Implementing the Four Day Workweek

Summary

Podcast Summary: Implementing the Four Day Workweek

Title: Implementing the Four Day Workweek
Podcast: Agency Unfiltered, the HubSpot Solutions Partner Podcast
Host: Kevin Dunn
Guest: Hannah Collins Lee, Co-founder and CEO of SecondMile
Release Date: October 11, 2023

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1. Introduction and Background

In this episode of Agency Unfiltered, host Kevin Dunn welcomes Hannah Collins Lee, the co-founder and CEO of SecondMile. The discussion centers around the implementation of a four-day workweek at SecondMile, exploring the motivations, processes, challenges, and outcomes associated with this significant shift in workplace structure.

Notable Quote:
Hannah Collins Lee [01:38]: "Second Mile is coming up on seven years in business... we really wanted to think about work, life balance and doing work for the long haul."

2. Genesis of the Four Day Workweek

Hannah attributes the inspiration for adopting a four-day workweek to the practices outlined in the book "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work" by Basecamp (formerly 37signals). The idea was to introduce seasonality into work, creating more sustainable workloads and happier, healthier employees by experimenting with half-day Fridays initially, and eventually moving to a full day off during the summer months.

Notable Quote:
Hannah Collins Lee [05:04]: "We really resonated with that idea and decided to start experimenting with half day Fridays in the summer."

3. Operational Changes and Process Evolution

Transitioning to a four-day workweek required significant operational adjustments. SecondMile shifted to a 32-hour workweek with 100% compensation, emphasizing efficiency without increasing work complexity. Key changes included:

• Asynchronous Communication: Moving away from constant meetings to more streamlined, asynchronous methods like voice notes and video recordings.
• Project Management: Implementing robust project management systems, templates, and processes to maintain productivity.
• Focused Work Time: Reducing inefficient activities and prioritizing tasks to ensure high productivity within the limited work hours.

Notable Quote:
Hannah Collins Lee [09:52]: "We realized there's a lot of inefficient things that happen during a five day work week... we prioritize and cut out inefficiencies."

4. Client Reactions and Engagement

Announcing the shift to a four-day workweek elicited mixed reactions from clients. While most clients were supportive, appreciating the increased efficiency and focused work ethic, a few expressed concerns or outright skepticism.

Notable Quote:
Hannah Collins Lee [16:32]: "Once we kind of reframed from that perspective, they were like, yeah, I see the benefits. Most of them find it very aspirational and they're jealous."

5. Impact on Business KPIs and Culture

The implementation of the four-day workweek positively impacted various Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at SecondMile:

• Employee Engagement: Significant increase in employee satisfaction and retention.
• Productivity: Notable rise in output and efficiency.
• Revenue: Growth in revenue was observed post-implementation.
• Client Satisfaction: Maintained or improved client satisfaction levels.

Cultural Impact:
The workweek shift fostered a healthier work-life balance, enhancing overall company culture and employee well-being.

Notable Quote:
Hannah Collins Lee [21:32]: "Employee engagement increased, productivity increased, revenue increased, client satisfaction stayed the same or increased."

6. Challenges and Learnings

Transitioning to a four-day workweek was not without its challenges:

• Internal Adjustments: Ensuring team cohesion and maintaining opportunities for employee connection was initially difficult.
• Process Orientation: Moving from a more spontaneous work style to a structured, process-oriented approach required significant adaptation, especially for leaders like Hannah who preferred a more flexible style.
• Selective Project Acceptance: The company had to become more selective about the projects they undertook, leading to the difficult decision to sunset an entire service line, which accounted for about 10% of their revenue.

Notable Quote:
Hannah Collins Lee [25:00]: "We have to be super focused and know what is a good fit and what's going to where the team's going to be successful."

7. Impact on Talent Acquisition and Retention

Adopting a four-day workweek served as a strong differentiator in attracting and retaining top talent. SecondMile experienced:

• Increased Retention: Employee turnover decreased, with retention reaching its highest levels.
• Enhanced Recruiting: The company attracted high-caliber candidates seeking better work-life balance, even securing hires through dedicated four-day workweek recruiting platforms.

