If you’re considering making the switch to a 4-day work week, you’re in good company. Around the world, countless organizations have made the transition, and the research is in their favour: employees with a shortened work week report a 71% reduction in burnout, while employers report a 57% decrease in resignationsand a 35% increase in revenueon average.
A shorter week doesn’t just provide more work-life balance for employees—it also helps organizations build more diverse, inclusive, and equitable cultures. Systemic oppression and societal norms disproportionately place caregiving duties on women, and even moreso on women of colour. A shortened work week can allow them to reduce their need for childcare by 20%.
This spring, Evenings & Weekends worked with YWCA St. John’s to explore the possibility of a 4-day work week with their organization. While there are clear benefits for similar social service agencies, it’s critical to plan for change thoughtfully, and before making a final decision, to test out the initiative through a pilot program.
Here’s how to set up your 4-day work week pilot program for success.
1. Determine Your Measurements
Before you begin your pilot, clearly define what your organization is trying to achieve with a shortened work week. Is it improved staff morale? Increased productivity? Reduced expenses?
Once you know what success would look like, identify a set of related key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be tracked on an ongoing basis to guide future decision making.
Guiding questions:
Which financial impacts are most meaningful for us to measure? (such as revenue and expense variance, fundraising and grant targets met, etc.)
How we will assess the impact that the pilot is having on our staff, volunteers, and program participants? Could we mix qualitative impacts (such as feedback shared via anonymous surveys) with quantitative (such as the staff turnover rate or staff usage of sick days)?
2. Choose Your Model
Typically, organizations pick one of two approaches:
Condensed work week:Employees work their standard hours over 4 days instead of 5. The compressed schedule allows for an additional day off, but longer shifts may result in a decrease in productivity and may interfere with employees’ personal schedule needs (like school pick up, etc.). Note: we generally don't recommend this model.
Condensed and reduced work week:Employees work regular 8-hour shifts and complete their work week in 4 days. While employees are working 32 hours, they typically continue to receive compensation for a standard 40-hour work week.
Guiding questions:
How could each option affect employee well-being and work-life balance?
What impact could each option have on employee productivity, engagement, and morale?
Are there specific times in the year where our chosen model may need to be adjusted (i.e around a major fundraising event)?
3. Consider Your Programs
Depending on the nature of your organization, the working hours you choose may impact your ability to deliver your programs, or the ability of your community members to access your services. You may find that closing on Tuesdays or Wednesdays works better than a Friday or Monday, or that different teams within the organization require different day-off schedules.
Guiding questions:
On which days do we offer critical programs that would be harmful to move?
Could we make changes to our existing program schedules without negatively impacting our program participants?
Could different teams explore different days off? What impact would this have on internal communication and operations?
4. Understand the Financial Implications
Most organizations find that shortening their work weeks saves them money due to reduced office expenses like heating and power. However, if you have employees that are paid hourly, or who have less flexibility to rearrange their workload and schedule (such asfrontline services or delivery positions), it could add new labour expenses.
Guiding questions:
What costs could this add or remove within each department of our organization? Could this impact our fundraising, operations, or other expenses?
Will we need to hire more staff or expand hours for hourly employees to ensure we meet our goals? What will be the impact(s) of doing so?
5. Assess Your Workloads
Without advance planning, introducing a 4-day work week can make employees’ workloads a big crunch. A shorter work week often means that your organization must become more mindful in how employees use their time, and seek to remove unnecessary tasks wherever possible.
Guiding questions:
What key deadlines do we have to meet as an organization? Is there any flexibility to these dates?Are there any tasks or deadlines that we can rethink or eliminate altogether?
Will we need additional staff to meet the deadlines that we can't change?
Could we reduce the amount of time that staff spend in meetings? (such as allocating specific days for team meetings, circulating meeting templates to help conversations stay brief, or scheduling “deep work” time without any meetings at all)
Are there tools we should be using to help track tasks and understand staff workloads (i.e. Asana, Trello, Monday.com, etc.)?
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By following these steps, you can make a more informed decision about whether a shortened work week pilot is right for your organization.
Need support gathering your data, consulting with staff, and tracking success? Evenings & Weekends offers personalized work week assessments. Contact us to book an intro meeting!
