By Sarfraz Ali, Vice President and Head of EMEA
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. For nearly 100 years, it’s been the accepted norm in the world of work. Dolly Parton even wrote a song about it. But over the past three years, we’ve seen a transformation in the way we work. Now, remote and hybrid options are just as normal as the traditional work week continues to be. Employers, and employees, have options. There is no longer one way to show up and contribute. Flexibility reigns supreme. On the heels of this transformative new era of work, momentum is starting to build around yet another new approach: the four-day workweek.
We’ve seen our customers across the globe readjust to what an effective work week looks like for them and their employees, but here in the U.K., a fascinating experiment is underway to test the effectiveness of the four-day work week.
At Smartsheet, we believe that regardless of your workplace schedule, there are three critical principles that every company should adopt in order for their organisations and team members to be successful. Now, with over 3,000 U.K. employees partaking in this experiment, we see these principles as being even more relevant for companies looking to make a shorter work week just as effective as the traditional Monday through Friday experience.
1. Creating seamless collaboration and communication
One of the big issues with the four-day workweek is the impact of asynchronous work across teams. Some team members may work Monday through Thursday while others may work Tuesday through Friday, or perhaps something completely different.
This becomes even more complex when you factor global teams into the mix. Different team members, working different days across different time zones. That’s why creating seamless async collaboration and communication is vital for teams to work effectively—no matter their location or working hours.
But how does a business do this? We’ve found that organisations see success here when they unite their teams through a single digital platform where there’s one source of truth so information can be accessed at any time, regardless of schedule and location. Also crucial is the ability to automate workflows so work keeps moving even when team members are outside of their working hours.
For example, Pricer AB, a provider of in-store digital shelf-edge solutions, uses Smartsheet to create a single source for multiple workstreams. This allows each employee and subcontractor to securely access the information they need to complete their work, keeping everyone abreast of the latest developments and generating significant time savings. The team also benefits from automated workflows that standardise tasks and help eliminate errors, leading to faster, more efficient order processing.
It’s a simple tenant, but getting the basics right is the cornerstone to getting flexible collaboration right. Companies adopting a four-day workweek need to keep work moving no matter who is working when–a single source of truth and automated workflows can really help.
2. Unlocking innovation with new tech
Bringing your teams together with a unified platform is a good start. But businesses can’t completely dictate how teams will settle into these new working practices. Those that really want to innovate and create greater efficiencies should empower their employees to have a stake in how work practices and processes evolve. A “no-code” approach can help here.
A no-code solution is a tool or platform that gives employees the ability to create applications without the need (or even the ability) to write code. These tools are quick to learn and lower the technological barriers to innovation within an organisation. They enable your entire workforce to create new solutions that previously only developers or IT teams could, unlocking efficiencies and impact that your front-line workers hold.
Sonnedix, a renewable energy producer specialising in solar plants, for example, needed to develop processes to support its employees and safely reopen its offices after the COVID-19 pandemic. The company used Smartsheet’s no-code technology to create an entire system to support the logistics of office working. What initially started as a simple sheet for colleagues to book in-office days evolved into a convenient QR code capability. This technology allowed colleagues to ‘log in’ to the office by quickly scanning the code with their mobiles – and was complemented with dashboards, including travel widgets with live guidelines about the safest time to commute. In the London office, for example, data was embedded from the Transport for London website, so staff could see station quiet times. By utilising no code technology, Sonnedix staff across various locations were able to visit the office with confidence, while Sonnedix used its Smartsheet records to track any potential virus exposure to prevent further spread. I could see a similar solution being used for companies trying to manage the complex schedules and physical space management that necessarily comes with taking on a four-day workweek.
By using a no-code platform, leaders enable employees to put their experiences into practice, creating new processes that reflect real-world scenarios while boosting a team’s productivity and creating greater engagement in work tasks.
3. Make work meaningful
Implementing a no-code platform with workflow automation cuts down on inefficiencies and the amount of ‘work about work’ employees do, like chasing colleagues for status updates or finding the latest version of a document. In fact, according to a recent McKinsey study, “the average interaction worker spends an estimated 28 per cent of the workweek managing email and nearly 20 per cent looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks.”
Mundane tasks drain employees’ energy and engagement and offer little value compared to strategic tasks that can feel more meaningful and fulfilling. Just think about email chasers–they take time but they also disrupt our flow. If you’re having to check in every half an hour, how can you really hit your stride with the more thoughtful and strategic work on your plate? The work that helps you feel like you’re making a difference. This problem only gets worse if working days and hours don’t overlap.
By unifying information in a single source and streamlining processes, busy work can be tremendously reduced. In a world where organisations are considering a four-day workweek schedule, the need for limiting ‘work about work’ is more critical than ever before.
We don’t know where the future of work will lead us. At the time of writing, the U.K.’s four-day workweek experiment is ongoing, and its outcome could very well come to shape how we will work in the future. However you decide to show up and make an impact–remote, hybrid, in-office, two days or five– it is clear that this new era of work will require us to collaborate more effectively than ever. By following the principles laid out above, which can all be powered by modern workplace management technology, any organisation can transform their processes to work for anyone, anywhere to drive more meaningful work.
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