Notable Quote:
Hannah Collins Lee [26:11]: "Our retention is probably the best it's been... we actually just hired our first employee through a four day workweek recruiting website."

8. The Future of the Four Day Workweek

Hannah believes that the four-day workweek is poised to become more mainstream, drawing parallels to historical shifts like the adoption of the five-day workweek post-Industrial Revolution. She emphasizes that modern technological advancements and evolving work norms make this transition more feasible now than ever before.

Notable Quote:
Hannah Collins Lee [28:03]: "We're at like the perfect time and place for a four day work week to start to become more of the norm."

9. Final Thoughts and Unique Aspects of Agency Life

Wrapping up the conversation, Hannah shares her perspective on the dynamic nature of agency life, highlighting its unpredictability and the diverse range of industries they engage with. She humorously notes the "strangest part" of agency life as the constant surprises and unique niches they navigate.

Notable Quote:
Hannah Collins Lee [38:44]: "The strangest part about agency life for me specifically... it's like you're on a reality TV show."

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Key Takeaways

• Efficiency and Productivity: A structured four-day workweek can lead to increased productivity and efficiency without compromising quality.
• Employee Well-being: Enhanced work-life balance contributes to higher employee satisfaction and retention.
• Client Relations: Clear communication and reframing the workweek shift can alleviate client concerns and even enhance client relationships.
• Operational Discipline: Implementing such a model requires rigorous process optimization and a willingness to make tough business decisions.
• Future Potential: As work norms continue to evolve, the four-day workweek may become a standard practice, driven by technological advancements and changing cultural expectations.

Conclusion

Hannah Collins Lee's experience with implementing a four-day workweek at SecondMile offers valuable insights into the potential benefits and challenges of rethinking traditional work structures. Her journey underscores the importance of efficiency, strategic planning, and maintaining strong client and team relationships to successfully navigate significant organizational changes.

Transcript

[Kevin Dunn]

Hey everyone. Welcome to agency unfiltered, the HubSpot Solutions Partner Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Dunn and Agency Unfiltered is a weekly web series and podcast that interviews the owners, founders and executives of agencies and services providers from around the world about whatever it takes to grow and scale. This week we have on Hannah Collins Lee, co founder and CEO of SecondMile, who's here to talk about one of the hottest topics in the business world, the four day work week. Hannah shares how her team ideated on, tested and then fully implemented this for her team. And she walks us through what it now looks like in practice. She outlines exactly how the processes, operations and employee expectations had to evolve to allow for this shift and how it now manifests in the team's client engagements and specifically with clients. She talks about the announcement out to the clients, their initial receptiveness and the increased accountability she now had to deliver results. And we wrap with impact to the business. From the trickle down impact on numbers and KPIs over to the culture, work life balance and employee experience, are we looking at the future of work? Check it out with Agency Unfiltered.

Hey, Hannah. Welcome to the Agency Unfiltered podcast. How you doing?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

I am great. I'm super excited to be here.

[Kevin Dunn]

Super excited to feature you. Obviously one of the episodes coming out of the Inbound event. How are you feeling? Is the adrenaline still pumping? Are you still riding that wave of energy and or momentum?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yes, a little bit of energy and momentum and also the post inbound blues and come down as well. Inbound was fantastic. I mean, I have started my Andrew Huberman routine. My dopamine is resetting. I'm feeling fantastic.

[Kevin Dunn]

Just don't tell John Mulaney about it, you know, otherwise you might get picked on a little bit. But that's.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. We all have like a. What? There's 10,000 of us that now have inside jokes, folks, together. It's. It's good stuff there.

