As the founder and CEO of Scoro, I’m incredibly excited to announce that we will be switching to a 4-day work week from July 1, 2022. This applies to our entire global staff of 140, with no compressed hours and no change in salary.
As a concept, the 5-day work week is rather outdated. It’s been the ‘norm’ for a century and hasn’t been questioned since.
Massive productivity gains from new technology have been largely diluted by an always-on mentality, multitasking, and inefficiencies in communication.
We’re on a mission to fix that.
We believe a 4-day work week is the better and smarter way to work.
Our transition is underpinned by a desire to increase efficiency and productivity. We aim to illustrate how we can achieve more in less time by making significant and specifically designed efficiency improvements.
How is this different from any other company trialing the 4-day work week?
One of our main goals – right from the start – was to be radically transparent about the processes and objectives behind our decision. We want our journey into a 4-day work week to be documented and all our insights shared. We want it to inspire, and give other companies a point of reference. We have created a dedicated 4-day work week page for sharing all of that.
Not getting less done, instead working smarter
When I think about Scoro’s journey to a 4-day work week and everything that’s culminated to this point, I realize it’s been in the making for years. I’ve always strived to be as efficient and productive as I can be. David Allen’s book ‘Getting Things Done’ was a real turning point for me and cemented my desire to master time management. It was also one of the drivers behind my desire to set up Scoro; I wanted to help other organizations better manage their time.
A lot of what Allen discusses are things that have been fed into Scoro’s DNA, for instance, the way we approach time management, and the way we continue to help our clients become more efficient with our work management software.
For this reason, transitioning to a 4-day work week seems like a natural next step. We’ve spent years honing our processes and gearing them towards the highest level of productivity. – Fred Krieger, Founder and CEO of Scoro
Now we’re stepping up to the plate and really living up to our values. We are not expecting less in terms of outcome when we switch to a 4-day work week, and are working less hours, as we are working smarter.
It was only once the pandemic started that a real shift occurred. With the majority of employees working from home, patterns were disrupted. Teams had to find new ways of collaborating and communicating.
The pandemic was also the final push that we needed to take the leap, crystallize our plans, and start moving toward a 4-day work week.
Setting Scoro up for success
The decision to roll out a 4-day work week wasn’t taken lightly. As an organization, we’ve taken a lot of factors into consideration and gathered as much data as possible.
We’ve also involved the team in the process and collected their input and feedback on how to make the idea of a 4-day work week a reality.
At the core, our move to a 4-day work week has always been underpinned by a desire to increase efficiency and productivity. When most people think of a shorter work week, they worry about losing an extra day. An extra day that could be used to get even more work done. For organizations that aren’t prepared and haven’t made internal changes, losing that extra day would cause problems.
But for organizations that have made changes and are optimizing as many processes as they can, cutting eight hours won’t have a negative impact. So far, by analyzing user activity within our platform and reviewing our communication volumes internally, we have seen that Fridays are already significantly less productive compared to other days anyway.
A 4-day work week requires rethinking how we work
Scoro isn’t going into this blind. We’re not using our organization as a guinea pig for a 4-day work week to “see how it pans out”. Simply, we’re on a mission to make this work.
This has meant improving all areas of our organization to fine-tune our processes and bring in new frameworks to support the transition.
Our seven key focus teams, or what we call ‘squads’, will work to ensure efficiencies in the following areas:
- Focus and prioritization – improving focus during working hours and helping the team maximize time spent in ‘flow state’.
- Time management – improving time management skills across teams as well as setting out clear principles for time-tracking.
- Meetings – reducing time spent in meetings while using more asynchronous communication.
- Communication – streamlining internal communications by optimizing the usage of various channels, while minimizing interruptions and unnecessary communication.
- Automation – establishing an automation-first mindset and making the most of our work management tools to eliminate manual, repetitive tasks.
- Wellbeing – promoting healthy workplace habits, as well as fostering a company-wide culture of physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being.
- Operations – managing holidays, contracts, and sick pay, as well as our financial and legal operations while being as fair as possible to employees, and also complying with regulations.
Some of these changes are company-wide and will require a certain level of upheaval and introduction of new frameworks. Other changes are team-specific and will involve improving communication and reducing the number of tasks that our employees take on. And of course, many of these changes will require individuals to improve their own productivity, for instance by eliminating manual tasks or distractions where possible.
As we move closer to our launch date, Scoro will be sharing more insights into the specific frameworks and processes for each squad.
Supporting our people
To support our team during this time of change, Scoro will be rolling out training and coaching sessions to equip them with the tools and resources needed to take on new habits and frameworks with ease. I’m mindful that any kind of change or upheaval will take time to get used to, but I believe that by getting our people directly involved in the conversation and making them part of the decision-making process, the transition will be all the more smoother.
My goal as CEO isn’t just to drive change within the company. I want Scoro to serve as a case study of how a 4-day work week can and should work, to document what goes well, and be honest about what needs to improve. In this way, we can make the road ahead smoother for others looking to make the shift and show everyone – even those who aren’t – what steps they can take to maximize their time.
We want it to inspire and encourage other companies to be comfortable and confident enough to start this journey.