Efficiency is key

“We work two days (Monday and Wednesday) at home and two days (Tuesday and Thursday) in the office. We use office days for meetings, and days at home to focus on our individual work. After blocking out time in my diary to get things done, I’ve been testing ways to boost my productivity; lately, the Pomodoro Technique has been working well. It involves working for 25 minutes, breaking for five, and then continuing that pattern to help with focussing on tasks.

“It’s been important to seek out these more efficient ways of working. We know a four-day week would allow people to feel well-rested and come back focused. The team is also committed to making it work – some people are emailing themselves updated to-do lists on Thursday afternoon so it can be fresh in their minds on Monday. It’s amazing what people can achieve once you’ve all got a shared goal.”

Quiet time is a must

“We sit in an open plan office and, since the trial began, we’ve been experimenting with ways to seek out quiet. Meeting rooms are at a premium so we’ve started using the bar area upstairs, which isn’t often used during the day, as a quiet zone. This way, you can get your head down – no meetings, no chat. Another idea was to indicate when you need some quiet time at your desk – having a flag in your pencil pot to say, ‘Hey, I’m busy, I just need one hour to concentrate,’ for example. Another member of the design team mentioned that at her previous job they had a desk traffic light system (red for busy, green for OK to chat) that would demonstrate something similar for a bit of uninterrupted time, so we’re considering implementing that too.

“While that’s in the works, Monday’s quiet hour has been a revelation. There’s just so much to get on with on a Monday, especially after a three-day weekend. So at 11am, we have our 30-minute team catch up, discuss our top-three priorities that week and then we turn off our notifications and don’t message each other unless it’s urgent. It allows us to crack on with what’s needed for the week ahead.”

The power lunch is back

“Research shows companies that eat together are more productive. In fact, some US research says fire stations that eat together actually put out fires better. Because of this, we’re going to try out implementing something called the big eat, where we eat together as a whole company once a week or once a month. Making sure we do things like this to keep up morale, despite the increased focus on productivity, will be key to making this a success.”

“I’ve been doing the 4-day working week trial – this is what I want you to know”