This company has had a permanent four-day work week for over a year. Here’s how it works for them

Lee Waltham, Alexandra Martin, and Derek Elliott of Brandish. (Supplied by Brandish)

One company, with offices in both Toronto and Winnipeg, has been working a four-day week for over a year now - and the shorter week is here to stay for good.

Brandish, a strategic consultancy agency, first introduced the shorter work week as a test, but then made the decision to stick to it full-time in September 2021 after seeing the positive effects it had on the team.

The shorter week at Brandish means the company puts more focus on the quality of work, rather than focusing on how many hours they have worked. Since the agency has a flexible work culture, the team chooses their hours throughout the work week and treats Fridays as a “flex” day.

This means employees can choose however they want to spend the day, including continuing to work if they so choose.

“It’s allowed me an extra day to spend on the things I enjoy like spending time with family, friends, working out and getting outside,” Manager of Projects, Michelle Perron, told CTV News Toronto, speaking of how the shorter week has affected her.

“Working four days has allowed me to feel more productive and motivated in a condensed window.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE AT THE START?

Director of Product, Danny Wood, was initially nervous about the company’s transition to a shorter week due to the amount of time “invested by our team.”

“Brandish doesn’t do things ‘just for show’ so I knew that doing [a four-day work week] would mean that we would legitimately only be working 32 hours a week,” he said.

At the start, Perron said the biggest challenge was adapting the existing timelines to account for the fewer working hours during the week.

“It took some time for our team to adjust project plans and communicate any significant changes to clients,” she said. “Now, in our planning process, we’ve gotten a grasp on reasonable workload in a four-day work week and can plan appropriately.”

Wood’s initial nerves changed after seeing the team’s focus during the work week, and how “refreshed” they come back to work on Mondays.

“Team members are definitely more creative since we’ve instituted the [four-day work week]. I feel a noticeable improvement in the quality of our problem solving and overall work output over the past year,” he said.

Managing Partner, Lee Waltham, says the company’s employee Net Promoter Scores (eNPS) – a metric measuring how employees feel about working at the company through various surveys – had dropped dramatically prior to the shorter week as the team “struggled” with the major changes the pandemic brought on.

“Our people were leaving feedback in surveys calling out their struggles and challenges with working from home, their workloads, and increasingly busy meeting schedules,” Waltham said.

A year later, Waltham says the scores are higher than they have ever been, especially in areas that measure work-life balance and happiness at work. Wood adds some staff even promote career opportunities at the company because they see it as a place that “values the well-being of its employees and takes culture seriously.”

SHOULD OTHER COMPANIES SWITCH TO THE SHORTER WEEK?

A few companies in Toronto have made the change to the shorter week, and some, like marketing communications agency, PRAXIS, are trying out the four-day model before making it a permanent change.

Waltham says it’s likely not for everyone.

“The four-day work week will not work for every organization, but rather one of many different frameworks to provide more flexibility and autonomy,” he says, but adds the pandemic has pushed everyone to re-think where people work and how they work, too.

“People want more say over how they do their work and creating the flexibility and autonomy for people to explore how they do their best work will only have a positive impact on your organization.”