THRYVE & The 4-Day Work Week

“We did it before it was cool…”

The working week is huge news right now – with the UK following the likes of Iceland, Japan, Spain, and New Zealand to trial the 4 day working week.?

At THRYVE, we prefer to lead rather than follow. We’ve always been fast to adopt new ideas that could benefit our business. So we took the plunge, and our 4 day work week has been operational for 3 months now. Read on to see how it’s going…

Who is THRYVE?

THRYVE is an experienced Technology Consultancy, focused exclusively on delivering growth and results for our partners in the German Technology market. Our quality-obsessed approach enables our partners to achieve critical business objectives in a way that’s both effective and agile.

Why reduce the working week?

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in any profession, and recruitment is certainly no exception. The idea of having one less day to get the work done seems counter-intuitive. But stick with us, because there’s a real cost to constantly trying to push through and do more. Lower staff engagement and satisfaction, and a higher risk of burnout. This has been shown to negatively impact productivity, focus, and performance.

A UK study of nearly 2,000 full-time office workers found that the average time spent working is 2 hours, 53 minutes each day. This accounts for scrolling social media, making personal calls and texts, chatting to coworkers, taking breaks, etc. As well as attending meetings with no agenda, outputs, or actions.

What do we hope to achieve?

By switching to a 4 day week, we’re expecting to see the following:

1. Greater wellbeing, happiness, and health for our staff?

The happiness of our people is our priority. The switch to a 4 day week enables everyone to enjoy a rewarding and successful career with us, whilst also having more time to do the things they love outside of work.?

2. Higher levels of productivity for our business

The data has spoken and we’re inclined to agree. A 4 day working week means we’ll have a more focused and productive workforce producing better overall results.

Tips for companies looking to take the plunge…

• Give employees time to think about how they can work differently and more efficiently.
• Establish clear personal and team business goals and objectives.
• Get buy-in from everyone. Make sure they know why the 4 day week is happening.
• Have regular staff check-ins to learn how well it’s working.

Plan, plan, plan!

• Take steps to upskill your team in areas such as time management and organisation.?
• Consider all necessary logistical changes - divert phones, adapt processes, etc.
• Keep your customers in the loop.
• Acknowledge that everyone will need some time to adjust to this major change.?
• Believe! The biggest blocker we found was mindset.?
• Start Mondays well.?

?What’s happened since we made the big change??

Let’s crunch the numbers…

In the 3 months since our 4 day work week was put into place, we’ve seen the following:

• 31.9% increase in sales.?
• 20% increase in productivity.?
• 61% decrease in staff sick days.?
• 100% of clients say they have seen an increase in service quality and delivery.?
• All sales metrics are up. Better still, they are qualitatively better not just quantitatively.
• All team members are able to do more outside of work. Such as quality time with family, attending places of worship, helping out at home, working on their personal development goals, and more.?

We ran a staff survey in month 3, here are the results:

• 89% feel more productive
• 83.7% feel less stressed?
• 94% feel their work/life balance has improved
• 90% believe they can achieve more in less time

For our team, and the people we work with, this has been a resounding success. And it’s only the beginning!?

Fancy never working a Friday again? THRYVE is hiring now?