Employees of Tampa based Brick Media will be testing out a four days work week for the next three months, and this model may be permanently adopted eventually. CEO of Brick Media Jake Kurtz announced that employees will now enjoy three days weekend till the end of March. He added that this model will become permanent if the expected results were realized.
Brick Media employees will undoubtedly be in a celebratory mood as a four-day workweek with Fridays off is highly desired by most employees.
Although this is yet to fully become a trend, lots of companies have been experimenting with the idea of granting an extra day of rest to employees particularly at the time of hiring. The general target behind this idea is to give employees a work-life balance experience.
According to Kurtz, there has already been an initial attempt to appropriately assign tasks for the work week to free up Fridays without causing a detrimental impact on the business. Â Taking it up a notch with this new experiment is raising employee retention especially in the marketing department where high turnovers are recorded. . Brick Media handles social media for its clients.
Kurt explains; “I thought, ‘What if I started allowing them to have some flexibility with the workweek?’”
“We’re just going to work a little bit more Monday through Thursday and have every Friday off,” he added.
The CEO’s vision for Brick Media employees is for them to accomplish their five days task in four days without comprising on their productivity so that they can have that extra Friday to themselves.
The new model has been rolled out since the beginning of January and will run at least till the end of March. The noticeable results from the schedule such as teams experience, customer satisfaction and revenue generated will determine if the schedule will be continued permanently.
Observations from workplace experts led to the conclusion that due to the effects of the pandemic which forced employees to commit to long hours remotely informed a new obsession to comparatively analyze professional and personal priorities.
A Brick Media account manager handling 10 clients Olivia Landry remarked; “I think this will just make us work harder on those hours Monday through Thursday,” she went further to commend the CEO; “I think it’s a good way for him to show he appreciates us and for us to have a break.”
“It’s really an extra mental health day,” Ms Landry stated in her concluding remarks.
There is a new level of stress being experienced by the workforce. Russell Clayton, faculty member at Muma College, University of Florida shares this when she confirms the workforce is “as stressed as it’s ever been.” Clayton finds the idea of an employer giving back eight hours to the employee as commendable and a way to motivate employees.
More organizations are latching on to the shorter workweek idea. At the current going rate, it may eventually become the norm. Shopping checkout technology company Bolt which offers one-click checkout experimented with a shorter workweek before adopting it permanently. The company which has its headquarters in San Francisco made this announcement sometime in 2022.
Bolt confirmed the satisfaction its employees had with the adjustment after it surveyed its employees and manager. Report for the survey indicated that 86% of its employees said the new model helped with their time management skills even as 94% asked that it be continued. Additionally, 87% of managers confirmed that the productivity of their teams was sustained.
Kurtz is hoping the workweek rescheduling will improve the hiring process for Brick Media and also attract the best talent while retaining current employees.
According to Kurtz “I think potential employees now are looking for company values and what the company cares about as opposed to just what they do.”
The not-for-profit coalition 4 Day Week surveyed the companies that have experimented with a reduced work time at full pay and as expected, 97% of the employees desired the system to be permanent while two-third commended the model’s configuration which protects them from easily burning out. Although employees are finding this model quite helpful, a four-day workweek is yet to be embraced by everyone.
Clayton thinks the model may start slowly before eventually taking off fully. He stresses the likelihood of companies who love the theoretical constructs of the model observe others before making their decision. Clayton also underscored the logistics challenge adopting the model may pose for large companies compared to the smaller ones
Clayton also expects a domino effect occurring in certain industries. A situation where: “Company X offers it, so competing Companies Y and Z follow to keep up.”
“My opinion: The success of this boils down to the worker and maximizing those 32 hours,” he said. Brick Media already announced the rescheduling to its clients and the response was positive. “It seems like a lot of people are curious to see if it works,” he said.
As originally reported in
