One year ago, leaders at Girling Jones discussed ways to make their company more appealing to potential workers.
A number of different ideas, such as raising pay or reducing working hours, were discussed by the group. There was an idea of a four-day work week.
Girling Jones' dozen employees would get paid the same amount of money for fewer days of work after a successful trial of a four-day week in Iceland inspired the team to implement its own year-long test. It became something much bigger after it started out as an effort to make hiring and retaining employees easier, creating a more productive environment during working hours and improving the mood among staff.
People are happier that's why we're doing it now. "If your home life is great and you're balancing home life and hobbies, you're going to come into work happier and that's why we're doing it now."
Girling Jones was one of 70 British companies that tried out the four-day work week in a pilot program that will last six months and involve 3,300 workers. The program is a collaboration between three non-profit organizations, a labor think-tank, and researchers at three universities. Girling Jones was asked to be a part of the program months after it began.
4 Day Week Global proposes a truncated work week in order to improve mental health and well-being among the global workforce, but it might also be just what employers need to entice workers to join and stay on the payroll.
Over the past year, workers in the US and the UK have been leaving their jobs in droves. Workers have been seeking better pay, safer working conditions, and a better work-life balance, with many saying they would quit if they were forced to return to work full-time. With all the job hopping and workers resisting a return to the office, companies like Blackwell's have been searching for ways to keep their employees happy.
The first recruitment agency to do it here, we're trying to make sure that people stay. It would be hard for people to return to a five-day week at a different office if they did their job in this environment.
On Mondays and Fridays, the girling Jones staff are all in the office.
She said that they are being more thorough with their work.
She said that employees at Girling Jones have been more productive in the past few months due to less time to waste.
She said that if you don't complete something on a Tuesday, what's the point of trying to complete it on Wednesday? "So you finish it on Tuesday so you can enjoy your day off... this isn't to say that any of us were lazy before, but you definitely get more out of people from the eight hour day than you would have previously."
Profits are going up. The company saw a 29% increase in profits after taxes from June of last year. The shorter week hasn't gotten in the way of growth and leaders are happy about that.
Blackwell said that she and her employees are getting more out of their free time.
One of the girls out there is learning to play the piano on her day off, and a lot of people have mentioned that they have taken up a new hobby.
She spends her Wednesdays off doing chores so that she can spend more time with her family on the weekend.
She said that they are active like that. We just get out and about.
When she told her father about Girling Jones' plan, he was unsure if it would work.
She said that her father believed that the more people worked, the more they deserved promotions and results.
She said that her father's mentality was that if you worked too much, you would get out of a job.
4 Day Week Global thinks it is time for a change in thinking.
The organization says on its website that it moved from six day weeks to five a century ago. It's time for an update.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
