Q&A: The four-day week is the smarter way to work

Why have you decid­ed to move Scoro to a four-day work week?

As a con­cept, the five-day work week is rather out­dat­ed. It’s been the norm for a cen­tu­ry and hasn’t been ques­tioned since. Mas­sive pro­duc­tiv­i­ty gains from new tech­nol­o­gy have been large­ly dilut­ed by an always-on men­tal­i­ty, mul­ti­task­ing, and inef­fi­cien­cies in com­mu­ni­ca­tion. We’re on a mis­sion to fix that. We believe this is the bet­ter and smarter way to work.

We have a wealth of data from our 20,000 users. From this we dis­cov­ered that Fri­days saw all sys­tem usage of the Scoro plat­form drop by 23%. We also know that our own email activ­i­ty decreased 15% and Slack usage was down by 24% on Fri­days.

How do you believe a four-day work week will change busi­ness for the bet­ter?

A focus on organ­i­sa­tion­al and indi­vid­ual effi­cien­cy improve­ments has allowed com­pa­nies to achieve more in less time, with teams becom­ing more pro­duc­tive and hap­pi­er inside and out­side of work. A four-day work week takes this up a few lev­els, ensur­ing every process and task is car­ried out most effi­cient­ly. All of our 140 col­leagues — work­ing world­wide across the UK, the US, and the Baltics — will over the next 12 months allow us to mea­sure the results of this four-day work week mis­sion and share them pub­licly along­side our learn­ings.

It may not be the ide­al for­mat for every­one, but we believe every­one can ben­e­fit from our frame­work and become more effi­cient in their work to increase mar­gins and allow for short­er work­days or weeks.

In what ways do you see Scoro achiev­ing mea­sur­able change?

We’ve set our­selves a series of bench­marks and goals. For exam­ple, we aim to reduce the time spent in meet­ings by 25% and shrink the num­ber of inter­rup­tions from com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels by 18% — plus save one hour per week per per­son through improved plan­ning and time man­age­ment, and anoth­er 30 min­utes by increas­ing automa­tion. The team will expe­ri­ence no change in salary.

What advice would you give oth­er lead­ers who are fear­ful of tak­ing this step?

Track­ing data and reg­u­lar opti­mi­sa­tion via con­tin­u­ous learn­ing will be key to suc­cess. It’s why soft­ware tools such as Scoro are impor­tant in organ­i­sa­tion­al change and busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion. Just switch­ing to few­er hours won’t get the job done. Quick wins designed sim­ply to improve employ­ee well­be­ing will only be suc­cess­ful in the short term.

To reap the full ben­e­fits of a four-day work week, and to min­imise all asso­ci­at­ed risks, lead­ers must start from a strong posi­tion, with a foun­da­tion of clear and crit­i­cal data to under­stand what should be changed and when; using insight to mon­i­tor progress, stay agile and make changes for ongo­ing suc­cess.

What are the main bar­ri­ers for lead­ers in adopt­ing this process?

Organ­i­sa­tions rarely com­mit to over­haul­ing their whole oper­a­tions for ideas such as this. They just fid­dle around the edges. But you must be brave and open, while accept­ing it won’t all be plain sail­ing.

This is about ‘rein­vent­ing Fri­days’; it’s not just an extra day off. This addi­tion­al free time can change our lives and the lives of oth­ers.

Are you not afraid of the risks of a four-day week?

We’re pre­pared for the fact that we might encounter issues, but I’m con­fi­dent that we’re adap­tive enough to fix them. Gath­er­ing feed­back and mak­ing improve­ments is all part of the process, and that’s what’s so excit­ing — we have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn and then share our learn­ings; good and bad. We want it to inspire and encour­age oth­er com­pa­nies to be com­fort­able and con­fi­dent enough to start this jour­ney.

To find out more, vis­it scoro.com

Pro­mot­ed by Scoro