The 4-day workweek: Malomo’s results and extension of the 6-month trial
In January 2022, Malomo started its 6-month trial of a 4-day workweek (4DWW) following a successful one-month trial in September 2021. Our goal with the 4DWW was to optimize our culture for mental health to enable deep engagement with work. We were confident it would improve our hiring ability and even moreso, our employee retention. We believed the 4DWW would be a fit for us as a people-first, remote-first business. We also did a lot of reading and research ahead of time, and recommend anyone considering it do the same.
TL;DR:
We extended our 4DWW indefinitely after the 6-month trial
Employees feel more productive and less stressed than before
The transition doesn’t happen overnight, it takes months to adjust
Be clear about how you’re structuring your 4DWW, employees want and need clarity
Not only did the 4-day workweek excite our team, but we garnered a lot of attention outside of our team. It’s clear that many people are paying attention to us and others who have joined this movement, wondering if it really works and what that even means. Our 4DWW announcement blog post is one of our most highly trafficked blogs and one of our most highly engaged social media posts. We received a ton of support, encouragement, and questions from our customers, partners, and other members in our Malomo community.
We’ve also seen the negative commentary of a 4DWW being forced flexibility, or that it can even remove flexibility on your 4 work days. We’ve heard skepticism that it’ll be much harder to fully support customers with one less day of support coverage. We’ve heard fears from other leaders that they don’t feel like they could trust their employees with a work structure like this.
The reality for us has been in stark contrast to this. Our employees have the same, and at times even greater flexibility than they had before. We still provide 5-day support coverage to make sure we meet the demands of our customers and their businesses. And our employees bring the best versions of themselves to work, enabling them to build stronger bonds with each other, supporting one another, and engendering more trust in the process.
How We Structure Our Week
We considered all 15 of these factors when we structured our 4DWW:
We have Fridays off with on-call support coverage and flex schedules for those employees
We don’t condone slacking or emailing on Fridays unless it’s support-related or business-critical; scheduled sends are the preferred route
We work normal 8-hour days, not 10-hour days
We view Fridays as built-in flex days which come in handy for parents with kids or anyone who has something come up during normal business hours during their on-days
We focus on trust & accountability and our use of our operating management system EOS enables us to do that effectively
We still have unlimited PTO
The Results
Here’s what we know so far from our employees’ experience with the 4DWW:
100% believe that a 4-day workweek is a major benefit of working at Malomo.
100% said that if it were up to them, they would keep the 4-day workweek forever.
100% of the company responded and said that the impact of having a 4-day workweek vs a traditional workweek has “served them well”.
71.4% of the company said they are more productive and 28.6% said they were equally productive when comparing the 4-day workweek with a traditional workweek. No one is less productive than before.
71.4% of the company said they are less stressed than usual and 28.6% said they were equally stressed when comparing the 4-day workweek with a traditional workweek.
92.9% said they have more time to spend on personal or family interests in a given week vs 7.1% saying they have equal time when compared to a traditional workweek.
When you sprint and have to stay laser-focused all week, rest and recovery is crucial.
We want our employees to find refreshing ways to spend their free time during our “off” days so they are even more focused and excited to be here for “on” days. This means we frown upon email and Slack messages on Fridays outside of customer support needs. It also means we address situations where anyone is consistently working on Fridays.
Not only have we seen employees using “scheduled sends” in email and slack so they do not arrive on Fridays, but late night and early morning workers are also more sensitive to sending non-urgent slack messages during “off” hour times which is an added bonus. The team has started to respect the “off” hour boundaries of each other much more.
We asked our team if they’ve ever had to do any Malomo work on their Fridays off, and these were the results:
28.6% said no, they do not do any work on their Fridays off.
64.3% answered “yes, but I work on the things I want to work on when I want with no obligation to a client, prospect, or manager.”
The good news is that our communication channels are very quiet on Fridays. The Friday work is infrequent and there is no underlying assumption that you should have something to do on Friday. We prefer it if you don’t. However, contrary to the belief that forcing Fridays off reduces flexibility, it actually provides an automatic day where you can flex in if you had to take a half day during the week for an appointment (or something came up) and you didn’t accomplish everything you wanted/needed during the week.
The Transition
Transitioning to a 4DWW doesn’t happen overnight. We’ve all been conditioned to work 5 days a week since we were young kids in school. It takes time for the mental shift to happen and to get used to what it takes during the week to be successful (hint: ruthless prioritization).
We continue talking about successes and challenges, tips and tricks, lessons learned, and ideas to fine-tune our process so we can continue to meet our needs as a team and as individuals. Once the team adjusts to hustling with ruthless prioritization for 4 days and taking 3 days to recuperate, it will be hard to consider going back to a regular workweek. I liken it to remote work. Many people experienced the benefits and productivity of remote work and can never consider working a job in-office again.
Here are a couple quotes from our team that expose their feelings about the 4DWW;
“I've loved the 4dww. I also think the 4dww has provided many intangible benefits to our brand, our culture and mentality both as an employee here but also from others looking at Malomo. It's refreshing and reassuring that we are dedicating time and applying ourselves to projects and people outside of Malomo while still accomplishing our professional goals.”
“Having a 4 day work week has greatly benefited my work/life balance. I feel like I can get more done in a shorter amount of time than when we had 5 day work weeks.”
We’re proud to be blazing trails with the 4DWW. We recognize that it may not be the right fit for every company, but it’s been effective for our team morale and productivity. If you’re considering implementing the 4DWW or another flexible work schedule, you’ll want to do your research.
If you want to connect with us regarding our experience, please reach out to [email protected].
4DWW Resources we found helpful:
https://www.inverse.com/innovation/7-lessons-from-companies-that-implemented-a-four-day-workweek
https://buffer.com/resources/4-day-workweek-2021/
https://buffer.com/resources/customer-advocacy-4-day-workweek/
https://wildbit.com/blog/2021/07/06/four-day-workweek-statistics
https://wildbit.com/blog/2021/08/30/4-day-workweek-customer-support-team
https://wildbit.com/4-day-workweek
