When Austin-based workforce management company Safeguard Global piloted a four-day workweek in 2023, the goal was to improve recruitment and retention.
After initially looking like a success, however, the experiment ran into problems. Some employees often worked late to preserve Friday as an off day. Others used Friday to secretly catch up on work. And some who strictly adhered to a four-day schedule felt like they were falling behind.
It was “not the culture we wanted to create,” Safeguard Global CEO and founder Bjorn Reynolds recently told Fortune.
Safeguard Global has since pivoted to giving its roughly 1,000 workers the option to choose their own working hours and days, which Reynolds described as a culture of “freedom and choice.”
“Choose the hours that fit best for the work product you need,” he said. “If you can do that in four days, great; if you do it in five [days], but you’re taking two half days, whatever works for you.”
In recent years, the four-day workweek has moved from a fringe idea to a serious workplace experiment, joining return-to-office mandates and flexible work among the most hotly debated issues in the post-pandemic workplace.
Supporters point to evidence showing that a four-day workweek can improve employee well-being, increase productivity, and even improve tech adoption. A growing number of companies in the US and Europe have experimented with shorter workweeks, many of whom have continued the arrangement beyond the original trial. The idea seems to be particularly popular with Gen Z workers, and has started to gain traction with policymakers.
However, the four-day workweek is still far away from replacing the five-day workweek in the United States. And experiences like Safeguard Global’s show that the jury is still out on whether it is truly effective.
Safeguard’s walked-back experiment led Reynolds to believe that managers should focus more on outcomes than hours. The company monitors its workers using three performance metrics, which vary by role.
The key, Reynolds says, is making sure employees understand how the metrics feed into the company’s larger goals.
“How does everybody’s daily productivity or daily outcomes ladder up to part of a broader initiative?” he said. “We really make sure you understand what you do is super critical and where you’re placed in the organization.”
The metrics also allow managers to identify potential areas for improvement.
“If someone’s customers are raising more than average tickets, and we’re not answering them, and the time to answer is longer than the average, it gives you the ability to then say, ‘Okay, well, hey, here’s an anomaly,” he said. “Maybe it’s your working patterns leading to that.”
