The NGO working a 28-hour week

Ah, the bank holiday weekend. A break followed by a four-day week. Lovely. Time to relax, sort life admin, and have time spare for a beer or two. But what if every week was like this? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. While remote working has had much attention during the pandemic, the concept of the four-day working week is also gaining prominence. Spain recently announced a large trial of the concept in September, with the government promising funding to cover any costs encountered by the hundreds of participating businesses. In the United Kingdom, a range of companies has been awarded a “gold” rating for their efforts by the 4 Day Week Campaign group. A pre-pandemic trial by Microsoft Japan found productivity increased 40% after adopting shorter working hours. A shorter week could even be good for the environment: A U.K. study recently found the practice could eliminate nearly 140 million tons of carbon emissions by 2025. In a year of burned out staff and huge change in the sector, could it be time for development organizations to put perpetual three-day weekends on the table? U.K.-based advocacy group STOPAIDS has permanently adopted a 28-hour workweek — four days of seven hours each — after an extensive 18-month trial and independent evaluations. The idea was proposed before the pandemic, but the staff has continued to work reduced hours throughout the entire crisis. The trial period showed the organization’s staff of 16 achieved four key performance indicators decided on pre-trial as measures of success. Those KPIs were better work-life balance, a staff less stressed and pressured by work and life demands, a staff more rested and alert for work, and staff more efficient and productive with their time, according to Director Mike Podmore. He said the final KPI was “crucial,” adding that in 2020 STOPAIDS “continued to get funding, secured big multi-year core grants, had some good success in engaging with the U.K. government on access to medicines.” “There were essentially no negative impacts of any certain measure,” according to Mona Chergui, a consultant who conducted the final independent evaluation of how STOPAIDS had adapted to the four-day week. And the move has — perhaps unsurprisingly — been well received by staff. “It does make you want to stay” at the organization, said Tabitha Ha, strategic adviser at STOPAIDS. She said the extra day off is “amazing” and often spends it volunteering at a vaccine clinic, learning Mandarin Chinese, and performing yoga. Ha also said it enables her to get “life admin out the way” while allowing time for training and activities related to work that she previously didn't have time for. Podmore added: “I’ve just been able to read again, allowing me to make connections across sectors and think a lot more creatively and imaginatively about my work.” But the organization does not mandate what employees do on their extra days off, and some might choose to simply rest. Podmore said “This increased restfulness,” he says, “really allows you to come into work and feel more ready to work.” When he first took the idea to the board in 2019, Podmore acknowledged there were some concerns among trustees that he was “basically asking for a pay increase for all staff per hour worked” without the guarantee of an increase in productivity or impact. But extensive discussion of and consensus on the concept among staff before the official proposal — resulting in the KPIs outlined above — helped convince higher-ups. “From parents to disabled people, there are different ways reduced working hours can help groups not traditionally represented in NGOs.” --— Mona Chergui, consultant for the final independent evaluation of STOPAIDS’ four-day week It meant Podmore had ready answers to tough questions from the board about adopting a shorter week, which he was able to counter using evidence from successful pilots in other organizations. The initial trial lasted six months and was extended for another year in April 2020. Work-related stress among employees went down during this period before spiking as the pandemic gripped the world — then gradually fell lower than 2019’s baseline, according to Podmore. Shifting to reduced hours initially increased Ha’s stress levels because of pressure to fit unchanged objectives into a shorter time. But she added: “I felt personally [that] as a team we needed to find ways to cut down on time and deprioritize [some tasks], we needed to find ways to trim the fat.” Eventually, they became more “cut-throat” about deciding which actions would be most impactful, Ha says, and the initial stress of the transition eased. “The main barrier is getting the operational balance right,” agreed Chergui, noting the extensive preparatory work the organization did before even implementing the trial “paid off” as it forced staff to think deeply about how they worked and communicated with each other. She added that a key challenge for organizations looking to move to a four-day week is “not being creative on how they are thinking about it” — by seeing it simply as reduced time, rather than an opportunity to improve working practices. STOPAIDS’ small size and “progressive” organizational culture were helpful factors in making the shift according to Ha and Podmore. Other — particularly larger — organizations have encountered challenges with the four-day week. Management at the U.K.’s Wellcome, which employs around 750 people, looked into a trial in 2019 but decided there were too many other unrelated organizational changes at the time for it to go ahead. “As we unpicked how a trial would work, there were a lot of complex decisions in making it happen,” said Ed Whiting, Wellcome’s director of strategy. “The size and breadth of the organization meant there were a lot of operational details to get right.” Jobs at Wellcome vary greatly, from those staffing a museum, overseeing financial investing to talking policy with multilateral institutions, and there were particular concerns over how the shift would affect those working part-time. “We know if we ran a trial for some of the organization but not the whole organization it would create an inequity,” added Whiting. Internal feedback also showed staff prized flexibility higher than reduced hours, said Whiting, they found that the move could “paradoxically reduce flexibility for many staff.” Like many other organizations, Wellcome plans to trial hybrid working post-pandemic, with two days a week in the office when that’s feasible in the U.K. While the four-day week might not be suitable everywhere — yet — Chergui said STOPAIDS’ lessons could “absolutely” carry across to other organizations. She said it was “really critical” to think about what an organization wants to achieve in its work, distinguishing main goals from “window dressing” and setting measurements for success. There should also be discussion around the management and organizational tools used by an organization to see if they are up to more efficient tasks, added Chergui, as should procedures for what happens in emergencies or other unexpected events. Chergui is hopeful for the four-day week for reasons beyond rest — she thinks it could help organizations become more inclusive too. “Flexible working has real potential to change recruiting and who is working in different organizations,” she said. “From parents to disabled people, there are different ways reduced working hours can help groups not traditionally represented in NGOs.”