TGIT - QuakeLab's 4 Day Work Week Pilot
POV: The one who owns QuakeLab
At QuakeLab, we're always striving to push boundaries and explore innovative approaches that foster equity, productivity, and well-being. With that in mind, early this year, we kicked off a 4-day work week trial. In this article, I, Sharon Nyangweso, CEO of QuakeLab, will walk you through the pros and challenges of the 4-day work week from the perspective of a business owner and company principal. Additionally, Susan Ong, an employee at QuakeLab, will share her experience with our 4-day work week pilot.
Numerous studies suggest that reducing the work week to four days can have significant benefits for both employees and organizations. Research from Iceland, where large-scale trials of the 4-day work week were conducted, found that productivity remained the same or improved in most workplaces, while employee well-being saw a marked improvement. Employees reported feeling less stressed, more rested, and better able to manage work-life balance.
Personally, I’ve found that having a 4-day week allows me to be more rested and focused. It’s made me more disciplined in making the most of my time during those four days, and I’ve noticed an improvement in both my energy levels and the quality of work I’m able to produce. This aligns with findings from a New Zealand study, which highlighted how a shorter work week can lead to enhanced job satisfaction and reduced burnout.
In testing out this model, I was surprised how difficult it was to personally keep myself from working on Fridays. It felt like I was doing something wrong or neglecting my business by failing to be productive one whole day of the week. Now we can dig into all of the ways that we have been socialized to understand critical non-work activity as “unproductive”, but thats a blog for a different day. What I want to highlight here, is the reality of being a business owner; two and a half years ago, I was working seven (yes, 7) days a week. Weekends were a luxury, I felt strongly that every waking moment was critical to give my business a fighting chance. So moving not just to a two day weekend, but a THREE DAY WEEKEND was a struggle. Not to mention, this move happened when consultants across industry have seen a reduction in business and a longer stretch of time between first meeting and contract signing. This felt… very, very, very upside down! However, we forged along for a few reasons:
The research included above is a drop in the bucket of growing knowledge telling us that not only are 4-day work weeks better for all of us, they are the future of work.
There’s never going to be a “right time”. This has been a good lesson both in my personal and professional life: There will always be a reason not to do a thing now, so might as well just jump in feet first.
QuakeLab is a small company, we can’t always match what other big consultancies can offer to top talent, offering perks like a four-day work week, means we can punch a little above our weight!
I am a huge fan of aiming for the ceiling, not the floor. Labour activists have won us all a lot of gains (weekends, parental leave, etc.) however, for the most vulnerable and marginalized workers, some of these gains are still tenuous at best. In stead of aiming for that floor, I’m going for the ceiling.
Transitioning to a 4-day work week isn’t without its challenges. As we navigate this new terrain, several key issues have surfaced:
Deciding on Work Hours: One of the first decisions we had to make was whether to work 10 hours a day for four days, or maintain our regular 8-hour workdays within the 4-day week. Each option has its pros and cons, but we’re leaning towards maintaining the 8-hour days to ensure that our team is not overworked. This brings us to the next challenge.
Practical and Legal Considerations: In Ontario, a full-time employee is typically expected to work 40 hours a week (or 37.5 hours in many cases). If we opt for a 4-day, 32-hour work week, we must consider the legal and practical implications. How do we ensure that we remain compliant with employment standards? What adjustments need to be made to contracts and expectations? These are questions that require careful consideration and planning.
Managing Vacations and Holidays: Another practical challenge is figuring out how to manage vacations and holidays. If an employee takes a Friday off, does it count as a vacation day or a regular workday? Similarly, if a public holiday falls during the week, do we work three days or maintain our four-day schedule? These logistical details are critical to ensuring that the transition is smooth and fair for everyone involved.
Shifting Focus to Deliverables Over Hours Worked: Perhaps the most significant shift is moving from an organization that tracks hours worked to one that focuses on deliverables and the quality of work delivered. This requires a cultural shift and a rethinking of how we measure success. It’s a challenging but necessary step if we want to truly embrace the benefits of a shorter work week.
Our 4-day work week trial is still in its early stages, and while we’re excited about the potential benefits, we’re also aware of the challenges we need to overcome. As we navigate this journey, our focus will remain on maintaining the high standards of work that our clients expect from QuakeLab, while also ensuring that our team is well-rested, motivated, and equipped to deliver their best.
POV: The one who works at QuakeLab
First of all, I’m feeling very spoiled, and now I don’t know if I can ever go back to a five day work week! The first reaction I get from friends and former colleagues is one of jealousy, but I do recognise that this may have ruined me for other employers in the future. But I feel spoiled in part because the benefits have been immeasurable.
