How Will a Four-Day Work Week Impact Employee Experience?
The challenge is balancing flexibility for employees with the productivity needed to meet growth goals
June 17, 2022
Work culture has shifted significantly in recent years to focus more on providing a positive employee experience. This has been in large part due to demands from employees for more flexibility in their working arrangements and the willingness of people to change jobs in order to find that work-life balance. As a result, many companies are considering changing to a four-day work week as part of their overall benefits package.
A four-day work week is a type of modified schedule where employees retain full salary while only working four days during a week. Most often, this is structured as four days in a row at work, followed by a three-day weekend; however, some companies offer employees the option to flex which days they are on the clock.
Why Implement a Four-Day Work Week?
In a study conducted by Henley Business School, 70% of workers agreed that a shorter work week would have a positive effect on their quality of life, with most also saying that the flexibility would improve their mental health.
According to that same study, 68% of companies that had already implemented a four-day work week said that the change was helping them attract talent because it signaled to potential hires that they took a more modern approach in creating company policies.
When implementing a four-day week, companies hope to provide employees with more time away from work while still maintaining the level of productivity needed to meet their growth goals. The challenge is finding a way to do so where employees are given the autonomy they need to develop a more efficient process for themselves while also managing workload to avoid burnout.
Here at Swit, our mission is to re-humanize the way we all work. We believe that implementing more essential human qualities into work tools helps companies place people at the heart of their decisions, ultimately leading to a better employee experience and more productive workflow. It’s crucial for every business to communicate with employees in order to know what’s important to the people who are ultimately responsible for your success.
Does the Four-Day Work Week Maintain Productivity?
Based on several test cases in recent years, when a company switched to a four-day work week, productivity was equal to a traditional five-day or 40-hour work week. In fact, when Microsoft Japan conducted a four-day week trial over the course of a summer, they found that productivity actually increased by an impressive 40%. On top of that, they discovered that they used significantly fewer resources, including electricity and paper, and developed a more efficient discussion strategy by putting a time limit of 30 minutes on all their meetings.
A four-day work week helps employees upskill by optimizing their time to prioritize tasks for efficiency. Within Swit, the adaptability in task view helps individual employees find the workflow that is most effective for them. Some work best when organizing tasks by Status, others prefer viewing by Bucket to see custom categories, and for a multi-person project it can be beneficial to use Timeline view, also referred to as a Gantt Chart. Our unique All Tasks view is an essential tool for leaders to utilize for proactive team management.
While working one fewer day per week doesn’t seem to impact productivity, it does not necessarily translate to satisfaction among employees. If work quantity isn’t adjusted or adapted for this new schedule, the work level can actually intensify, leading to burnout. Plus, managers are often under increased pressure to monitor performance, which doesn’t always pair well with the autonomy your employees need to maximize efficiency. Culture can also suffer, as employees reduce socialization in order to meet tight deadlines.
When we developed Swit to combine tasks and chat into a single work management platform, one of our main goals was to help teams redefine productivity. We give teams the tools they need to measure productivity more comprehensively, taking into account both quantitative and qualitative communication engagement input factors. This adaptability for growth and resilience for upskilling is essential in preparing your business for the future of work.
Does the Four-Day Work Week Help Retain Talent?
Some companies have reported an increase in applications after transitioning to a four-day work week, in large part because workers want a job that offers them flexibility. But a four-day week can shift priorities away from team building and developing people skills, resulting in a negative employee experience. This degradation of culture has the potential to lead to a higher turnover rate as employees lose that essential connection to your company’s mission and values.
Plus, if the four-day schedule you offer employees is itself rigid, it may not actually provide workers with true flexibility. You may find more employees prefer remote-first or hybrid work rather than a four-day week. Younger workers, as well as people with childcare or eldercare needs, are prioritizing control of their work days and location over other job perks.
Swit operates using a RAN model, which stands for Remote, Asynchronous, and Non-Linear work. This helps our employees collaborate with each other efficiently, while also recognizing that they have personal and family priorities that may need attention during traditional working hours. If you have a parent-teacher conference to attend, or a long lunch with an old friend, or even just want to take a few hours to enjoy a walk on a beautiful day, a non-linear model allows people to step away from work for a bit during regular working hours by giving them the tools they need for transparent communication with their team.
“We sometimes forget that there’s a human on the other side of the keyboard,” says Swit’s People Manager Kate Campos. This disconnect between the work we’re doing and the people we’re working with can cause friction and negatively impact both the office environment and organizational level of productivity. “Because we’ve built our own processes around the Swit platform, we can better connect with each other. It’s like your coworkers are right down the hall, which helps maintain transparency because the app functions sort of like an open door policy.”
If your business is considering a four-day work week, it’s important to know your goal. Are you trying to improve flexibility, well-being, or engagement? Or is it a combination of all three? It’s important you choose the option that is most inclusive and best for well-rounded productivity. The right software tools can help meet these goals both with or without a four-day work week. Contact us to learn more about how Swit can support your company’s goals.
Natalie Litofsky, Copywriting Manager
