Why We’re Moving to a Four Day Work Week
A fundamental operating idea at Swash Labs is that we should challenge conventional thinking and interrogate whether the way things have always been done is the best way to do them.
A primary goal of mine in starting Swash Labs was to dispense with much of what I found unfair, unethical, or irrational as an employee. For example, being salaried should not mean that you are expected to work unlimited hours at your employer’s discretion; no one should ever be punished – officially or otherwise – for taking a sick day; we must eradicate the various, cruel ways in which the huge, catastrophic power imbalance between employer and employee tends to be greedily enforced in service of the bottom line, often at the expense of family time, the ability for someone to have a meaningful life outside of work, or the overall mental health and wellness of employees.
“Time Off” Isn’t a Dirty Word
At Swash, we structure our working days around the idea that, when it comes to culture, we want to significantly deviate from the average conditions found throughout the advertising industry, in which amping productivity at any cost and performative work heroism are always rewarded.
We have, for several years, tried to ensure that when the work day is over or someone takes time off, everyone that works at Swash Labs is not only expected but actively encouraged to honor the boundaries implied by being “off work.” Vacations are real, time to rest is sacred, you shouldn’t try to work when you’re sick, and no one – not a client, not a manager, and not me – should ever encroach on those very healthy boundaries if it can at all be avoided.
The Rules are Made Up
What comes next for us is another step forward in breaking out of the constraints of corporate culture found within what a work week is supposed to “look like.” These constraints are often inescapable. They are also entirely imaginary. We made them up.
Or, more generally and in the big picture sense of things, Henry Ford implemented them in the 1920s, after significant pressure from unions during a time of completely rational labor unrest: a 40 hour week over five working days was adopted first for Ford factory workers and then for office workers shortly thereafter, a significant change from the six day work week that was, at the time, standard. Ford may not have been the first to do this, but the visibility of their example was huge. Much of the world adopted Ford’s structure shortly thereafter and the five day, 40 hour work week became the norm.
When the System Breaks Down
The pandemic disrupted everything we know about work — and it provided organizations of all sizes the opportunity to rethink many aspects of work and corporate life. Some took these lessons well, leading to increased acceptance of (and decreased artificial friction against) remote work for groups and roles well-suited to the arrangement. As you may know, Swash Labs is now a fully remote agency. We were a good candidate for it from the start as we already had remote staff members, and embracing that mode as a new approach for everyone not only kept us safe, but made us better overall. We did not, however, demand increased productivity as a “price” for remote work, which seems to be a common way for a hundred years of corporate inertia to assert itself inside of larger organizations.
At the beginning of the pandemic, we focused internally on making sure everyone had what they needed to get through it in terms of time, space, and boundaries. This did not negatively impact our work, and provided the opportunity for us to not only support each other during an unimaginably difficult time, but to thrive as an organization.
Taking Back Time
Earlier this year we tried what we called the Swash Summer Slowdown, in which everyone got one half day off per week, on a set and consistent schedule. This ended up as something of a pilot program for the 4 day work week, but we weren’t at all sure we wanted to commit to what felt like such a big change without hearing from staff about how they thought the Slowdown went. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive: just four extra hours during the work week gave everyone the opportunity to build their week around not just what they had to do, but around what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it.
The feedback matched the overall demonstrable effect of the trial: everyone had more energy and focus for the job when they were on the job, resulting in work that met (and regularly exceeded) our standards of excellence. The impact on the shop was huge. 2021 will end up being one of our best years ever, we’ve grown the staff (and are still hiring!), and several systemic overhauls we’ve been trying to accomplish for years became possible and were ultimately completed.
Implementing the Four Day Work Week
So now we’re expanding those four hours given back per week to eight hours. We’ve decided to adopt the broad outlines of a model that some large organizations have tried out in recent years, most notably Microsoft Japan, which saw a 40% increase in productivity as a result of their move to a four day work week. (We can’t measure our effects as granularly as an enterprise organization, but our lived experience aligns with their analysis.) Our staff structure provides us the opportunity to stagger days off so that we are open and fully functional Monday through Friday.
Everyone you know — in fact, everyone you will ever meet — has a rich inner life, just like you. Everyone has hobbies and interests and ideas, and a need for meaningful engagement and connection with the world outside of work. We are more than our jobs. We must be. And the more fully we live our lives, the more we have in the tank to give to everything we do with our time. That includes our families, our intellectual and spiritual growth, our mental health, and yes, even our work.
No one is required to do things the way they’ve always been done. At Swash Labs, we’ve built a business around not doing what’s always been done. That means we constantly try new ways to do what we do, and we keep and expand on what works.
This is no different. Every day, we creatively build and design visual identities, messaging language, marketing strategies, and advertising campaigns. In 2022, we’re going to build and design a different way to work, and we’re excited to have your partnership and support as we write the future together.
“Time is life, after all.”
— Overtime, by Will Stronge and Kyle Lewis