The 4-day workweek: Malomo’s 6-month trial
The 4-day workweek is a big topic of discussion these days. But it’s more than a discussion point at Malomo. We’re diving in headfirst. Here’s why…
We are a people-first, remote-first business. For most of us, that means we are working and living in the same space. This blurs the lines of work and life and can lead to working a lot. So, we dubbed last September (2021) Malomo’s Mental Health Month and gave our team every Friday off to rest and recharge ahead of the intense holiday season. The results were quite impressive.
In comparison to the prior 8 months of the year, we:
Signed the highest number of new customers
Onboarded the most revenue
Generated the most marketing leads ever
Met a very significant product milestone
And, our employees loved it...
I’m the first one to recognize that a one-month test is not enough to truly impact or change the mental and physical routine of work habits built over many years in the workplace. I believe the mixed emotions people feel about having a 4-day workweek (4dww) has a lot to do with being conditioned to work five days a week. There’s some guilt in working just four days when everyone else works at least five.
However, at Malomo, we’ve always been more focused on quality of work, and not the quantity of time spent working. It’s easy for work to expand to fill the time we allot for it. That doesn't mean better work gets done if it takes longer. On the contrary, more times than not constraints breed creativity. I believe we set records in September because we were hyper-focused on the most important things we needed to get done, and we had time to fully rest and reset for a new week. We are focused on working smarter. We rely on our employees to bring their best selves to work so they can create innovation and deliver exceptional experiences for our customers.
That’s exactly why we are officially announcing a six-month trial of the 4dww starting January 1, 2022. I firmly believe that we can do better work and bring the best version of ourselves to our remote-first offices in four days instead of five.
We are going to take great care of ourselves so we can take great care of our customers, partners and stakeholders.
We’re going to show up energized and refreshed, not stressed about when we’re going to take care of all of the other necessities in our lives.
We are going to ruthlessly prioritize deep work. This means no meetings for the sake of meetings. We’ll focus on the activities that will produce the highest outputs.
How does this impact how we’ll serve our customers who still operate on a 5dww?
While we’ll maintain a hard stance on no emailing or slacking on Fridays, that won’t apply to our limited on-call support staff. If urgent needs arise from our customers, we’ll treat them as such. Our service to customers will remain the same 5 days per week. We will continue to monitor our support channels on Fridays and respond to critical issues. Serving our customers well is priority one.
January is the start of a 6-month trial that I’m confident will extend indefinitely. However, I will be continually seeking out feedback from our customers, partners, employees and other stakeholders. And, we’ll periodically share updates here on our blog. Keep an eye on our journey here and if you’d like to chat with us about the 4-day workweek and our approach, please reach out to [email protected].
