March 14, 2019 at 12:21Four day work week. Russian experience
Hello, Habr! This article inspired me to write a wonderful story about how one New Zealand company worked for 8 weeks with three days off . And how proud we are of them.
Recently, I’m worried about this topic: how not to become a man-eating corporation from an excellent turquoise team. Still concerned about toxic teams, professional burnout and the achievement of happiness. In labor.
We come up with how to manage this, and of course, we set the first samples and experiments on ourselves. Obviously: we are engaged in HR in IT.
Experiment: four-day work week.
Venue: Moscow and Kiev. Distributed team.
Intellectual work. Self-supporting commercial company.
Duration of the experiment: more than 100 employees-years.
Details under the cut.
At first personal and honest: I am cyclical.
I can sparkle for two days. I speak with difficulty to the third.
Not treated. Design feature.
Observation of colleagues and client teams show: very few people of creative labor are able to give out even efficiency.
And not everyone has a weekly cycle: five in two.
Therefore, the first task is to adjust the work schedule to the biorhythm.
The second task is to reduce the likelihood of professional burnout, that is, not to bring stress to chronic. Effective employees are few - to grow them for a long time.
Anyway, they are nice people.
The third task. Pause communication. Any team is annoying. Family rarely leaves a place for privacy on weekends. And not every introvert is an extrovert.
The fourth task. Do not walk in formation. Walking system - slender thoughts. We need different and creative ones. Therefore, we create the opportunity for employees sometimes not to go in formation. And how much they dispose of it is their business.
The last task. Get rid of the “scum”.
It is clear that you cannot do without visiting public places during working hours. Especially for women, especially if there are children. So let there be time to visit such places. Or games with children.
As you understand, under the pressure of such arguments they could not withstand and - they decided.
The rules that we have established for ourselves have changed and improved.
I give the latest working version.
1. A four-day work week for those who have worked for more than a year.
Comment: for the year it’s clear that people fit into our rhythm and technology.
And if he didn’t fit in, then he is no longer ours. A year is often the starting point for a burnout.
After a year, people want some kind of preference.
But no caste and division into management and performers or whatever.
2. You may not work any day except Monday.
We have a weekly sprint. And all meetings are held on Monday.
And another guarantee that everyone will finish the weekend on time.
We are in the know: on Monday the most important thing is to start.
3. You can change your day, but in advance. Very early. For two weeks.
Colleagues who plan to use you in their tasks should have time to rebuild.
4. On a "non-working" working day - you have to work.
At least half a day. Do not need anymore. And be in touch all day.
It works like this: everyone knows - he's in touch. He sees the mail. It’s necessary to call.
And they didn’t call themselves for no reason.
5. If the week was short in itself - by virtue of the production calendar - then the “freemen” was canceled.
There is a different logic: in a short week, competitors switched to office sleep mode - which means you have to use the handicap. Used.
Of course, it did not affect salaries, bonuses and other cookies.
It's all. Simple, clear, transparent. (And it took just half a year to tuning the rules).
For me. Personally and personally.
I took a medium for myself. And that means - two mini-sprints of two days each, for which you do not pay too much with your health, even if two days at a very high pace.
Now imagine: you can go to museums with your child when nobody is in them, you can ride along the free slopes, you can swim on deserted beaches ...
And you can safely work on a large document and think about the eternal.
Yes, customers, hearing the nightingale singing in the receiver, were envious. And we seduced them.
Off the path of office and slim. Another standard of living. And the pleasure of her.
For employees, it worked like this:
People really worked out their half day. Note: no control. In touch were. We looked at the mail. We used cloud services. Customers are not dynamic.
Periods of group procrastination decreased. Dramatically.
In a normal office on a five-day day, Monday morning, after Friday afternoon, the hour of arrival and the hour before departure is absolutely not a productive time.
According to our measurements, the average loss (in a non-toxic) office team is about 10 hours a week. For everyone.
That is: with the declaration of the 40-hour week, the staff usually works for 30 hours.
With the declaration of the 36 hour week, we get about the same 30 hours.
And another quality of life, or "work-life balance."
Revenues, profitability and customer satisfaction did not fall.
Queries (with very few exceptions) are over.
Goals achieved.
This concludes the first story about the "fifth paradigm." About happiness in work.
