What we’ve learned from the 4-day week pilot so far - by the Tribe at Tyler Grange Exeter
As the UK pilot hits its halfway point, Simon Ursell, Managing Director of the Exeter-based environmental consultancy, shares his top seven learnings so far
As the UK’s 4-day week pilot programme reaches its midway mark, participating companies are reporting varying levels of success.
Exeter-based Landscape planning, ecology and arboriculture consultancy, Tyler Grange became the first in its industry to sign up back in June. It’s one of 60 UK companies – and amongst 3000 workers – taking part. During the six-month pilot programme, Tyler Grange’s 80-strong nationwide team does not work Fridays with no loss of income.
By creating a space to become more efficient and productive – whilst providing better-than-ever levels of client services - the pilot progress made to date at Tyler Grange is promising. The team is also reaping the benefits of a better work-life balance and their productivity is also being driven by the relaxation that a three-day weekend brings.
Crucially, the common consensus – amongst colleagues and clients - is that the consultancy’s service levels, and client care is as good as they’ve ever been since it began trading over 12 years ago.
Also, essential to note is that Tyler Grange has produced the same amount of work so far during the pilot - from June to August – as it did in the same period last year. This is a measurement ratio of productive time versus direct costs, which means the company is, as planned, 100% productive in 80% of the time. Its Productivity, efficiency and hours worked are continually monitored by Tyler Grange, alongside 4-Day Week Global.
Such performance and feedback have prompted a number of other companies to reach out to the Tyler Grange Tribe, asking for advice and updates on their trial experience so far as they’re interested in doing the same. These include clients, and competitors.
At the pilot’s halfway point, Simon Ursell, Managing Director at Tyler Grange, shares his seven key pieces of advice on how to make the transition from five to four as seamless – and successful - as possible.
He also touches upon the company’s learnings and adaptations made so far, the benefits it’s having on the team and its clients, and what he believes will become the norm for the environmental consultancy, post-pilot.
1. Preparation is vital
I can’t stress enough how important it is to prepare for the switch from five working days to four. We started talking about working a four-day week more than four years ago and, during that time, we did a great deal of work – and made significant investment in technology and systems – to ensure we were ready long before we went live.
We had originally planned to start our own trial next January, but when we heard about the UK pilot, we brought forward its introduction by six months so that we can benefit from the additional support available.
In preparation, we also spoke to companies who are already working a four-day week and took onboard their advice and learnings. And, for six months or so before starting the trial, we made our Fridays less busy - to streamline the transition and best prepare us, and our clients.
It’s important to remember that the four-day week isn’t a compressed work schedule but rather reduced hours with the objective of being more productive, happier, and more focussed. To enjoy a better work-life balance and to have more time to spend doing what we love. This just can’t be switched on overnight.
2. Talk to your clients and customers
For a number of months before the trial began, we also talked to our clients about how we were preparing and what it would mean for them. We
We asked for their feedback and reservations and their response was overwhelmingly positive. The most common concern, of course, was ‘what if we need you on a Friday?’ but the vast majority congratulated us for showing such innovation, yet again, and are keen to be kept up to date on how it’s going.
Our ultimate aim is that we talk to our clients enough from Monday to Thursday – and deliver what they need - so that they don’t need to contact us on Fridays. And that’s where we are now.
We set up an emergency phone line that’s manned by one of our six directors each Friday. And, in the three months of the trial, we only received two calls in the first couple weeks. We also added a page to our website, advising clients on what to do if they have a project emergency.
On both occasions, colleagues did have to log-on to catch up on what we’d missed, and we reacted rapidly to ensure that our clients wouldn’t have to call us on a Friday again. It was a learning for us all to take on board.
We had to make sure that we were all 100% on top of our projects at all times. These two calls focussed our minds, made us interrogate our processes further and I’m delighted to say that our operation became even more efficient and productive – and our staff and clients more satisfied - as a result.
3. Talk to your team and be ready to realise that a four-day working week isn’t for everyone
When considering – and preparing to begin – a four day-week, it’s essential to engage with your team.
In the UK, 10 million people say they would like to work fewer hours, with 3 million willing to accept less pay in return.
But it’s also important to realise that working a four-day week isn’t for everyone. A couple of our Tribe didn’t take to our new ways of working – they wanted to work five days a week and weren’t keen to adapt how they work - and we supported them to find roles elsewhere.
