Aussie fintech InDebted brings in four-day week to boost health, side hustles

Working four days a week without the longer hours or losing pay will soon be a reality for employees at one Aussie fintech.

‘Mass removal’ of weekly meetings at Aussie fintech InDebted boosted productivity and time management so strongly, it is introducing a four-day working week for 95 per cent of its staff from October 1.

A no-strings attached measure, which will shrink the working week for majority of its 170 staff to 30-32 hours from Monday to Thursday, it does not include any pay cuts or changes to existing arrangements, InDebted founder Josh Foreman said.

Established in 2016, the fast-growing digital debt collection group secured $25m in a funding round led by Perennial Value Management and existing investor Reinventure, Carthona and Mass Mutual Ventures (Southeast Asia) last month.

Employees will still receive the same compensation in terms of salary and benefits, which include competitive salary packages, unlimited paid time off, equity ownership and quarterly stipends to purchase services and materials that help with work-from-home setups, Mr Foreman said.

He was motivated by three factors – boosting the wellness of the team through the pandemic, allowing them time to explore their passions and be an employer of choice in the midst of a demand for good skills.

“For us, this is a trust-based model where there is transparency across the board,” Mr Foreman said.

“The focus will be on output while monitoring closely employee stress levels and milestone checkpoints.”

Employees had been consulted on the changes with a “whole-of-company” effort to come to a consensus on everyone working smarter and not harder.

“It’s a phenomenal opportunity and we all need to work together to make it work.”

He said the Covid-19 pandemic had forced all businesses to think differently and given rise to many opportunities to change the way people worked.

“We have seen various trials by major employers like Microsoft around the world,” Mr Foreman said.

“We believe that this is the right time in InDebted’s journey to embrace the 4DWW.

“We are concerned about our employees well being, including their mental health and believe that this initiative will be a massive benefit in this regard.

“Employee burnout is a real issue in many modern workplaces and we want to address it.”

He said employees would be supported in working smarter and encouraged to “heavily scrutinise” meetings and decide if they are really necessary.

“As a business we want our employees to do their best work and we think having at least two days a week free of meetings to focus on deep work will end up resulting in a major boost to productivity.

“The other added benefit that we think moving to a 4DWW will unlock, is the entrepreneurial spirit that we are seeing in lots of our younger employees.

“As a growing company, we embrace entrepreneurship and have many members of our team who have built and sold their own businesses before joining InDebted or have recently left InDebted to go on their own entrepreneurial journey.

“Some of our current junior staff have their own side hustles going on and we are keen to see where they can take them if they have dedicated time once a week to work on them,” Mr Foreman said.

The last five years had been about building products that define what a modern approach to debt recovery and collection looks like, but the business was now “a conduit” between businesses and customers with financial fitness as a focus, he said.

InDebted, which has up to 50 staff in Australia, is now operating in New Zealand, Canada, UK, and the US with support staff around the world offering 24/7 access for customers.

InDebted’s technology and debt collection platform has seen more than 93 per cent of its recoveries managed online.

It counts global buy now-pay later (BNPL) businesses, major banks and utility and other service providers among its clients.

Mr Foreman, who is leading the change by action, said the decision was “a big step” for InDebted.

“We don’t have all the answers but we will take feedback from our employees, measure the results and iterate along the way.”

In 2019, local digital agency Versa introduced a four-day, but 37.5-hour, work week with Wednesdays off.