Personally, I am much better rested by the end of the weekend. I now have the time to have the kind of weekend where I have one day to do my errands and chores, one day to socialise and one day to just completely rest. It has improved my mental health in many ways. I tend to schedule any medical or personal appointments on Fridays now and this means that I’m less distracted during the week because I’m not trying to run out at 4:30 to an appointment. Being able to do that, guilt free, is an incredibly liberating feeling. Finally, for someone who is also a gardener, living in Canada, being able to maximise every minute of sunshine I can is invaluable to me.
Speaking of value, we should discuss what this looks like practically speaking and here is where distinguishing between the 4 day work week and QuakeLab’s more effects based approach to work is also important. 4 day work weeks usually happen in two forms. They are either a condensed work week, where one packs a 40 hour work week into 4 days, working 10 hours a day. Or, it is a condensed and reduced work week where we move to a 32 hour work week, with 8 hours a day for 4 days.
As the QuakeLab team is small and our client load is elastic, our model while on paper is type 1, in reality it looks more like type 2. And I also caveat that with stating that there are some days that I work less, and there are some days I work way more. I am a QuakeLab Inclusion Strategist - and this is a fancy way of saying that I’m an equity minded generalist who has the privilege of spending time researching, working on and helping to solve client problems. But the second bit is too long to fit onto a business card! We’re generally reimagining what work looks like at QuakeLab. Some days, the work is pretty traditional - I’m sitting in front of a computer and it’s typing away, taking calls, making notes, sending emails etc.
Other times though, especially when we’re working through those tough problems that clients have, I’ve come to reimagine productivity. In what may come as a surprise to no-one, sitting in front of a computer, staring at a blank screen with a blinking cursor doesn’t really inspire creativity. Sometimes, getting outside and taking a walk around the block or in the garden helps me to think much more clearly. And so, for me, the 4 day work week pilot has been wrapped up in a more complex reimagining of work in general. As a knowledge worker where my brain is the most valuable commodity, how can I be creative and innovative?
For every mid-day walk I take or 11am check on the bees in my garden, I’m also sometimes online at 11pm writing and researching. While I’m lucky enough to have my own office at home and it is a very peaceful space even during the day, my chronotype means that my brain fires at its most productive in the evening. No emails are going off, there’s no need to schedule a block of time between two calls to write - the night stretches on and you can just go down research rabbit holes, or write, uninterrupted for hours. I personally do my best work between 9pm and 2am and what an effects based approach to work has done has allowed me to work when I am at my most effective.
If there are to be any drawbacks to the 4 day work week, I’ll state that first of all, it may not be beneficial if you don’t simultaneously move away from a mindset of being in front of the computer 10 hours a day is the definition of productive. Further, I will state that the model can cause some confusion and the larger your team is, there’s potential for this. In Ontario, a lot of public holidays occur on Mondays (civic holidays, Thanksgiving etc.) and our policy states that where there’s a public holiday, we take the public holiday and then work 8 hours for the rest of the week, including Friday. This might not be feasible for someone who has more rigid schedules, for example, involving childcare.
QuakeLab’s research tells us that ambiguity in workplace policies breeds inequity - so if we’re to walk the walk, we’ll have to make amendments to our policy to ensure that it’s clear and doesn’t leave room for either inequity or ambiguity to thrive.
In a 1930 essay, John Maynard Keynes postulated that in a 100 years, most people would be working no more than 15 hours a week. Keynes predicted that because our standard of living would be better, we would work more out of habit than necessity and that technology would have replaced the need for us to work as much. Keynes was obviously wrong about many things but his essay ends with this delightful thought that human destiny should be “in encouraging and experimenting in, the arts of life as well as the activities of purpose.”
One of QuakeLab’s values is that we do good work, but work is not all we do. I’m proud of what we do at QuakeLab, and it has a purpose. I like to think that Keynes would see our 4 day work week experiment as getting closer to those activities of purpose and arts of life that make living truly wonderful. We haven’t managed to crack the magic of a 15 hour work week - who knows, perhaps we will manage this by Keyne’s 100 year deadline in 2030! All jokes aside though, for me and I believe for QuakeLab, the overwhelming benefits of trusting employees to manage time and produce good work has meant that the 4 day work week has allowed us to be happier, more productive during the times we are working and achieve a better work life balance.
We’re committed to finding a balance that works for everyone, and we’ll continue to share our learnings as we progress through this trial. The future of work is evolving, and we’re proud to be at the forefront of exploring what that future might look like. Have any questions about our pilot or need help building a future-proof workplace? Get in touch