[Kevin Dunn]

Yeah, that's so great. And again, you never know. Well, based on today, like right now today, but also the date in which folks may get a chance to tune in, there's a high likelihood, a high probability that you may be on sabbatical. Tell us a little bit more about that. What's the plan? And congrats. Congrats. Early congrats.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Thank you. Thank you. No, I'm. I'm super excited. So Second Mile is coming up on seven years in business, which crazy, you know, time flies when you spend half of your business in A pandemic. Right. But no, we, when we built Second Mile, we really wanted to think about work, life, balance and think about doing work for the long haul and like playing the long game. And one of those things was for owners at the seven year mark, taking a sabbatical. So I'll be out for seven weeks and I'm going to be hiking the Camino in Portugal and Spain and then doing some, some resting and relaxing after that. But yeah, really excited to kind of. Someone gave me the advice, when you take a sabbatical, it should be equal parts rest, relaxation, rejuvenation and like revision. So that's, that's my goal, that's my plan.

[Kevin Dunn]

Four quadrants of a good sabbatical. I like the approach.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah. Yeah. I'll keep you posted on how successful I am in achieving those things, but I think I've got a good formula going into it.

[Kevin Dunn]

So Euro trip, some hiking trips, Spain, Portugal. I think you're going to check off a lot of those boxes. I'm sure it's going to be great.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yes.

[Kevin Dunn]

So congrats on the anniversary. Congrats on 7 years. I hope you have a great time. And again, you might be in the smack dab middle of that maybe when this comes out.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

I know, I know. Maybe when I'm on the trail, when I get some wi fi, at some point I'll download this episode and give it a listen on the trail.

[Kevin Dunn]

You know, it's going to be critically important for my KPIs that you do. So that's. Thank you so much in advance for doing that. So, Hannah, you actually tee this up perfectly when you talk about work, life, balance. But also it sounds like a point of emphasis at Second Mile to, to, you know, build structures for the long haul for, for any two, like folks tuning in or listeners that may not know. Second Mile has instituted a four day work week. And so before we get to what that looks like, how it operates, it'd be, you know, let's start with, you know, the, the genesis. So, you know, how did that idea emerge? How did it land on the table of discussion and decisions and, and, you know, what made you all take the leap?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, I mean, big credit to the good folks at 37 signals basecamp. We read their book, it doesn't have to be crazy at work. Gosh, probably five years ago, six years ago, pretty early on in Second Mile. And they talk about creating seasonality in work. And that's something that, coming out of being a product of school, that's pretty built into the process, you have summer break, you have winter break, you have these ebbs and flows, and then you get into the work world. And very rarely are their seasons built into a lot of industries. So we're talking about to create, like, more sustainable workloads, Happier, healthy employees. Avoid burnout, get some seasonality into your work. And so we really resonated with that idea and decided to start experimenting with half day Fridays in the summer. And we're like, hey, let's give this a go. That way we can kind of, you know, set aside the summer to feel different. Then the next year we were like, let's maybe push the envelope a little bit here.

[Kevin Dunn]

Half day, not just Labor Day, let's get that thing to, you know, you know. Yeah. Later into the fall maybe, you know.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Well, it was, it was more of like, so we did the half day Fridays and then the next year we were like, let's go full days off and in the summer on Fridays and just test it out. Very time bound, like Memorial Day to Labor Day. And then it went really well. Like, not just, you know, obviously our employees were thrilled about it, but, you know, we saw some of the other benefits that a lot of organizations see when they make the switch to a four day work week. And so we decided to keep piloting it, trialing it out, and extended that and extended it forever.

[Kevin Dunn]

Perpetuity. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

We just never went back. So, yeah, it was a slow process in the sense of we did the half days, then we went to full days in the summer and then just kind of committed and made sure that we had some systems in place to test it out.

[Kevin Dunn]

Well, that's great. Glad it seems to be working so well. I think we'll be able to unpack a lot of that. And so just to confirm, you know, operationally it's Fridays, standardized Fridays. The full second mile team has that day off from work, correct?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Correct, yeah. So we are on the 32 hour, 100% compensation, 40 workweek. I think there's a lot of chatter out there about doing four tens. And we're seeing like, a lot of data says that that is not successful. You know, longer working hours, people get home later, they're missing out on, you know, critical family events and time.

