Working 9 to 5: Why We're Exploring a Shorter Work Week
Why are we doing this?
“9 to 5, yeah, they got you where they want you. There's a better life and you think about it don't you.”
- Dolly Parton
“My motivator is to have a good life, a comfortable life, a business that I’m in control of, that’s not growing too much. I’d rather grow this company to something that feels very special ten years from now than something that’s worth ten million dollars two years from now”
- Annie Tevelin, Shorter by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
As a company, improve it! has decided to trial a four-day work week with 8.5-hour work days. Studies have shown how shortening working hours greatly benefits employees and organizations. As an organization, we want our team to be physically and mentally healthy, happy at work and in their personal lives, and become expert time managers. According to recent neuroscience research shared in Alex Soojung-Kim Pang’s book Shorter, “our brains actually keep working on problems when we turn our attention elsewhere, and scheduling a rest period after intensive work gives us time to recharge our batteries while allowing our creative subconscious to continue searching for solutions to problems that have eluded our conscious effort.”
This team of recovering perfectionists wants to live out our values; to Explore More, Play & Have Fun, and Drive Results in the same creative and out-of-the-box approach we take with all our work. We want to retain our dream team, build sustainable careers, hit our revenue goals, enjoy our families, friends, and hobbies outside of work, invest in our health, and take more time to just ‘be’.
What do we hope to achieve?
By the end of our 90-day trial, we want to see:
Maintain or exceed revenue that we expect in last quarter of the year
Improved mental and physical health on our team:
Do you have everything you need to be successful at work?
On a scale of 0 - 10 (0 = no/not at all; 10 = extremely/yes)...
How happy are you in your role?
How burnt out are you at work?
How optimistic are you?
How overwhelmed do you feel at work?
How meaningful have you found your work lately?
How have you been sleeping?
How are you feeling today physically?
Are you able to keep up your morning & evening routines?
How energized are you feeling?
Do you feel refreshed on Mondays?
How are you feeling?
How’s your quality of life at work and personally?
How are you spending time on the weekends?
Process improvements that allow us to be efficient and reach our benchmarks:
efficient & productive meetings
setting boundaries with time (e.g., blocking out time to focus & time to meet with team)
utilizing Slack's features to communicate availability with teammates
streamlining communication & setting clear expectations with clients
prioritizing most important tasks in individual roles; clarifying goals
eliminating what doesn't move the needle
utilizing AI technology as support tools in our tasks
Here’s how we’re going to achieve this:
We all want this experiment to work! We’re manifesting success by creating contingency plans, anticipating ‘what if’ scenarios, redesigning meeting agendas to maximize efficiency, blocking our calendars to account for focus time and meeting time, utilizing Slack to communicate availability with the team, measuring everything we can, holding ourselves and our teammates accountable, automating what can be automated, asking ourselves if we’re moving the needle with each task, and ultimately, working smarter, not harder.
When will this start?
We will start this trial on Monday, October 2nd, 2023. Starting then, full-time employees will work 8.5 hour days Monday - Thursday.
What if…
a client contacts me on Friday with a time-sensitive inquiry?
an urgent logistics email regarding an upcoming event comes in on Friday from a client (e.g., a consult call is canceled for Monday or a last-minute question is asked for a Monday workshop)?
a lead comes in on Friday or someone is referred to us while we’re OOO?
We know that we cannot predict every scenario that’ll come our way. But to make this work, we will check our email inboxes twice on Fridays (at approx. 11 am and 4 pm) while we’re out of the office and only address urgent emails from clients or referrals.
Why do we think this will work?
As a team, we will fail during this trial and we will learn new ways of working. As long as we communicate often with teammates and clients, set expectations, measure goals, and check in with ourselves and each other, we see this being a success.
We’re also grateful to partner with forward-thinking and people-first organizations. Our clients don’t just understand that we are a creative and progressive organization, they celebrate it. We partner with our clients like we work with each other internally: seeing the person first and leading with ‘yes, and’.