There were also a number of our colleagues who were openly very anxious about the change at first. Some of our most high performing team members couldn’t understand how it would be possible to fit five days’ work into four when they already work so very hard.
But once the pilot began, and we became more accustomed to our news systems and way of working – which removed lots of lengthy admin and unnecessary meetings and reporting from our day - they soon got their heads around it.
We have processes in place to make our admin better than ever, and our Tribe and clients are reaping the rewards. We want our ecologists to be ecologists, not data managers, and we hope that this will attract more like-minded ecologists to the consultancy – through a culture that we believe will thrive in a four-day work week.
4. Take different job roles and departments into consideration
Due to how some of our team works – and the fact that summer was the busiest time for many of us – we believed it to be unfair to add to the workload and pressure by introducing all of the new systems at the same time.
Some of our work is very seasonal so, for those teams that were very busy during summertime, we’ve delayed the implementation of some new processes until the autumn.
You need to give people time to learn how to work differently – and it may not be the same for everyone.
5. If you’re looking to sell your business, a four-day week might not be for you
We used to receive a number of approaches by companies looking to buy us. But interestingly, since trialling the four-day week, they’ve stopped.
Giving employees the same pay for less hours could feel like you’re taking the scenic route to giving a company-wide pay rise. So, for any potential owners who are sceptical that cutting hours could increase productivity, working a four-day week probably feels like too great a gamble to get locked into.
So, if you’re busy running a company with the intention to sell, the four-day working week may not be for you.
6. Bite the bullet and only have one company-wide day off
In some companies, the potential impact of the four-day week is being mitigated by covering all days but with reduced colleagues. We wouldn’t recommend this, despite it perhaps seeming to be an easier option at first.
In reality, it means that your team is at full capacity for less of the time – potentially working together, collaboratively, for just 60% of the working week. And those companies operating this way often report confusion on handover days due to staff taking different days off. It’s far harder to manage than a single day reduction for everyone. It’s also more difficult for clients.
What is also good about our entire Tribe all having Fridays off is that we spend more time together sharing pastimes we enjoy - including brewing our own Tyler Grange beer.
Yes, some sociability has been lost from our office network as we are more focussed – we now don’t have time to chat for hours in the kitchen or across the desk – but lots of us are getting together on Fridays to keep in touch and do the things we love.
7. It can sometimes be more intense and tiring
Most jobs are intense from time to time, and we know that working four days rather than five can exacerbate this on occasions.
But the adoption of our Alertness App – that we developed in the run-up to our introduction of the pilot – is doing a great job at monitoring employee wellbeing and happiness and predicting our colleagues’ risks from fatigue by collating daily user inputs. This means we can get a real handle on any tiredness early and can react straight away.
So, what does the future working week look like at Tyler Grange?
The pilot, so far, has been a very positive experience for Tyler Grange. There have been a number of learnings along the way, but the consultancy is in a far stronger position as a result of them and our clients are reaping the benefits too.
Tyler Grange continues to see the pilot as an opportunity to learn about being truly efficient. By taking part, they’re continuing their commitment to finding out what works, what doesn’t and what should become a mainstay in the working lives of their Tribe to achieve the best work-life balance and client service offering.
Simon Ursell said: “I’d be surprised if we don’t adopt a permanent four-day working week post-pilot, but we still have three months to go.
“The UK has an unhealthy culture where it is seen as a badge of honour to work all the time, yet our productivity levels are low and younger talent – as well as the brilliant talent that we want to attract at all levels of the organisation - don’t want to be defined by a burnout life.
“The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics back this up. In 2019, the UK’s output for each hour worked was lower than that of the US and France, while other G7 countries’ output per worker was 13% above the UK’s. But in terms of hours worked, research places the UK more than an hour above the EU average of 40.5 hours a week in 2019.
“This needs to stop, and we’re very encouraged by the progress we’ve made and what we’ve achieved during the pilot so far – achieving 100% productivity in 80% of the time and keeping our clients content. But we’ll have to see what happens between now and when it comes to an end in December.”
The four-day week pilot is part of Tyler Grange’s commitment to B Corp certification, which is expected to be secured this year – a four-day working week by 2025 could reduce the UK's annual carbon footprint by 127million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Tyler Grange has offices located in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Exeter and Cirencester, in the Cotswolds.
