If you think your staff waste 20% of their time at work, why not give them a whole day off, regularly, just work four days each week and give everyone in the Office Friday off ??? Pay them exactly the same but have a 3-day weekend, every single weekend…
Twice l have done this, you’ll be amazed how much Smarter everyone works those 4 working days! Office staff quickly learn how to be 20+% much more productive, inventive and efficient, all to ensure they get that 3 day weekend, for the exactly the same pay.
Fewer late arrivals, excessive lunches, Facebook posts and unnecessarily long tea & coffee breaks. Staff have to work more steadily and collaboratively, knowing that if their work isn’t finished in 4 days, they’ll have to come in on Friday and work alone, in a very quiet office!
This requires several steps:
1. ALL the staff directly affected must agree (sign on) to a 3-day weekend, otherwise they will not whole-heatedly participate in the collective team effort required
2. Write clear job descriptions for each member of staff involved and a Team Job description, detailing regular deadlines and completed weekly work packages (e.g. invoicing deadlines for finance, or ordering deadlines for material suppliers)
3. Plot a flow chart of team deadlines on a large chart and post it up in the Office; Make the office manager responsible for keeping the chart updated as each task is completed and creating the next week’s flow chart, with prior tasks carried over.
4. Create/agree a transition plan from a 5-day working week to a 4-day working week
5. Identify which internal teams and external Customers need to know of this Plan
6. Identify staff training requirements, mainly IT, to include this on the transition plan
7. Identify collective teamwork required for key deadlines and delegate pieces of work around
8. Each team member needs to schedule each week’s work to identify additional team collaboration required to achieve deadlines
9. Staff need to agree how major holidays are scheduled and work arounds required.
10. Staff need to identify key workloads & pinch points through the year e.g. Christmas.
What are the benefits?
Substantially increased staff motivation, retention, fewer staff absences, sickness and late arrivals, leading to improved staff & management mental health and team collaboration. See the BBC’s own recent video research HERE to get an understanding from an employers perspective…
If you would like to understand how to implement a 4 day working week in your business and reap the financial benefits, contact John Mather at EMC & Associcates.