There’s More Than One Way to Get the Job Done

Innovative work models that can keep everybody happy

Work is not at all what it used to be. Certainly, there are still plenty of jobs that require people to be working in a specific place and time, interfacing with customers. But with each passing year, as remote work becomes more commonplace and tech advances increase productivity, our concept of what work can be changes as well. Whether it’s to provide better work-life balance, or simply attract and retain employees in a competitive market, companies have been offering more flexible options. From four-day work weeks to core hours to emphasizing productivity over presenteeism, we’re seeing real-time experiments in work models.

4 Days are Better Than 5

The idea of a four-day work week gained a lot of momentum during the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries and individual companies began trialing the concept, some trimming the work week to 32 hours with the same pay and some doing four 10-hour days. For the most part, results have been good. U.K. think tank Autonomy organized a 2022 trial of 61 companies making the switch for six months. Into 2024, 54 of those had kept going.

It doesn’t look the same everywhere. Water conservancy nonprofit Waterwise gives all 10 of its employees Fridays off. CEO Nicci Russell told NPR they were able to do it by limiting meetings to 30 minutes and making sure they start on time, checking emails at a few set times per day rather than constantly, and occasionally calling “Monk Mode Mondays,” where team members put their heads down and focus with limited chatter.

“It’s brilliant for retention, which is super important in a teeny organization like ours,” Russell said.

At bigger firms with more of a customer service focus, shutting down for an entire day isn’t feasible. Housing association Merthyr Valleys Homes has employees who take the same day off every week. Others rotate their off day, work two half-days, or come in every day but for less than 8 hours. What is consistent is productivity, and the happiness of both workers and management.

“The results are really stable. It’s not a novelty effect,” Boston College sociologist Juliet Schor, one of the trial’s researchers, told NPR. “People are feeling really on top of their work with this new model.”

Since first offering a four-day week in 2022 (workers can still work traditional hours if they want), Panasonic North America has seen productivity and morale increase, while sick days and operational costs have gone down. Making the switch the same year, Kickstarter reported a 50% increase in employee engagement and a big improvement in retention rates.

“We’ve seen very few employees choose to depart the company since the implementation of the four-day week. Employees now see themselves working at Kickstarter in two years nearly twice the rate as before the pilot,” chief strategy officer Jon Leland said.

Results like this have CEOs at 30% of large U.S. companies considering four- or four-and-a-half-day weeks, according to a KPMG survey.

Core Hours

Among the seven companies in the U.K. trial that went back to five-day weeks, the most commonly cited reason was customer expectations. Even if internal metrics showed no drop in production and service levels, customers worry they’ll be on their own should a problem arise on the day off. It’s also a source of concern for executives who worry about the same thing. And while not everything needs to be a meeting, there are times when it makes sense to have all hands on deck and when it’s a major hassle to have key people be unavailable.

For these situations, some organizations have adopted “core hours.” These are periods, typically four consecutive hours each day, when all employees are expected to be working. Outside of these, they have the flexibility to handle other things like childcare and can log their other hours whenever it works for them.

“The intent of this setup is to encourage non-linear workdays where employees gain more control of their time and have more time for things like deep work,” Melanie Rosenwasser, chief people officer at Dropbox, told Future Forum.

In the Americas, Dropbox employees are expected to be at their computers (the vast majority work remotely under the company’s “Virtual First” model) from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Pacific time Monday-Thursday. It’s during this time that any team meetings are held. The rest of the time, employees know they won’t have meetings scheduled and will have minimal interruptions, so they can focus on projects that require more concentration.

“Schedule flexibility doesn’t mean a free-for-all with no structure. Flexibility only works with predictability. What employees want is flexibility within a framework,” Future Forum VP Sheela Subramanian said.

Production vs. Time

Future Forum surveys showed that employees with flexible hours reported 20% higher productivity than those set, inflexible schedules. The reasons for this can be plenty. Not everyone is a morning person, and it takes some an hour and a couple cups of coffee to really get going. Or perhaps they have personal business they need to take care of, but it can only be done during their set work hours. Others might coast, knowing they have to be at work from 9-5 no matter how much they get accomplished. The great ideas that drive organizations forward very rarely come when someone’s staring at a computer feeling forced to be there.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that time spent at your desk is equivalent to success and that people are less effective when they’re not working in the office,” Auth0 senior VP of people Carolyn Moore wrote in Fast Company. “Performance and success can no longer be thought of in terms of face time or the number of hours worked. Instead, the focus should be on how an employee matches up to the clear expectations set by a manager at the onset. While the process is important, the end result is truly what drives an organization.”

Auth0’s objective and key results (OKR) model requires managers to set clearly defined goals for their teams. Deadlines, quality, and numbers are known in advance. As long as employees meet them, they’re doing their jobs, regardless of how long it takes. It might be tempting to load faster-performing teams with more projects, but that risks the burnout that has become endemic among workers. It also limits the potential for creativity. Engaged workers are often thinking about their jobs, even outside of work hours, and the best ideas come when they have free time to decompress.

“By evaluating employees based on results produced over hours spent, companies can create a highly driven workplace with increased employee output, improved team rapport, and a flexible company culture,” Moore wrote.

The bottom line is organizations that embrace flexible work models see improvement to their bottom lines.