[Kevin Dunn]

So counteract time you get on Friday, right? Yeah.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yep, yep. So whenever we say four day workweek, I always like to specify we're on the 32 hour. And yep, it is best practice for Fridays to be off. I also like to highlight that. Like, really, so much of that is about creating just work flexibility. Right. Like, we are big believers in hiring competent, capable, responsible people here at Second Mile that feel valued and they have autonomy. And so, you know, if during the week, like, hey, your kid gets sick and you take them to the doctor and that eats into, you know, half of your Wednesday, hey, you've got Friday there if you need it, as kind of this outlet. Um, and so it's, it's kind of like a buffer if it needs to be. But operationally, like, we're all shut down. There's no external meetings, there's no client communications that, that Friday is kind of xed off on, on the calendar there.

[Kevin Dunn]

Yeah, no, that's great. And also savvy veteran move for the four day work week. Eight. We're a 32, not the four by 10. So, you know, just learning some of the variables that can, you know, be at play for my, my own learnings. But as you took it from, all right, let's take full day Fridays in the summer. And then actually, you know, it's working well enough, like, let's just really pull this thing out and extend it in perpetuity. What had to change process wise, operationally, you know, client engagement wise, like, so structurally behind the scenes at Second Mile, like, how did you, you know, what did you have to evolve or disrupt to ensure that it was going to be a success? You know what I mean?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Great question. It's definitely not something to be entered into lightly, and we certainly have our bumps and bruises along the way. But I think some of the main things before we implemented the four day workweek that we were thinking about was how do we gain efficiency at work without increasing complexity of work. So it was just a. We realized there's a lot of inefficient things that happen during a five day work week. I use the, you know, I'm going on sabbatical. Right. I use the analogy a lot of times.

[Kevin Dunn]

Quit rubbing it in. Sheesh.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Like, if I have two weeks to pack for sabbatical, I'm going to like, slowly maybe chip away at it. I'm gonna take that full two weeks and then let's call what it is probably the day before, I'm really gonna like buckle down and get it done. If I have two days to pack, I'm probably gonna end up with the same contents in that bag right there.

[Kevin Dunn]

Might deadline spur action, you know?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yep, exactly. Exactly. And so when you have less time to get the work done, you realize you prioritize, um, and you cut out inefficiencies and you're super focused. And you know, tactically some of those things look like shorter meetings or even better, no meetings at all. Right. Really strong. Like project management systems, templates, processes. Like all of that was so critical and we're certainly like nowhere close to where we want to be in an ideal world, like continuing to improve, continuing to optimize. But that was, you know, a huge piece for us was asynchronous communication, reducing kind of a lot of that filler time that, that is just not productive and teeing our employees up to do the work that they're best at and try to automate, delegate, integrate wherever we can, like kind of that administrative stuff. So that, yeah, they, they can be super focused and do what they do best.

[Kevin Dunn]

Now, regardless of how many days somebody works, any listener, myself, yourself, I can imagine that there's an immense amount of efficiency gains to be had if you can prioritize what should be asynchronous versus what should be synchronous in meetings. Right. 100%. Do you have a framework or like, what's your approach to determine, you know, hey, if it meets this criteria, sure, we should meet synchronously, we should jam on it versus like, are we sure that can't be done and asynchronous. What's like the, what's the, the tip of the trade there?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Oh, that's a great question. I would say generally the four day work week has made us operate asynchronously. So that's like kind of our default.

[Kevin Dunn]

Function even. Yeah, true.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yep, yep. And then a lot of times the things that say, hey, this makes sense for it to be a meeting is based off of the complexity of the conversation. So if it's more of a strategy conversation, that's a good requirement for, you know, to be communicating synchronously. Client check ins, we definitely want to have and like build that relationship that I think there can be kind of swinging too far on the pendulum and then you don't want to sacrifice relationships in the process. So making sure that we get, you know, communication time, quote facetime, we're primarily remote with a lot of our clients. That's huge fruit for building those relationships. And then if there are, basically if we're starting to involve probably four or five people in a conversation, it just makes more sense to hop on a meeting. We use a lot of like voice notes and a lot of like screen share video recordings in our asynchronous communication to help convey tone, like super important things like tone, body language, Stuff like that that, you know, just can get missed in things like text format.

