DETROIT – A Detroit company has implemented a four-day workweek and is already seeing improved productivity and employee morale.
It’s a Thursday afternoon in Detroit at Southwest Counseling Solutions, but for case manager Mike Barrett and bilingual clinician Amy Ortiz, it’s their Friday.
“It’s not a three-day holiday because of some holiday. It’s regular because I’m putting the work in to make it possible,” said Barrett.
The two Southwest Counseling Solutions employees have Fridays off – all the time.
They’re part of a new four-day workweek pilot at the center. 15 employees work 32 hours a week, Monday through Thursday but are paid full time.
“Initially, I’m thinking, ‘Hey, a day off is cool.’ That’s what im’ thinking,” said Barrett. “And realize that work doesn’t go anywhere, and you still got five days worth of work and four days to do it.”
Southwest Counseling Solutions Executive Director Jamie Ebaugh is always looking to retain and hire more staff. So he started reading about the four-day workweek last year.
“It seemed to be an improvement not only on just the morale and the sense that people had but productivity tended to improve in about 20-25% of them or stayed the same in the majority, so I thought, well, why wouldn’t we start to look at that?” explained Ebaugh.
He’s not alone. The four-day week global initiative started back in 2018. It’s been studied in 350 companies around the world.
Of the companies that completed the pilot, 92% have stuck with it. With happier staff who are less stressed, employees take fewer sick days and, according to the stats, have the same productivity, if not higher.
The four-day workweek is just one of many changes we’re seeing in how we work. The pandemic accelerated work from home, but it also changed how we value work in our lives and how companies compete for employees looking for flexibility - especially among millennials and gen z, who are driving the way work is changing.
“We chose staff who are productivity-based fee-for-service-based staff to make sure that this works financially for the company and to get a cross-section of all our programs,” said Ebaugh. “I think the biggest surprise was some of the people we chose to be in the program were on the lower level of productivity before the pilot. And they’ve actually increased and have shown improvement month to month.”