We’re so excited to read about the trial of the four-day week being brought to the UK. The concept of enabling staff to work four days a week, but be paid for five, recognises the boost in productivity we see when you give people the freedom to work differently.
At A New Normal, we’ve always been big advocates of working in a way which suits each of us… There’s no one in our team who works a “traditional” 9-5, five days a week, and it works brilliantly. We tend to have “usual” working patterns, but within that there’s a huge amount of freedom which works brilliantly with not just the commitments we have outside of work, but also the times at which we’re most productive.
For example, I’m really productive in the mornings (it correlates directly with my caffeine intake), so I like to get to my desk as soon as I can in the morning, whereas our lovely Julie needs some quiet time to gear up for the day, first thing. By sharing when we are most productive with one another, we’re able to manage our working patterns so that our clients always get the best from us, and so that we know we’re working in a way which optimises our productivity.
We’ve always known that giving people the flexibility to work in a way which suits them is a great way to build productivity, trust and loyalty. If the four-day week becomes mainstream, we could see a real improvement in work-life balance for people across the UK. Not only have we seen it through our clients and our own careers, but we see it in others as well – as mentioned in a previous blog, a friend of mine works for a large public sector organisation and is so clear on the benefits of hiring those who work flexibly that he actively seeks out people on flexible working patterns to join his team - Smart cookie!
We’re going to be eagerly watching the results of this four-day week trial – we’re anticipating that it will be a huge success, and let’s see if the next evolution focuses a bit more on giving people even more freedom as to how they work those hours.
We’ve got a lot of experience supporting our clients in working through the logistics of making flexibility a reality – if you want to chat it through, why not get in touch? Hello@anewnormal.co