More companies are turning to a four-day workweek to try to support employee mental health after two difficult years, and the idea is gaining traction around the world, including in Winnipeg.
More than 200 companies around the world are participating in four-day workweek tests this year, according to 4 day world week.
Brandish Marketing in Winnipeg has started this approach by taking Fridays off. The ability to get the job done hasn’t changed and the quality has only gotten better, according to co-founder Derek Elliott.
Company stats show a 35% increase in reported happiness, a 15% increase in ambassadorship (meaning people are more likely to recommend the job), and a 30% increase in well-being of the employees.
“We haven’t seen any drop in our efficiency, productivity, subjectively and maybe even objectively, our work is getting better,” Elliott told 680 CJOB last week.
The company just celebrated a year of taking Fridays off.
“We initially tested it over the summer months and found it had a huge positive impact on our team, so after testing it we decided to make it official.”
The idea was starting to become more common around 2019 and then the pandemic fueled the movement, according to Joe O’Connor of 4 Day Week Global.
“Workers are demanding this more because of people’s expectations of what a reasonable work-life balance is. What are people’s priorities in terms of the value they place on having more time for family, community, caregiving, the pandemic has really upended all of those different things,” she said.
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However, while a four-day workweek has many benefits, it’s not feasible for all businesses and all lines of work.
“If you have frontline sales, retail and customer service functions within your business, of course that model won’t work,” O’Connor said.
What employers can do in those scenarios is implement different shift patterns, different rosters, and different schedules.
Employee burnout is up and mental health is down, according to a survey by The LifeWorks Mental Health Index in July.
The latest report, which surveyed 3,000 people, revealed that 74 percent of those surveyed reported feeling some impact from work or personal stress.
This stress is felt not only by employees but also by managers. At the height of the pandemic, people in managerial positions expressed more job stress.
Additionally, mental health in the workplace is becoming a more important conversation, with four out of five managers surveyed saying they had to address and support employee mental health during the pandemic.
“Early on, business leaders really saw that this is a risk to the health and well-being of their people, and therefore a risk to their business,” said Paula Allen of LifeWorks Research.
“So we invested more in manager training, more investment in employee support services to remove the stigma of talking about mental health issues in the workplace.”
— With files from Sam Thompson of Global
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