13 April
decent's Four-Day Work Week
In August 2021, decent implemented a four-day working week for our team. Working 36 hours Monday-Thursday, rather than the standard 40 hours Monday-Friday.
The result?
Happier, rested, enriched and therefore more efficient and productive team members. "A win-win all around really" as Fraser would say.
But don't just take our word for it. The results of the largest EVER four-day work week (32hrs) pilot were released in February this year*, and here's the results:
Below are words from our Global CEO Sam and NZ General Manager Fraser, about what led us to break the status quo and what it means for our team.
Fraser: With global opportunities over the past few years, we’ve brought our Kiwi way to the world. Our decent team is a massive part of that, and that’s one of the things I’m most proud of. We’ve grown a team of really clever, smart people, with great ambition to not only help our customers succeed, but to help ourselves succeed.
After the last lockdown in Auckland, we asked, how do we really look after our people, who in turn look after our customers, so that everyone wins.
Sam: Coming out of a tough time with Covid we wanted to create a positive environment for people to come back to work. We started writing a whole load of policies around wellness and to be honest, it felt like we were prescribing what wellness is to our team, and that didn’t feel right. So what we decided was to give everyone a day a week to do whatever it is for you that’s helpful - whether that’s physical or mental, going for a walk, playing with the kids - whatever it is, that’s yours. No approvals needed.
Fraser: The result of that has been really, really successful. Not only has team culture, morale and output increased, but just a general feeling of doing better by our people, and that’s what it’s all about. If you look after your people and have a great home life, you’ll have a great work life.
Sam: And in return for that, on those four days we are working we come together and work at a high level. We want our people to be well-rested, engaged, and productive. And that has created a really nice working balance. We’re 2 years in and that’s not going anywhere.
