code accordingly. The main problem is that then you are subject to the personal tax law of the country you are resident in, which can be more or less generous depending where you go.


I've not worked from the office since Covid struck. Departmental productivity is down, some people can work from home and keep focus, some either skive simply can't do it from what I see.

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Originally Posted by GraniteQuarry

And here's me thinking the point of this concept was work 4x10hr instead of 5x8hr...

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Working condensed hours is very common in my office. When I lived in Bogotá everybody had a half-day on Friday to enable them to get out of the city for a weekend away before the traffic became horrendous, working slightly longer Monday - Thursday. It worked very well for morale and the job still got done.

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Originally Posted by Scepticalist

...some people can work from home and keep focus, some either skive simply can't do it from what I see.

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Hit the nail on the head. For me a 3 and 2 combo works best for various reasons, but I can clearly see some of my colleagues thrive in the office while others thrive WFH. Tough call for employers TBH

I have just started on a new project as client in a Contractors office. The Contractors role is to deliver, and my role is to ensure they deliver on time and on budget and to broadly technically assure their output.

The contract states 3 days per week in the office for the purpose of collaboration, so i clarify this. The Contractors starting team of 6 consists of 2 x 2 days per week, 2 x 1 day per week and 2 x 0 days per week. Clearly taking the piss, but I am not a manager so what do I care. Lots of excuses like I cant do more hours in the office because of childcare issues. I refrain from telling the youngsters I did 5 days in the office for 25+ years and managed to bring up children as well.

The only thing that will change things is a mahoosive fooking recession. All the cocky employees stating they will just skip to another job if their employer enforces them back to the office, may think again when there isn't another job to go to.



Sent from my SM-X200 using Tapatalk

Eddie, that situation in the OP was bound to fail.
In one fell swoop they cut 20% of hours and observed a drop in productivity. Not a shock.
Most people might consider flexibility over a smaller hours drop, as a start, until they observe how it works and what they needed to do to manage it.
But they wanted everyone to have more time at the weekend, so everyone had Monday or Friday off.
Even though the nature of the job required full time cover because they were responding to client problems (as opposed to a certain number of tasks being completed per week) and they themselves knew that pent up demand over the weekend all landed on a Monday.
So that trial was doomed from the start.
I bet you that if they had granted everyone a morning or afternoon off per week (10% hours drop, not 20%), and said to each individual that only one in 5 of those could be Monday morning, to keep the office staffed at its busiest time, productivity would have been maintained.

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Originally Posted by sweets

Eddie, that situation in the OP was bound to fail.
In one fell swoop they cut 20% of hours and observed a drop in productivity. Not a shock.
Most people might consider flexibility over a smaller hours drop, as a start, until they observe how it works and what they needed to do to manage it.
But they wanted everyone to have more time at the weekend, so everyone had Monday or Friday off.
Even though the nature of the job required full time cover because they were responding to client problems (as opposed to a certain number of tasks being completed per week) and they themselves knew that pent up demand over the weekend all landed on a Monday.
So that trial was doomed from the start.
I bet you that if they had granted everyone a morning or afternoon off per week (10% hours drop, not 20%), and said to each individual that only one in 5 of those could be Monday morning, to keep the office staffed at its busiest time, productivity would have been maintained.

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I think you have hit the nail on the head here for the op experience. They started from a premise of “ everyone should have the opportunity of a 3 day weekend” this drove their response planning.

If they had white boarded it with, how do we resource our busiest periods Monday & Long seasonal days. This would have allowed them using data ( like client requests) to determine the pulse of the business. This may have highlighted “ over X weeks Thursday am. And Wed pm has shown to be 90% lower volume. So release staff on these days.

Don’t underestimate a half day in the latter part of the week, traditional weekend jobs cutting grass/ cleaning/ shopping can be done allowing a freer weekend.

Just my 2p

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Originally Posted by swanbourne

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Eddie

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My service provider too, Eddie. I have huge respect both for the company itself and it's positioning in terms of ethical and social/environmental matters. They were a real find.

Some roles can lend themselves to a 4 day week

Some - such as helpdesk - don't. Large companies may need 7 day helpdesk - I usually call EE on a Sunday for example.

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Originally Posted by learningtofly

My service provider too, Eddie. I have huge respect both for the company itself and it's positioning in terms of ethical and social/environmental matters. They were a real find.

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Mine too, from Eddies recommendation.

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Originally Posted by noTAGlove

I have just started on a new project as client in a Contractors office. The Contractors role is to deliver, and my role is to ensure they deliver on time and on budget and to broadly technically assure their output.

The contract states 3 days per week in the office for the purpose of collaboration, so i clarify this. The Contractors starting team of 6 consists of 2 x 2 days per week, 2 x 1 day per week and 2 x 0 days per week. Clearly taking the piss, but I am not a manager so what do I care. Lots of excuses like I cant do more hours in the office because of childcare issues. I refrain from telling the youngsters I did 5 days in the office for 25+ years and managed to bring up children as well.

The only thing that will change things is a mahoosive fooking recession. All the cocky employees stating they will just skip to another job if their employer enforces them back to the office, may think again when there isn't another job to go to.



Sent from my SM-X200 using Tapatalk

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contractors