[Kevin Dunn]

Totally. Yeah, 100%. No, that's a helpful tip. Glad you brought up client kind of engagement facetime with clients. I want to get into some of the more like which we will, but like, you know, the impact we saw, the trickle down on KPIs or client performance, etc. But before I get there, I want to start with like the vibes. Like, what was the reaction? How did clients take the news? Did they feel good about it? Were there any stinkers that weren't happy about it? What was like the general rollout to the clients?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, great question. We had some stinkers. You know, it's anytime there's like big organizational change or big process change, you're gonna get some naysayers. So I will say I was really pleasantly surprised. I was, I, I think when we first started it, I was a little like timid and shy about our four day work week. And then there was really not a ton of pushback, which I feel like was a good sign that we were already like pretty well aligned with the types of clients we wanted to be working with. But obviously there were a couple. And when there, it was more out of like curiosity, right? Of like, how does this work? And when we were able to position it to say, hey, by us working at four day workweek, we're hyper focused and super efficient and we're not going to waste your time and there's not going to be just like random meetings where there's a lot of extra people in the room. And all of a sudden, you know, things start adding up in terms of time, energy and resources. Like they were really able to be like, oh, wow, you respect our most valuable asset, which is our time and our money. And so once we kind of reframed and repositioned from that perspective, they were like, yeah, I see the benefits. Most of them find it very aspirational and they're jealous. And I usually get some form of like, oh, are you hiring? Oh, yeah, you know that, that part's always fun. But no, they, it was shockingly, really well received, which I'm grateful for.

[Kevin Dunn]

That's great news. And again, it speaks to the point too. I think you said that it's like, all right, then it just validated that we're working with the right times, right types of clients. Right. But I think sounds like framing the decision through the lens of the value it'll have for customers also goes a long way. What, like, out of those, maybe the Small percentage of stinkers. Like what? Or even the ones that were okay with it, but they just also bubbled, bubbled it up. Like, what seemed to be the top concerns? Like, what were the themes that you heard and what was like, the defense against those? You know what I mean?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah. I mean, lots of questions around time, like, is this going to impact project timelines? Are you going to be able to get all this work done? You know, those were rightfully so hesitations and concerns. And so we did have to, like, have a plan in place for, you know, those talk tracks and we actually had to, like, deliver on those things. Right. Like, talking is, you know, only way.

[Kevin Dunn]

Really?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Really?

[Kevin Dunn]

Yeah. Puts the stakes on, you know. Yeah. Being able to deliver the work. For sure.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Oh, for sure, right. Like, we could not have a drop in quality of performance and quality deliverables. So, you know, kind of, kind of raised the stakes a little bit. But yeah, that was the main questions was around, like, timelines and, you know, I think one of the things I admire about this podcast specifically is people are pretty vulnerable. And we did have a client be like, oh, so you guys must be super lazy and you can't even work five full days a week. And, you know, we realized in that moment, for a number of reasons, we were not aligned and on the same page in terms of the type of, like, equitable partnership we wanted with our clients. So, yeah, that was, that was a tough conversation, that one. That one stung a little bit. I'm not gonna lie.

[Kevin Dunn]

Now, you know, the podcast is agency unfiltered. But yeah, this is a safe, safe place for vulnerabilities. I think agency vulnerabilities is. I would typo that. I would have so much trouble typing that as a title day in, day out. So. But unfiltered is what, you know. But yeah, you know, we can get vulnerable here.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, yeah, you mentioned unfiltered vulnerable.

