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Travail / consultant

Diversity and inclusion: is the 4-day week the solution?

Some ideas are spreading within companies, and promoting inclusion in the process. Such is the case of the 4-day week, which Kolegz recently announced it was offering to all its employees – just as Buffer, MAIN, Montréal inc. and Osedea have done in the past year, whether temporarily or not. Each of these organizations has opted for the 4-day week for its own reasons and with different modalities – in short, in harmony with its own reality. So that you too can explore the concept, we’ve put together an instruction manual for you, from ideation to feedback.

Why opt for the 4-day week

There are many paths to the 4-day week. Buffer, MAIN and Montréal Inc. all mention the pandemic and the stress it causes. Liette Lamonde, General Manager at Montréal Inc. aptly points out:

“The context of the pandemic [weighs] heavily on the morale of the troops.”

So, if you’re concerned about the mental health of your employees and want to put in place the right conditions to prevent burnout, you may want to consider this option. For example, already in April 2020, 41% of Buffer workers felt distracted or anxious. The 4-day week is therefore a way of giving your employees more mental availability, of “giving everyone time to look after their family, devote themselves to a personal project or simply get back on track with life”, as Ivana Markovic of Osedea puts it.

“It’s when you drop out that you can be the most imaginative”. This is what led Marianne Lemay, President at Kolegz, to implement the 4-day week in her company. She wanted to “leave room for the creativity” needed to carry out her activities. The extra day away from the office, in her opinion, allows for distance, which ultimately benefits the employer.

Both Osedea and Kolegz point out that the 4-day week is also a significant argument with potential candidates, whether young or older. It complements other work-life balance strategies, for example, or meets the needs of certain neurodivergent individuals. Implementing it is therefore a way of reaching a larger pool of candidates and countering the labor shortage, while making the most of the opportunity to include different profiles with distinct realities.

How to implement the 4-day week

4-day week: workload and hours worked

The first question to ask concerns workload. Does the same amount of work have to be done in 4 days? Kolegz, for example, has decided to adapt the workload to the reduced number of days worked, while MAIN has chosen to maintain the same workload.

This is an important question, because the benefits of the respite day can evaporate like snow in the sun if the employee is overloaded or exhausted on the days he or she works. Of course, it’s also possible that staying focused for longer without interruption will compensate for the lost day. This is different for everyone. For example, a neurodivergent might be more easily overloaded if it’s impossible to get a break, or a parent might be unable to increase his or her daily hours to condense the work week into 4 days.

The other aspect to consider is possible billable hours. One day less in the week can mean a drop in revenue for the company. It’s a question of assessing whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

In all cases, expectations must be clear and agreed in advance, both to plan deliverables and to ensure fairness to all.

Salary and alternatives for the 4-day week

Closely related to the first is the question of pay. If the workload is reduced, should the salary follow? Some, like Kolegz, have opted for a proportional salary, while others, like Osedea, have preferred to retain the original salary.

What we’re really talking about is internal equity. Not everyone wants to work 4 days out of 5. For example, Kolegz realized that not all its candidates wanted a 4-day week, and that some wanted to invest themselves in their jobs. At Osedea, Ivana Markovic reports that “70% of the team prefers the 4-day week to a 10% pay rise”. However, those who choose to work full-time must have an equivalent benefit.

In other words, implementing the 4-day week without providing for the possibility of opting out is counter-productive and goes against the company’s values of inclusion.

At Kolegz, therefore, pay is linked to the lower number of days worked, while Osedea is considering a pay rise for those who prefer full-time work. The difference between the two is minimal: Kolegz lowers the salary of part-time employees, while Osedea may increase that of full-time individuals. The result is the same.

What’s important is to adapt to employees’ choices and offer them several options of equivalent value. Everyone can then make a decision based on their needs.

Choice of respite day for the 4-day week

Ideally, from the point of view of flexibility, everyone should be able to choose the respite day that suits them best. This is particularly the case at Kolegz, where this day must always be the same as far as possible and chosen in advance. Osedea, for its part, initially offered its employees the choice of Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, before finally deciding in a second trial that it would be Wednesday for everyone. Monday and Friday were ruled out from the outset, as the aim was not to offer a three-day weekend. The opposite was true at Montréal inc. where everyone had Friday off for the duration of the experiment, in order to lengthen the weekend.

