RTE’s ‘How to be good with money’ host, Eoin McGee, says his experience of trialling a 4 day week recently resulted in ‘more rejuvenated staff’ as Friday allows time for them to have a “me day”.
The pilot programme for employers to test the effectiveness of working four days per week with no loss of pay was launched on June 22.
The six-month experiment was organised by the Four Day Week Ireland campaign, which claims it can deliver positive results for business and work/life balance for employees.
Organisations that opted to trial the new system of working are receiving support, training and mentoring on how to make the concept run successfully.
Eoin McGee is among those who decided to try it out with his staff and told RTE's Claire Byrne that he has seen benefits across the board, and no drop in productivity so far.
When asked if it has seen workers trying to squeeze five days of work into four, McGee said it’s about managing your diary effectively.
'Our attitude is we’re all big boys and big girls in work, and we’ll get our work done and if you’ve got your work done by Thursday evening you’re not expected to be in the office on Friday.
'You really just need to manage your diary, everybody knows what’s expected of them, everybody knows what they need to do, they don’t need someone standing over them - at least in my business they don’t need someone standing over them.'
McGee said he finds if staff overwork themselves early on in the week, their productivity drops by Wednesday, and so this isn’t what the trial is about.
'I would be really disappointed if people had to come to work on Friday, I think we can really manage it and the experience so far has been that people are doing a little bit extra each day, but I firmly believe if you work late into Monday evening, you’re useless to me on Wednesday afternoon.'
From a manager's point of view, he said; 'It’s more about giving people the empowerment to just do their job, showing them that we trust them, I don’t believe productivity is going to be affected, I think actually we’re going to get more rejuvenated staff.'
McGee also revealed Friday among his staff is now known as a 'me day' whereby they can spend time doing what they love, without taking time away from family and friends on the weekend.
Tanaiste Leo Varadkar, speaking about the trial back in June had an optimistic view on the outcome of the trial, and said; 'The Covid-19 pandemic has caused us to rethink and re-evaluate how we work.
'It's been shown that huge numbers of people can be just as productive while working at home rather than having to come into the office every day and it has accelerated the shift towards more flexible and family-friendly working hours.'