Context
Recently, I’m worried about this topic: how not to become a man-eating corporation from an excellent turquoise team. Still concerned about toxic teams, professional burnout and the achievement of happiness. In labor.
We come up with how to manage this, and of course, we set the first samples and experiments on ourselves. Obviously: we are engaged in HR in IT.
so
Experiment: four-day work week.
Venue: Moscow and Kiev. Distributed team.
Intellectual work. Self-supporting commercial company.
Duration of the experiment: more than 100 employees-years.
Details under the cut.
Background
At first personal and honest: I am cyclical.
I can sparkle for two days. I speak with difficulty to the third.
Not treated. Design feature.
Observation of colleagues and client teams show: very few people of creative labor are able to give out even efficiency.
And not everyone has a weekly cycle: five in two.
Therefore, the first task is to adjust the work schedule to the biorhythm.
The second task is to reduce the likelihood of professional burnout, that is, not to bring stress to chronic. Effective employees are few - to grow them for a long time.
Anyway, they are nice people.
The third task. Pause communication. Any team is annoying. Family rarely leaves a place for privacy on weekends. And not every introvert is an extrovert.
The fourth task. Do not walk in formation. Walking system - slender thoughts. We need different and creative ones. Therefore, we create the opportunity for employees sometimes not to go in formation. And how much they dispose of it is their business.
The last task. Get rid of the “scum”.
It is clear that you cannot do without visiting public places during working hours. Especially for women, especially if there are children. So let there be time to visit such places. Or games with children.
As you understand, under the pressure of such arguments they could not withstand and - they decided.
rules
The rules that we have established for ourselves have changed and improved.
I give the latest working version.
1. A four-day work week for those who have worked for more than a year.
Comment: for the year it’s clear that people fit into our rhythm and technology.
And if he didn’t fit in, then he is no longer ours. A year is often the starting point for a burnout.
After a year, people want some kind of preference.
But no caste and division into management and performers or whatever.
2. You may not work any day except Monday.
We have a weekly sprint. And all meetings are held on Monday.
And another guarantee that everyone will finish the weekend on time.
We are in the know: on Monday the most important thing is to start.
3. You can change your day, but in advance. Very early. For two weeks.
Colleagues who plan to use you in their tasks should have time to rebuild.
4. On a "non-working" working day - you have to work.
At least half a day. Do not need anymore. And be in touch all day.
It works like this: everyone knows - he's in touch. He sees the mail. It’s necessary to call.
And they didn’t call themselves for no reason.
5. If the week was short in itself - by virtue of the production calendar - then the “freemen” was canceled.
There is a different logic: in a short week, competitors switched to office sleep mode - which means you have to use the handicap. Used.
Of course, it did not affect salaries, bonuses and other cookies.
It's all. Simple, clear, transparent. (And it took just half a year to tuning the rules).
How it works
For me. Personally and personally.
I took a medium for myself. And that means - two mini-sprints of two days each, for which you do not pay too much with your health, even if two days at a very high pace.
Now imagine: you can go to museums with your child when nobody is in them, you can ride along the free slopes, you can swim on deserted beaches ...
And you can safely work on a large document and think about the eternal.
Yes, customers, hearing the nightingale singing in the receiver, were envious. And we seduced them.
Off the path of office and slim. Another standard of living. And the pleasure of her.
For employees, it worked like this:
People really worked out their half day. Note: no control. In touch were. We looked at the mail. We used cloud services. Customers are not dynamic.
results
Periods of group procrastination decreased. Dramatically.
In a normal office on a five-day day, Monday morning, after Friday afternoon, the hour of arrival and the hour before departure is absolutely not a productive time.
According to our measurements, the average loss (in a non-toxic) office team is about 10 hours a week. For everyone.
That is: with the declaration of the 40-hour week, the staff usually works for 30 hours.
With the declaration of the 36 hour week, we get about the same 30 hours.
And another quality of life, or "work-life balance."
Revenues, profitability and customer satisfaction did not fall.
Queries (with very few exceptions) are over.
Goals achieved.
Three more points
- Some employees did not use this privilege. For different reasons.
- When another crisis occurred in our economy, we decided to return to a normal five-day week. But they couldn’t. Perhaps this is the main minus of the described approach.
- Quitting such a schedule, as you know, is harder. Therefore, the turnover has become less.
- People suffered and suffered. Joke.
This concludes the first story about the "fifth paradigm." About happiness in work.