The problem lies in the meetings. It’s impossible to get all the troops together if everyone takes the day off he or she wants, or if it’s not planned. It’s the same thing from the customer’s point of view: customer service would inevitably be impacted if everyone took time off without the work being divided up in advance. It is therefore important to put in place guidelines to ensure that there are no service breakdowns and that teamwork can continue.

Several options are possible, ranging from the individual day chosen in advance by a small team such as Kolegz, to the day decided by the employer of larger companies such as MAIN or Montréal inc.

Buffer is an example of the in-between: in fact, the day off is chosen by each department and is the same for all members of that department, except in customer service, where teams alternate between two different days in order to be able to meet customer needs at all times. Osedea also rotates, as it has been decided to work 9 days out of 10. This means that half the team is off one week, and the other half the following week.

This makes it difficult to keep everyone happy, and to adapt to the sometimes changing needs of each individual. The imperatives of organizational life often prevent such flexibility. Nevertheless, you should consult your employees before making a decision that will have such an impact on their daily lives, so as to please as many of them as possible.

Employee availability during the 4-day week

In the same vein, you can choose whether the employee is available to his or her peers on the day of respite. For example, the 5th day can be considered as:a buffer day, as at MAIN, where this day allows the employee to work – or not – without any obligations or calls; a day of availability, as at Osedea, where the employee is available to answer questions despite his or her absence; a day off, as at Kolegz.

There are many factors to take into account: for example, whether or not the employee is paid on the day of respite, or whether you prefer the absence of distractions on that day. What’s important, once again, is that this is clear to everyone, including customers and external partners.

Implementation of the 4-day week

Marianne Lemay from Kolegz explains that in her company, the choice of a 4-day week must be stable for 3 months, and the employer must be given 2 months’ notice. Although these parameters are not compulsory, it may indeed be a good idea to allow for a planning period as well as a period of stability, especially if there is an impact on salary or work organization.

Many companies have opted to try out the 4-day week first. Whether for one month or three, and whether repeated or not, this experimentation enabled these organizations to test the parameters they favored, to make adjustments if necessary, and to validate adherence to such a flexible measure before implementing it for good.

How to measure the impact of the 4-day week

Whether after a trial period or along the way, it’s essential to ask yourself whether the experiment is well adapted to your reality and whether it meets your needs. There are a number of points you can validate:

  • Productivity
  • Income
  • Return
  • Growth rate
  • Work organization
  • Priorities
  • Deliverables
  • Workload
  • Benefits
  • Irritants
  • Etc.

You can establish a series of key indicators prior to implementation, which you can then monitor to determine whether the 4-day week has lived up to your expectations. For example, executives at Montreal Inc. were “mindful of [their] ability to deliver projects and [reviewed] priorities so that everyone could benefit”. Kolegz, for its part, opted for an optional rather than compulsory formula, realizing that the 4-day week did not suit everyone.

Osedea granted itself two periods of experimentation, correcting its aim during the second. Employees were surveyed following the first phase, and although it took place in the middle of winter, “indicators rose by between 5 and 15% in three key categories: happiness, well-being and satisfaction”, which, according to Ivana Markovic, prompted them to prioritize this “investment in the team’s well-being, in their life-work harmony, and a way of offering flexibility and room for creativity”.

In short

Generally speaking, companies that have experimented with the 4-day week have seen a considerable reduction in stress among their workers. The 4-day week is also a flexible measure that promotes inclusion: in fact, its implementation enables everyone to focus on their needs, whatever they may be, and offers the possibility of choosing a schedule that suits them better. Parents, caregivers and neurodivergents share the same need for flexibility as the person at risk of burnout or the individual who wants to focus on his or her career; the 4-day week can therefore meet a real need and make it easier for everyone to adapt.

That said, it’s a choice that has a major impact on your operations, and one that needs to be carefully planned so that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. As MAIN reminds us, we have to “collectively accept to put off until next week everything we haven’t managed to do, as a team and individually”. It’s a change of habits, but it’s a change worth making. Don’t wait for 4 Thursdays to adopt the 4-day week!

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