A four-day week is not the answer to more flexibility.
When Jon Leland, the chief strategy officer at Kickstarter, found himself at home in the early days of the pandemic with plenty of time on his hands, he threw himself into reimagining the workplace. “We knew that employees were increasingly burnt out and stressed out,” he says. “And we were thinking about how we could reinvent the way we work while still meeting the need for innovation.”
He was especially captivated by research on the four-day workweek. “There was more than enough evidence that a company like Kickstarter could maintain and even increase productivity,” he says about adopting a four-day workweek. “We want people to be very focused at work, but we also want to give them space to rest and recover outside of work. And we also want to make sure that we’re retaining employees in this job environment.”
Leland became a true believer. He reached out to 4 Day Week Global, a group advocating for the switch to a shorter work week, and started working with the organization to promote the idea in the United States. He also pushed for a compressed workweek at Kickstarter, a certified B Corp that’s in the business of helping creative people to succeed.
Last spring, the company moved to a four-day week, and after six months the pilot program continues. Most employees work Monday through Thursday, though some stagger shifts if always-on coverage is needed. The results so far? “Our employee engagement is higher than it’s ever been,” Leland says. “We’re hitting our goals better than we ever have. And our employee retention is the highest it’s ever been.”
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