?? The (unhinged) 6-day work week

?? On The Clock is a biweekly newsletter sharing opinions and advice on the world of work — and the way it should be. If this episode was sent to you, subscribe here so you don't miss the next one!

Hey ??

Welcome back to this week's volume of ?? On The Clock.

I'm going to jump straight into this week's topic by letting the headline do the talking ??

… catch on? ??

I asked our LinkedIn crowd about this niche idea. It went down about as well as you would expect.

The poll shows the new Greek law is at odds with what employees want. Or, more bluntly — what workers are willing to put up with. The law is even more of a head-scratcher because it's heading in the opposite direction of most countries:

???? The UK is about to kick off a nationwide pilot program to test out a shorter working week, flexible start/finish times, a nine-day fortnight and compressed hours

???? Portugal's trial of a 4-day week last year resulted in reduced anxiety and fatigue for employees

???? Finland even has a law allowing full-time workers to choose their start time and location for at least half the week

… the list goes on.

For decades, companies have done the 9-5 dance. It's taken employees to stand up and demand a better way of working. COVID-19 taught us that remote work is possible (despite all the no-our-company-can’t-possibly-work-like-that rhetoric). More people now dare to draw a line in the sand for how they want work to fit into their lives.

I'm pretty certain a 6-day work week ain't it. However, the more complicated issue is that employees now have some skin in the game, and finding a system that works for them is only possible with collaboration.

We think we do a pretty good job of achieving this over at Toggl, so here are some lessons around finding a healthier balance for employees ??

Get comfortable with being radically different.

Toggl went remote a decade ago — way before it was cool. But being ahead of the curve came with… some learning curves. Remote work wasn't something many companies were trying, so there wasn't a blueprint to steal from on how to do it well.

We tried a couple of different working setups, like a 4-day work week, but none of them felt quite right. They didn't mesh with how we operate or what our team needed to balance their life work.

So, we decided to be radically different and create our own structure — one built for our team's needs. We already had a policy in place where employees had the freedom to work where and when they wanted. But, we wanted an extra layer of freedom so people could choose how much they worked while still getting their work done.

We finally landed on RAFT (Results and Accountability First at Toggl) — our radically different approach to remote work.

The best part about RAFT is it's rooted in accountability, trust, and results. It treats our team like adults.??

The lesson?

If there isn't a blueprint to fit what your team needs to work productively — build your own.

Yes, it's about the company.

But the company can’t exist without the team.

File this in the "obvious" column, but it's easy to forget that the ideal working structure is basically what empowers your team to do their best work.??

Yes, you should absolutely test flexible hours, a 4-day work week, and no meeting Fridays. But the only way to find out if they are the right fit is to get your team's honest input.?

When we created RAFT, we spent months in Slack gathering feedback about what was working (and what wasn't). The insights made us realize this new policy meant more to our team than just having flexibility. It empowered them to take time off to reduce burnout. More people were spending time outside to decompress. They had more freedom to design a schedule that worked for their lives.

Tl;dr RAFT just made the team really freakin' happy.

A happy team is more productive and more engaged. Our employees also tend to stick around a little longer instead of bouncing to another job. So maybe, just maybe… the 6-day work week isn't such a good idea after all? ??

Thanks for reading ?? On The Clock?— see ya in two weeks ??