Moving the World to a 4 Day Workweek – An Interview with Aidan Harper
I run a ~20 person digital marketing company and we are experimenting with a 4 day week this summer. Everyone has Fridays off in June and July. Pay is unchanged.Fundamentally it seemed like a cool thing to do for staff - more time to enjoy a summer in London. Doing whatever you want on a Friday - life admin, hobbies, long weekend away, recovering from a hangover... your call.But then it also seemed like an opportunity to experiment with this new constraint. Could we avoid losing 20% of our output? We certainly didn’t want to work 2 extra hours per day. So the idea was to really take the chance to look at how we work, how we organise ourselves, how we prioritise, how we communicate and share. What can we automate or improve processes for. How we use meetings as a tool for value. And also how we really dive into our work with intensity and drive for the hours we are there.Overall, sentiment across the company has been extremely positive. We certainly haven’t made up for the lost day in measurable improvements or efficiencies. But we have maybe got half way there - without inducing increased stress during the four days. The team feels more together. And we have probably all learned some skills that will make 5 day weeks that more productive when we restart them. So overall I would be surprised if it wasn’t win-win for all involved.I can certainly see us doing this again next year - and maybe also again for a month like December. It really just feels good/right overall.