A year ago, we ran an experiment at work. Emerging from the height of the pandemic, we were exhausted and running on empty. And, as an organisation that works with teachers, care workers, youth and community workers, local authority staff, academics and thousands of others, we found ourselves having the same conversation with everyone. They were burned out too.
So we decided to give our whole team August off. We were inspired originally by a similar initiative at the organisation of well-known researcher Brené Brown – and her explanation of the rationale behind it. We had no idea how it would go, but knew we had to do something radically different from the “keep on keeping on” cycle that we, and everyone else around us, was caught in. It was a rush to get everything finished and wrapped up with clients before we took the break, but it was worth the effort.
And it paid off. We had much-needed reflection, recreation and family time; people came back feeling motivated and ready to work. Ideas that came into focus over that time have led to us growing our team, and our income this year, by almost 50%. As a result, we’re doing it again. We’ve embedded it in our employee contracts as a permanent feature, alongside working a fully paid four-day week, having an additional 20 or more days holiday annually, and creating a policy for fully paid sabbaticals after long service.
When we tell people about this, they often think it’s hugely radical and impressive, or they think we’re lazy snowflakes who couldn’t possibly be productive. But to me, it’s just common sense. And not really new. Plenty of European countries slow down or stop in August, and the recent four-day working week trial at 61 UK firms was a major success.
When we look at the work systems around us, there are many that are clearly struggling. Poor mental health is costing UK employers £56bn a year due to absenteeism, presenteeism and staff turnover. Half of employees are showing at least one characteristic of burnout due to greater job demands and expectations, lack of social interaction and lack of boundaries between work and home life. Public sector strikes are just another sign that work isn’t working for many of us.
So often, work becomes a system we need to fix, and we forget that our workforce is made up of individual people, living lives, with needs in and outside their jobs. “Listening” to staff often means a half-hearted survey where poor results can be written off by companies as people just being grumpy or disgruntled. However, ignoring the needs of staff is detrimental not only to their wellbeing, but to the productivity of the company too. If you prioritise your bottom line over your staff, the choices you’re making are costing you in the long run.
We’ve seen that putting staff and their needs at the centre of a company can be transformative. Happy, well-rested people are not only less likely to be off sick, but they will communicate better with each other, have more of a sense of purpose and feel more committed to a company that looks after them. For my company, August gives us a moment to reflect and pause (even if for many of us that might include picking fish fingers up off the floor, giving endless lifts and stopping a toddler from falling in a paddling pool). It lets you get off the treadmill and then actively decide to get back on.
I know you’re probably thinking, “but they’re a small company who can afford to take risks”, or “it’s easy for them to talk, but they don’t have 1,000 employees and pressure from shareholders”, and you’re right. We are an organisation of 10 people. But looking at the state of the country at the moment, who can afford not to take risks? Creativity – the ability to transcend traditional rules, ideas and patterns, and make new ones – is fundamentally vital to the society we live in now. We need fresh ideas. We all have it in us to be creative, but we can’t do it when we’re pushed up against the edge of our limits, when we’re exhausted and trying to juggle everything all at once.
Society seems to have got completely caught up in a never-ending cycle of busyness – and when we don’t stop to pause and question it, we continue to make the same mistakes. Yes, I’ll hold my hands up to being a Guardian-reading woman with anti-capitalist tendencies who (shock, horror) thinks putting people’s wellbeing first is just fundamentally the right thing to do. But it does also make business sense. Without allowing people adequate time to recharge and reset, they suffer. And so will the systems relying on them.
And so, as I write this, I am in my last hour of work for the next four and a half weeks. I’ll delete my email account from my phone and I’ll have extra time to share with family, sort out my life admin, enjoy being outside and maybe, if I’m lucky, actually have a rest.
I know how privileged I am to have made this decision for my company, and that not everyone can stop. But if you’re in the position to make that decision for yourself, or others, maybe have a think about what stopping might mean for you. A day off? A new way of working? Actually taking your lunch break? Radical, maybe; snowflake-y, maybe; absolutely essential to continue functioning as a human being, definitely.
Jo Hunter is the co-founder and CEO of 64 Million Artists
