Did you know that 4 to 5% of companies in France have adopted the 4-day week? Why not take the plunge too?
On February 28, the "Implementing the 4-day week" webinar took place on LinkedIn. If you missed it, or would like a guide to the steps involved, we've got you covered!
To address this topical issue, 2 expert viewpoints complemented each other: that of Arthur de Keyzer, a social entrepreneur who implemented the 4-day week in his company Sillages, and that of Pierre MONCLOS, who worked for 10 years as HR Director at Unow and who dedicated a chapter to the 4-day week in his book Quand Les Start-Up, Scale-Up Et Licornes Réinventent Les Rh.
Barthélémy, from the jobs_that_makesense team and host of the HR Impact Labs, led the way!
What does the 4-day week mean?
For Pierre, there are 2 ways of introducing the 4-day week, and be careful not to confuse the two! On the one hand, there's the "EN 4 jours" week, which compresses the hours we had in a normal 4-day week. Then there's the "DE 4 jours" week, which means a reduction in working hours."
Pierre presents the advantages and disadvantages of these 2 methods!
IN 4 days
- Plus: no need to change schedules
- Minuses:
this creates more time slots
days can be more tiring
schedules are less compatible with personal life.
"That's what URSAFF Picardie wanted to do, for example, by reducing the 36-hour working week to 4 days. It was a failure, because out of 400 employees, there were only 3 volunteers for 1 month", recalls Pierre.
FROM 4 days
- The plus: the 4-day week is accompanied by a reduction in working hours. "In general, boxes go from 35 hours to 32 hours", says Pierre.
- Disadvantages: companies often keep the same targets and don't take pay cuts. So you have to find a new way of organizing your work, because you have to work at least as hard.
To exchange views with other HR professionals on topics such as the 4-day week, join the Engaged HR community, hosted by jobs_that_makesense !
3 prerequisites for implementing the 4-day week
The Why
Arthur - "Before implementing the 4-day week, it's important to ask yourself why you want to go to 4 days and what objectives are being pursued by the 4-day week? The objective may, for example, relate to employee well-being, an internal reorganization, greater efficiency, or even revamping your employer brand."
Flexibility
Arthur - "Management must be flexible and open, based on trust".
Changing your relationship with work
Arthur - "To set up a new 4-day work organization, you have to be willing to rethink your relationship with work".
3 beliefs about the 4-day week that turned out to be wrong
#1 Arthur - "Thinking it was going to be easy. As entrepreneurs at Sillages, for example, we're under a lot of pressure because of the need to slow things down despite the multitude of ideas we have. We give up doing certain things when we reduce the working time, and we have to be able to say to ourselves that it's going to take longer.""We have to be able to say to ourselves that it's going to take longer.
#2 Pierre - "I thought the introduction of the 4 days would make the company very attractive from an HR point of view. But it really creates a golden prison for employees. It has a big impact on retention, which can be a problem, especially if people don't feel they belong there any more but don't want to leave." "I thought it would make the company more attractive from an HR point of view, but it really creates a golden prison for employees.
#3 Arthur - "You might think that if you work 4 days, you'll have fewer exchanges with your colleagues and fewer informal moments. But the aim is not to become a machine. The reduction in working hours has to be aligned with the project's objectives and ambitions, so that it can be achieved under the right conditions."
How to choose the off day of the 4-day week
For Pierre, this is specific to each type of business;
"You can choose a common day not worked for all employees.
"You can opt for a semi-flexible non-working day, where employees can choose between two fixed days a week to telework. These two days can be rotated"
"It's also possible to leave on a flexible day, which is the case for big companies like LDLC, for example. Any day can be off, as long as it doesn't interfere with the smooth running of the company."
How can we envisage this format for school management and the civil service?
Pierre - "Some Ehpads do it, the municipality and the community, the hospital civil service too. The condition for being able to switch to 4 days by reducing working hours is having enough staff to organize a rota. Even for jobs that depend on physical presence, it's possible to switch to this model.
5 advantages of the 4-day week
#1 Gain in productivity and performance. Arthur's observation is that "the reduction in meetings and small idle times has enabled us to optimize working time,without becoming machines".
#2 Improving the quality of professional and personal life.
#3 A reduction in burn-outs and work-related psychosocial risks. Pierre provides some figures on this subject: "Over the past 2 years, more than 60 companies have embarked on the 4-day week in Great Britain. The figures are as follows: -17% burn out, +35% positive consideration of employees on their social life, +12.5% see an improvement in their physical health, +16% in their mental health and +14% in their sleep. In France, LDLC reduced workplace accidents by a factor of 2 in 2 years.
#4 Reduced absenteeism.
#5 Lower turnover.
5 limits to the 4-day week
Here are 4 limits to the 4-day week discussed by Arthur, and how to overcome them:
#1 Changing the way work is organized can be complex at first. You have to be able to adjust the organization so that employees can do what you ask of them in a little less time, even if it means telling them that they can work on the 5th day at first, just long enough to find a balance.
#2 Overcoming employee fears. These can be managed through individual coaching and training. It is also possible to set up intermediate models to the 4-day week while waiting to launch the 4-day week.
#3 When 4-day organization doesn't work in the long term. Here, we need to measure the progress that remains to be made.
#4 The articulation of the 4 days with telecommuting, because there's a risk that people won't bump into each other. To solve this problem, the LDLC boss has removed the extra work day.
#5 Employees' fear of emptiness on day 5. If it's difficult at first, it's possible to get involved in an association, for example.
4 intermediate models for the 4-day week
Before fully embarking on this new 4-day organization, here are a few intermediate models put forward by Pierre:
#1 Offering additional vacations to the statutory ones.
#2 Start with Friday afternoons or let employees choose their own half-day off.
#3 Implement a 4-day week every other week.
#4 Offer unlimited time off. But this model has its limits, as employees often don't dare take them, feel guilty about taking them, or tell themselves that they will have to be compensated in some way.
Produce less, less quickly. Why?
Arthur - "My conviction at Sillages is that integrating social and environmental issues also means accepting to do less, to slow down, to change our relationship with growth and success. To embody sobriety in the organization itself. As an organization, yes, we're going to make less money, but it's in line with what we want to do."
TAKING ACTION
👉 Recruit on jobs_that_makesense
TO FIND OUT MORE
👉 Switching to a 4-day week - the example of Laurent de la Clergerie
👉 Transparent compensation and salary grid: fact or fiction?