‘Hustling’: Australian companies embracing the four day work week

Staff are burnt out and exhausted from “slogging” away and with unemployment at a record low, momentum is gaining for the four day work week.

More Australian companies are turning to a four day work week with no pay cut as burnout rises among staff, as well as the fallout from brutal competition to attract employees, with the unemployment rate hitting its lowest level in 48 years.

From finance to health, company’s from a range of industries have signed up to trial a shorter work week from August as part of an initiative from not-for-profit advocacy group 4 Day Week Global.

Canberra-based lending firm More Than Mortgages, Melbourne not-for-profit group Our Community which has 75 staff, and marketing agency The Walk plus Queensland’s Momentum Mental Health are some of the organisations taking part in the scheme.

Two years on from the shift to working from home, Australians are estimated to have worked an additional six hours per week, according to research from the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, leading to burnout and exhaustion.

More Than Mortgages will initially move to a nine day work week between July and November, before introducing a permanent long weekend for staff in December, although it will remain operating five days as staff split their day off between Monday and Friday.

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Aussies are looking for more work life balance. Picture: iStock

The decision to cut hours was made after the business noticed their 12 person team were burnt out, according to the company’s director and senior broker Deanna Ezzy.

She said they decided they had “nothing to lose” by participating in the experiment, as they look to make staff happier but also hope to become more attractive to potential candidates.

“Our mindset is work really hard and do whatever you’ve got to do to get it done so it’s a real shift for us to go from really hustling and slogging it out to how will we get this all done in four days,” she told the Australian Financial Review.

‘Build a life they love’

At Our Community, staff would have the option of either Monday or Friday off, while the company was also installing automatic invoicing, reduced meeting times and limiting the number of people included in emails.

The organisation’s group managing director, Denis Moriarty, said it had been a traditional office-based company until the pandemic hit but they were now in a position to trust employees to maintain productivity and make sure work-life balance is supported.

“Most of all, we are responding to the shift we are seeing with employees having more of a voice about what they want work to look like in the future,” he said.

“Companies cannot grow, achieve social impact or reach amazing valuations and new heights without their staff. It’s time we as leaders find ways to return some of this investment to them, not just in wages, bonuses and equity, but with time, so they can use the rest of those things to build a life they love.”

Denis Moriarty, Group Managing Director of Our Community. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Around the world, there are a number of organisations participating in the 4 Day Week Global organisations trial, including 70 firms with more than 3300 workers in the UK, 17 in Ireland and 38 in North America.

The trial is expected to improve productivity by between 25 to 50 per cent, according to the organisation, and would be a gamechanger for the outdated mindset that working longer is better.

The pilot will be followed by researchers at Auckland University of Technology, University of Queensland, University of Sydney and Boston College.

Research from 4 Day Week Global found 75 per cent of employees doing a four-day work week were happier and less stressed, while two-thirds of companies found it easier to attract and retain talent.

Andrew Barnes, 4 Day Week founder. Picture: Supplied

Momentum for shaking up work week

Andrew Barnes, founder of 4 Day Week Global, said the four day work week offers a number of benefits including helping workers with mental health issues as well as addressing gender pay and the climate crisis.

“We recognised well before the pandemic that the five-day week is no longer fit for purpose, and as we trialled and studied the four-day week it became clear that this is a necessary part of the solution to restore climate balance, among many other documented benefits,” he said.

“We simply cannot go on as we have been, and we welcome the forward-thinking companies and business leaders in Australasia who are driving this change and showing the path forward.”

Some company’s in Australia have already embraced the change.

Digital agency Versa gave its staff Wednesday’s off to go surfing or do what makes them happy. Picture: iStock

In 2019, Melbourne digital agency Versa introduced “No Work Wednesdays” to give people time to catch up on life admin, spend time with their children, exercise, surf and do whatever makes them happy.

Revenue grew by 46 per cent over the trial and profit tripled over the 12 months.

Behavioural science consultancy group Inventium made the four-day working week a permanent feature after implementing a trial in July of 2020 and saw productivity increase by 26 per cent.

Other companies to switch to the four day work week post pandemic include Victorian finance outfit Tractor Ventures and engagement platform Good Empire, as well as Sydney debt collection firm Indebted and marketing agency Commission Factory.

The four day work week would allow parents to spend more time with their kids. Picture: iStock

A trend spreading around the world

In February, Belgians were given the right to work a four-day week without sacrificing a full-time salary as part of a major overhaul to the European country’s labour laws.

But the compressed 38-hour working week means that employees will work longer hours each day in order to make up the extra day off.

A study in September last year by Mercer found 27 per cent of Australian organisations were offering a compressed working week.

A trial of the four-day working week has been implemented in Spain and Scotland where the government has agreed to subsidise businesses who allow employees to work the reduced hours.

Nearly 90 per cent of Iceland’s working population operate under some kind of reduced work hour structure after trials ran from 2015 to 2019.