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A year into using a 4-day workweek schedule we have learned a lot...and it is worth it. The discussions leading up to January 1st, 2022, were around making a 4-day work week a company benefit. In a high-touch service and operations organization, we understand customer service and response time can't slip. Our operating KPIs were set. If we were not able to at least maintain performance, we would have to roll back to the 5-day schedule.
The team was ready to start the new year with a schedule that could allow a semi-regular 3-days off. Nobody had worked within a schedule like this, and the consensus was making it a success was in everyone’s best interest.
The business runs at least five days a week, and everyone knew at least 40 hours of work had to be done per person in a 32-hour workweek. The same work is to be executed clearly and thoroughly. This was understood to be the ‘give-to-get' sacrifice for the 3-days off. With one less workday in the week, everyone knew the other days had to count for more. Once we started, our inter-office and intra-office communication weaknesses were exposed.
Handoffs
The weaknesses showed up most clearly in the handoffs that were being done on open tasks. One operations desk team member was finishing their 4-day week on a Thursday, and they had to transfer any open work to someone who might lack the context of the matter. With that on the table, we realized job function was another variable needing management.
Job Function
If we have three transportation coordinators, they must coordinate their schedules, so the organization does not find itself down an entire function on a particular day. When people are out of the office unexpectedly the entire team knows the importance of coverage for an individual and the function. This is where we learned about cross-training on connected job functions. The complexity of cross-company scheduling became a second job for every manager. This is where our IT leadership stepped in. Motivated by a desire to make things simpler and the opportunity to have a predictable 3-days off schedule, an online in-house scheduling app was created.
Scheduling App
The app/tool leverages excel for inputs and outputs, so it is simple for everyone to provide needed availability info by job type. Between the excel sheets is a slick Python app we now call Zamana. It considers job function, task family, and the availability of others in the office.
1st Zamana accounts for certain exceptions - person x cannot be ‘off’ on day y.
2nd It considers who cannot be ‘off’ on the same or adjacent days. Optionally it can consider functional ‘buckets’ (e.g., the schedule needs to account for at least 1 FTE every day for pricing) and individual preferences for days off. Everyone prefers Monday or Friday, so we stopped using the preference scale and just introduced randomization.
After all the variables and rules are considered, Zamana creates a schedule. It can be iterated however often needed to give a few viable options. Zamana can run several thousand iterations in a few seconds. The managers can then look over the options and select the ones they think will work best for their teams.
We have not looked back since. As we grow, we incorporate new job functions and adjust outputs. We are operating on a 60-day schedule and are maturing at a rate where we project moving to a quarterly schedule this year. We developed a pass-down template so tasks that are WIP can be consistently handed to the next responsible party.
Job satisfaction is up. Communication across the office has improved in frequency, completeness, and urgency. We feel it in the office and our customers feel it in the service they receive. This is our busy season, and we are staffed and prepared to crush it. We look forward to learning more as we head into year two of our new way of working.