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Companies are still trying to find the return-to-office sweet spot, whether offering hybrid arrangements, flexible work schedules, or a four-day workweek.
Management consulting firm Insigniam has seemingly found that happy medium after instituting a 4.5-day workweek, with employees in the office Monday through Wednesday and working from home Thursday and Friday. The firm didn’t land on this number arbitrarily; it listened to employees, says Shideh Sedgh Bina, a founding partner at Insigniam.
The firm first conducted an experiment where one group of employees worked fully remotely, another hybrid, and a third group worked four days. Based on employee feedback, the firm’s leadership learned that the four-day workweek group was reporting far lower stress levels.
“The people on the four-day work week said, ‘The amount of stress that has been taken off from me [comes from] having that Friday [off],’” Bina told Fortune’s Ellie Austin during a panel at the Most Powerful Women Summit last week. That’s insightful feedback for a consulting firm in an industry infamous for high burnout, although Bina noted that the firm employs different strategies to address stress, like not holding staff to KPIs based on billable time.
Past research has explored the benefits of a four-day workweek. A July study from the nonprofit advocacy group 4-Day Week analyzing workers in the U.S., Canada, Britain, and Ireland over 18 months found that burnout, general health, and job satisfaction improved within six months of working a four-day week. The study also found that workers were getting as much work done as those with five-day workweeks, and company revenue increased 15% over the trial.
Other companies, including ThredUP and staffing platform Qwick, have also introduced four-day workweeks.
But Insigniam faced a new dilemma after establishing a four-day workweek: Its clients were still working five-day workweeks. In response, the firm introduced a 4.5-day workweek, meaning employees end their Friday at 12:30 p.m., so long as they don’t have any pressing client responsibilities.
Even with just half a day off, the company still saw improvements in employee sentiment. “In our last culture survey, we had 100% satisfaction,” says Bina. “I know the difference it makes for me. The pressure is off, and we wouldn’t have done that if we hadn’t gotten the feedback and listened to it.”
While Bina says the firm hasn’t directly correlated the policy to any impact on productivity, she says the firm’s revenue and profit growth are inching upward.
“Everything’s going where it should be going,” she says. “It’s just really been one of those catalytic things.”
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
Reporter's Notebook
The most compelling data, quotes, and insights from the field.
The key to a healthier, productive workforce may be encouraging workers to leave their desks more often. A study from Columbia University found that people who stood up and moved every half hour for five minutes lowered their blood sugar spikes after eating by 60% and their blood pressure by up to five points. Subjects saw these improvements after walking on a treadmill at a 2 mph pace.
“We spend our time trying to convince…employers that you should allow your employees to take breaks to move. And it seems counterintuitive to them,” Keith Diaz, an associate professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University's Medical Center, tells NPR. “Actually, an employee who's in a better mood, who's feeling less fatigued and feeling more energized, is a more productive employee.”
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
- Seasonal job openings are down 6% this year on the job site Indeed, signaling a cooling labor market after two years of seasonal hiring surges. New York Times
- Firms like JPMorgan asked employees based in Israel to work from home; others have temporarily shut down their Israel locations entirely. Reuters
- Health care provider Kaiser Permanente and the unions representing its workers tentatively agreed to a new contract on Friday that includes a 21% wage increase over four years and policies to solve the company’s labor shortage. Bloomberg
- Gen Z job hunters are taking to TikTok to find open positions as more companies use the app to source and interview applicants. WorkLife
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Accommodations attract. Harvard professor Claudia Goldin, who won the Nobel Prize in economics last week for her research on women in the workforce, told Bloomberg that lucrative jobs in finance and law will attract more women if employers maintain flexible work policies born out of the pandemic. —Chloe Taylor
New digs. Software firm Atlassian is building new cost-effective offices that calculate how and how often employees will use them. Employees, however, are not required to show up. —Steve Mollman
Growing pains. A group of female executives from companies like Workday and Paypal took the stage at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit last week to address how corporate changes induce employee fatigue. The two big takeaways: Transparently communicate how changes will affect employees and stagger those changes to give employees time to adjust. —Paige McGlauflin
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