24
Tried the 4 day work week at my shop for 3 months and productivity dropped 15%
I run a small print shop in Cleveland with 5 employees. Back in February we switched to 4 ten hour days thinking everyone would be happier. Turns out clients got annoyed they couldn't reach us on Fridays and we lost 3 repeat orders worth about $2,000 total. My staff liked the extra day off but the stress of cramming 5 days of work into 4 made mistakes go up. What's your experience with compressed schedules? Did the numbers work out for you or did it backfire too?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
cole_murphy5d agoRising Star
Wow, sounds like you found a way to get less work done while giving people an extra day off. That's a special kind of backwards progress right there. I guess your staff was too busy enjoying their three day weekends to notice the $2,000 walking out the door with those repeat orders. Maybe next time try a 3 day week and see if you can drop productivity by 25% for the hat trick.
7
wood.uma5d ago
Hold on, nobody is talking about how a three day weekend could actually cut down on mistakes. Rushed workers making errors on those repeat orders would cost way more than $2,000 in the long run. Maybe that dip in productivity is just rebalancing with fewer costly do-overs.
1
olivia6705d ago
Yeah, "backwards progress" is basically my life motto at this point. If I had a nickel for every time I made a mistake because I was rushing, I'd have enough to cover that $2,000 loss and still have some left over for a sad desk lunch. But maybe that's just me - I get so focused on speed that I mess up the simplest things, like forgetting to save a file or typing the wrong date on an order.
1