Question: Why don’t more companies use this schedule?
Permanent three-day weekends may seem like a dream, but they’re a reality for workers at Elephant Ventures. The software and data engineering company,headquartered in New York City, started testing a four-day work week in August to help prevent employee burnout and maintain work-life balance during the pandemic. The company went full remote in March 2020, and will likely stay that way for the foreseeable future. The plan was to try out 10-hour days Monday through Thursday for two months. To see what workers thought of the new schedule, the company surveyed employees about the shift before, during and at the end of that trial period. “You have to really focus on empowering the team and make the decision together because everyone has to make modifications to their life. It took employees about three to four weeks to adjust, he said. After the first three-day weekend, workers returned feeling rested and excited, but at the end of that week they felt the toll of the longer days and the readjustment to their normal routines. “By the third week, it was more routine. People were really starting to have adventures and plan ahead and leveraging to make use of the three-day weekend. “Ultimately, the compressed workweek was well received, so much so that the company adopted the schedule permanently.
More flexibility led to more worker satisfaction
While most employees now start their days at 7:00 am and go offline at 6:00 pm with an hour-long lunch break, schedules are somewhat flexible. For one thing, starting that early isn’t possible for all employees all the time — including Shectman.”I am the fun morning dad, which means I get the kids up and give them breakfast … I do the morning routine. From around 7:45 through 9:00 I clock out for family duty, so I try to either start early or extend a little later.”Employees can make up hours on Fridays or the weekend if they aren’t able to get in their hours in four days. We trust people to fill in the gaps if they missed hours.
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