[Kevin Dunn]

Yeah, you mentioned bumps and bruises. What were like the big ones.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, I think another one just kind of internally was obviously having to make sure that like, our team was still finding opportunities to connect. And I think that's like a huge part of the conversation anyways, was like we were, we started our four day work week journey pre Covid, which I'm, I'm very thankful for because it already like made that connection component have to be top of mind. And then to compound that with COVID it was like, we've got to find ways where our team can feel connected and that we're not completely sacrificing, like the Great things about working at an agency and like the team camaraderie for the sake of productivity. So there was totally some learning curves there. I think at the beginning we got probably way too hyper efficient and like if it is not a client deliverable, it's not happening. Right. So had to like kind of swing back and like find that happy medium of like how do we still create these opportunities to connect without just this kind of like while also balancing like hey, we do have more limited time.

[Kevin Dunn]

And so how do we can be overly transactional? Right?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, yep, for sure. Yeah. So definitely some bumps and bruises there. And then I myself am not super process oriented. So forcing people like myself to have to become process oriented to ensure that we are more efficient. You know, that was uncomfortable specifically for, for me and I think maybe for a lot of entrepreneurs out there or agency owners. Right. Like we, we want to like shoot from the hip a lot of times.

[Kevin Dunn]

Move fast, break things, you know.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yep, yep, for sure, for sure. And I'm very much always trying to break things and our team's like, just leave it alone. But you know that it does not super lend itself well to, to a four day work week. So yeah, you gotta kind of put a lot more guardrails and structures in place to help set people up for success.

[Kevin Dunn]

Yeah, which makes sense. Now you had mentioned, obviously you really raised the stakes in the accountability of delivering or like sustaining the quality of work that your clients had come to expect. Is was sustaining that level the primary criteria of success or how else were you going to benchmark? Or did you benchmark whether during the piloting phase or for the whole rollout, like, you know, what's the reporting on it? How do you determine if it's working the way you needed it to?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, great question. So we obviously knew anecdotally, right. This is working really well. We're getting good feedback from our employees and our team, our clients. So we were looking at things like obviously our employee engagement metrics, watching those go up. We were looking, you know, in terms of deliverables at things like productivity. So amount of output. We actually saw that increase when reviewing pre four day work week, post four day work week, which is fantastic. And then you know, revenue, another helpful thing to be monitoring star revenue go up. So employee engagement increased, productivity increased revenue increased, client satisfaction stayed the same or increased. So all signs for yes, this is working. And that was really helpful to validate what we were feeling internally with some data because it's a huge decision and you've got to have that data to support a pivot like that.

[Kevin Dunn]

Well, it's super interesting to hear that it wasn't even just, you know, some of the primary KPIs here, you know, deliverable delivery efficiency or like revenue, not only did they sustain, but they went up. And that's super interesting to hear. And I mean it sounds like a lot of the process orientation, the structure would just yield those benefits like additionally. That's super cool to hear. Yeah, anything go down and that's just, you know, the necessary evil of it, you know, or like, hey, that's the cost of doing business, you know, in a four day work week.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, I would say that we've had to be more selective about the types of projects that we take on. We have to say no more often. And you know, there's sacrifices that come along with that. As someone who likes to say yes a lot, that is a frustrating thing for me. But yeah, we have to say no more often and we have to be a lot more strategic about planning our timelines and projects. And that's like a huge focus and priority for us right now is making sure that we're better able to forecast projects so that we don't say yes to too many things. So yeah, we, we had had to do that and then we did have to. We realized, hey, if we are going down this, this four day work week route, like as a company as a whole, we have to all be on the same page. We can't have silos. We need to be more aligned. So we did actually kind of sunset an entire service line and like book of business within our organization. And that was a super scary decision. I think it was like around probably 10% of our revenue. And yeah, that was something that we had to say no to and walk away from kind of. Yeah, yeah, we, we had that book of business during our four day work week. But the four day work week kind of just like accelerated a lot of and uncovered a lot of things in terms of hey, we need as an organization to be stacking hands on one goal and not like trying to pick out of three goals which one seems like it's going to work the best.

