I have a full-time job, but last week I spent Wednesday volunteering at a local homelessness charity.
How? Luckily for me, my organisation is one of the 70 companies that began piloting a four-day working week with no reduction in pay earlier this month. It’s already looking like one of the best decisions we ever made.
I work for Helping Hands, which installs equipment such as grab rails and key safes for adults at risk across Greater Manchester. All staff got to decide which day they would like to take off – excluding Mondays, which is the day when everyone has to be in to give us all a chance to catch up.
When we were deciding whether to participate in the pilot, an important factor was making sure our standards of service remained high – so we were instantly attracted to the principle of the 100:80:100 model that the pilot is being run on: 100% of the pay for 80% of the time, in exchange for a commitment to maintain at least 100% productivity.
On a personal level, the pilot has been brilliant. All the household chores I used to do at the weekend can now be done on my day off, leaving me more time to spend with my family. As a single mum I have always had to juggle work, school and being a chauffeur for my children, but this new system means that I can be there for my children and enjoy our time together.
Furthermore, my performance at work has not been affected at all. I find that I am much more focused on the days I am working.
Of course, the move to a four-day week has been a big change, and it took some getting used to. Those most affected were our office staff, who are responsible for booking clients’ appointments. Appointments are generally booked a few weeks ahead so there was a period of reallocating work at the start, but as a result of the hard work put in by staff the transition was very smooth.
Across the team as a whole, people seem much happier and less stressed. There has been a reduction in sick days, and the change has had no impact on our standards of operation. We measure productivity through the number of jobs completed so we can see this on a daily basis through our systems. Since moving to a four-day week, remarkably we’re seeing more jobs completed on a daily basis. This has been achieved because staff are better rested. Through customer satisfaction surveys we can also see that clients are happy with our work and haven’t noticed any change.
It’s still early days for the pilot, but it seems very unlikely we will ever go back to a five-day working week.
Jill Tichborne is training and quality assurance manager at Helping Hands
