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Love it or hate it, one of the biggest trends shaking up the workplace right now is the rise of the four-day workweek. And even though a global trial of the working model found that it delivered some major successes, but most employers remain skeptical.
Exos, a performance coaching company with more than 3,500 employees, has been experimenting with a four-day workweek since May of 2023. Executives say it has boosted productivity as well as reduced burnout, emotional exhaustion, and disconnect.
“Like most companies, we were struggling when we were coming out of the pandemic,” Greg Hill, chief people officer at Exos, tells Fortune. “We looked at ourselves, I looked at myself, and we realized something had to change.”
The company decided to launch “You Do You Fridays,” when workers choose how to spend their day. Hill says some people might still take that time to do work during the busy season, but the vast majority of workers take the day off. And although “Friday” is in the tag line, teams can choose whatever day suits them best. For example, some Exos workers enjoy rotating between flexible Mondays and Wednesdays. “We are proving it’s working in a very complex organization. And we’re really proud of the fact that it doesn’t have one formula,” Hill says.
Within the first six months of the program, Exos’ sales pipeline shot up 211%. After nearly a year under the new schedule, about 91% of the company’s staffers say they are productive at work, compared to just 67% before the launch—a 24pt. increase. Burnout also dropped drastically; prior to the new workweek, around 70% of workers surveyed said they experienced burnout, which is now down to 36%. Additionally, employee turnover shrank from 47% in 2022 before the pilot launch to 29% at the end of 2023.
Managers seem to agree that employees are thriving. Performance reviews have been as positive after the four-day workweek switch as they were before. By giving employees more choice and responsibility in how they work, Hill says Exos has also fostered a sense of trust between the company and its workforce.
“That feeling of trust has really magnified a culture of connectivity and loyalty,” he says. “We feel that in our poll surveys, we feel that in our offsites, we see it in our turnover.”
As a “client-centric organization,” Hill says Exos was concerned about potentially disrupting the consumer experience with any issues from a condensed schedule. But they say their NPS score, which measures consumer loyalty, remains high, which the company sees as a testament to how employee output and performance has stayed consistent as the organization has made huge cultural changes.
Exos began the 4-day workweek as a quarterly program, but the metrics have proven to be so promising that the company will now review it annually.
“We’re going to continue to hone it and have what we call continuous improvement with it,” says Hill.
Emma Burleigh
emma.burleigh@fortune.com
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
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General Electric is selling Crotonville, its manager training grounds, as a slew of companies are ditching their properties designed to coach high-performing workers. Wall Street Journal
A U.S.-based Volkswagen factory will decide whether to unionize this week—and it could be the first foreign carmaker whose workers organize in America. Bloomberg
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
WFH verdict. Nike’s CEO stands behind the company’s RTO policies, which brought teams fully in-office 18 months ago, saying that “disruptive innovation” isn’t easily achievable over Zoom. —Jason Ma
Connected. Gen Z workers like going into the office more than their older coworkers because they want to build in-person relationships and be a part of company culture. —Courtney Vinopal, HR Brew, Morning Brew
Skills rut. Almost half of bosses say they haven’t been able to find new talented applicants within the last year, but they might be overlooking the potential of their current employees. —Jane Thier
Unconventional. One recent graduate took up a gig waitressing at a marketing conference in order to network and hand out resumes to hiring managers—and the plan landed her a job. —Orianna Rosa Royle
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