Working Smarter, Not Longer: An Update on Our 4 Day Work Week Experiment

November 24, 2023

MayeCreate made the shift to an experimental four day work week this summer. 

Spoiler alert – we love it! 

A four day work week is fantastic, but it’s not without its challenges. My hope is by sharing our experience implementing this shift can inspire and assist you in transitioning your company to a four-day work week (which I presume you’re aspiring to do or why would you be here? 😜). 

Then we can change the perspective of the universe together proving we can work less and still get lots of crap done!

(If you’re wondering why we did this little experiment we also documented our reasoning for the decision in our blog/podcast.)

Defining the 4 day work week

The first thing you need to nail down to make a four day work week successful for your company is your definition of a four day work week. What are your boundaries and parameters?

At MayeCreate, it’s about striking a balance. We’ve chosen to work eight-hour days because, let’s be honest, we’re not a hospital. People assume we’re working four 10 hour days but that’s a good recipe for burnout in our industry. We’re a design company, and creativity needs space to breathe.

We’ve also made a few agreements among ourselves. We’ll work Fridays in December and one in November because we take off the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Aaaaand sometimes it’s one of our busiest seasons.

We do work some Fridays…

Additionally, we’ve committed to a few scattered Fridays throughout the rest of the year for MayeCreate Days, where we focus on training and improving our business processes.

Everyone still gets their vacation time. And we can still flex schedule our weeks, just working a bit on Fridays to make up for time missed for doctor appointments or early kid pickups.

So whatever a four-day work week means to you, set those parameters, clearly communicate them with your team and then hold each other accountable.

The Positive Side of a 4 Day Work Week

The reasons we love a four-day work week…

💚Mental and Physical Well-being

One of the most significant pros is the positive impact on our mental and physical health. My job typically keeps me glued to a computer, and it can take a toll. But when I’m on a four day work week, I have more time for movement and relaxation. My body and mind thank me.

Now our weekends are spent (at least occasionally) focusing on family and friends. We spend our Fridays prepping meals, cleaning, grocery shopping, heck even just running errands while other businesses are open. We’re all working. It’s just the work of adulthood, not building websites in front of our desks.

Then we get to do more of what we like on Saturday and Sunday. I get to do more aerial and take more boat rides. Stacy’s family bought a camper and they set up all over the country. Tyler competes at powerlifting events with his wife.

Oddly it makes the ‘normal’ two day weekend seem even sorter when we work our 5 day weeks but…it’s worth it. And we feel privileged to have the opportunity.

💚Efficiency and Problem Solving

Believe it or not, we’re getting more work done in four days than we did in five. This shift forced us to work smarter, not harder. We’ve reevaluated processes, eliminated redundancies, and found more efficient ways to deliver quality work and excellent client service.

We had to rethink processes that we’ve leaned on successfully for 17 years because we didn’t have the bandwidth to do them the same way anymore. We’re not afraid of change. The MayeCreate team is a group of people who love solving problems. We have been pushed outside of our comfort zone during this transition in ways we may have needed to be pushed a long time ago.

Which is awesome because we’ve wanted to work smarter not harder FOREVER. It’s been on our goals list for years but we weren’t forced to do it. And now we are automating processes and streamlining bulky workflows to provide even better results for our clients.

💚Saying No

This structure forces us to prioritize what’s most important. We’ve learned that it’s okay to say no. If a project or a client doesn’t align with our parameters, we pass on it. This move ensures that we don’t overcommit and helps us focus on what truly matters.

💚Profitability

Surprisingly, we’ve become more profitable with a four day work week. It has made us trim the fat from our processes, reduce redundancies, and focus on what matters most. 

For example we adjusted our design process to 3 months to 3 weeks. Yes, you read that right. We schedule lead time before a project starts for clients to gather all their content and once it’s handed over we focus work on their project until it’s done. We have less meetings, less mistakes and spend less time servicing the account throughout the project because we’re not losing details over a multi-month build time. (I’ll tell you more about this magic in an upcoming post…Stacy is magic and she’s going to tell us all about it.)

Our projects are getting done faster, with fewer revisions, and our clients are happier. This has translated into increased profitability.

Challenges and Downsides of the 4 Day Work Week

Of course, a four day work week isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. There are some challenges to navigate.

🌪️Crunched Wiggle Room

This sounds strange that working 4 days would crunch your wiggle room but it does. Sometimes life throws curveballs. We have to be flexible. Doctor’s appointments, family responsibilities, and unexpected events occasionally necessitate work on Fridays. It’s a reality we’ve embraced.

If you have to leave work early one day and don’t get everything done it WILL have to be done another day. And our days are FULL. We do have to work Friday mornings when life gets crazy. If the work isn’t completed we don’t get paid and then there will be no four-day work week sooo….it just is what it is.

🌪️Overbooking and Time Management

It’s easy to underestimate the time needed for tasks and the time you’re taking for yourself throughout the day. I felt this acutely when I had my first child and first tried the 4 day work week on for size. It’s a learning curve. 

Our team was used to the extra cushion of working 5 days. A long lunch or a doctor’s appointment always seemed to fit alongside our workloads without much problem.

 Now, occasionally, team members feel overwhelmed by their to-do list. Though usually when we take a look at how they’ve allocated their time throughout the week we’ll find  the long lunches, mid-day walks or leaving early creeping in and making their workload feel heavy. 

When we add all the little extras together throughout the week sometimes it’s a half day of downtime. Since we only work 4 eight-hour shifts, that’s a significant chunk. As a result everyone is learning to manage their time better. Because no one wants to feel stressed, and everyone wants to meet the commitments we have to our clients and our team. 

🌪️Vacation Balance

Offering additional vacation time can be challenging. Our team has always had a high amount of flexibility, but with a four day work week, we’ve needed to find a new balance. And allocating extra vacation time, above and beyond the original agreed upon amount is tricky.

In the past, I had the ability to be generous and understanding when life threw unexpected challenges (or gifts) at our employees. If someone’s pet passed away, they were sick, or injured, or got married, I’d give them additional paid leave. Because life can be full of unexpected twists and turns and we need to support each other.

But granting additional paid leave is trickier now because in reality we’ve already accounted for that time through the four day work week. 

So when employees need additional time it’s not as simple to say, “No problem, we’ll pay you.” 

It’s up to each staff member to find their balance, and we’ve had many discussions about it. Sometimes, it means not doing what they initially planned, or taking unpaid leave. It could mean working Fridays to make up their time. 

In that way, the four day work week gets a bit complicated. We’re trying to navigate it fairly and allow everyone to make the right decision for themselves, while still realizing their responsibility to the team. Because without the entire team, we can’t achieve our goals.

Our opinion of the 4 day work wee

As of today we feel like the four day work week is working well for us at MayeCreate. It promotes better well-being, productivity, and profitability while challenging us to reevaluate our processes and stay focused on our values.

It’s been a mix of pros and cons, and we’re still learning how to make it even more successful.  WIsh us luck in this  journey of balance, prioritization, and efficiency!

If you’re considering implementing a four day work week for your company, I’m more than happy to share my experiences and insights just send me an email to connect!