[Kevin Dunn]

Yeah.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

And so the four day work week made us have to kind of make some, some hard decisions there and super thankful that we did, but definitely uncomfortable in the moment.

[Kevin Dunn]

Tough. Yeah, yeah. But again like fortune favors the focus I guess. Right. And so yeah, it really, really forces you to have like strong prioritization on, you know, with, with limited time.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, yeah. The types of projects, the types of clients the types of timelines. Yeah. Have to be a lot more. Not regimented, I don't want to say. But just have to. Yeah. Be more focused and know what is a good fit and what's going to. Where the team's going to be successful.

[Kevin Dunn]

Now I don't know where Second Mile was team size wise at the beginning before five day work week or sorry, during five day work week after the transition to four day. But have you seen the impact of this as like a differentiator for like talent acquisition? Do you guys like. I would imagine it's emphasized fairly heavily and why work for us? Right, but have you seen any benefits on that side too?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, absolutely. I'm trying to think about what our headcount was when we started the four day work week. I want to say we probably have doubled since we started the four day work week. Maybe like anywhere from. Yeah, I'm going to go with doubled if I'm remembering correctly. But yes, in terms of a recruiting tactic and retention tactic, I would say our retention is probably the best it's been. And then recruiting wise, same thing. Finding really high caliber talent that wants that work life balance and that's. This is definitely, you know, an added. I don't even view it necessarily as an added benefit because I think that there's a temptation to like throw benefits at employees and just think that that's going to solve, you know, a lot of problems. But it is certainly one of the kind of cultural components and appeals that we lean into in the hiring process. And we actually just hired our first employee through a four day workweek recruiting website and it was one of the faster and easier hiring processes we've ever had.

[Kevin Dunn]

So that's a website dedicated or like only surfacing businesses that have rolled out a four day workweek. Is that.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, yeah, four day workweek IO.

[Kevin Dunn]

Oh, good to know. But I mean, so it's. I guess it's growing in energy and attention. Right. We're starting obviously there's a directory there so we know candidates are looking for businesses that do that. Why isn't it not mainstream but like why isn't it more prevalent? Why is it less of a norm and more of a differentiator at this moment in time, you know what I mean?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Oh, great question. So I think we're at like the perfect time and place for a four day work week to start to become more of the norm. When you look at when the five day workweek became the norm, there's a lot of similarities. So it was coming off of the heels of like a second industrial revolution. It was coming off the heels of a pandemic. It's coming off of the heels of a lot of like workers rights. So I'm talking like 1920s.

[Kevin Dunn]

Sure.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

And like strikes and labor shortages. Again, all of this is like probably sounding pretty familiar.

[Kevin Dunn]

It's very similar. Right? Yeah. You see the parallels?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yep. And so that's when kind of the five day work week became the norm. We're obviously experiencing a lot of, you know, a hundred years later, a lot of the same things. And when I'm thinking about like post industrial revolution now, I would say we're post like Internet and computer revolution. So the way that we work has changed, but the time that we spend at work hasn't. If anything, it's gone up in a lot of cases. So it, it feels like the right time and place for this to become more mainstream. I think the things that hold organizations back is, it is, it's a huge like cultural shift, it's a huge process shift. And so there's a lot of work that has to go in behind the scenes. And you're already trying to operate some like a day to day business. Right. Like how do you make time to make less time? Right. Yeah, it's, it's not the most intuitive on the front end. So I, I think that's a huge part of it. And then also just kind of deconstructing like some work norms and what it says about. Right. If we want to get super deep, like what does it say about us and our self worth and like, you know, like your, where your identity is, where your value is and where you place that emphasis. Um, I, I think there's a lot of things that are like wrapped up into why more people aren't experimenting with four day work week. And I think a lot of them are maybe not such like business tactics. It's, it's maybe more on like the identity and things like that.

[Kevin Dunn]

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah. Hadn't even considered that angle. If we want to go a little, you know, introspective in it. Right.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah.

[Kevin Dunn]

And actually I guess like checking my own assumptions, I figured it would be applauded across the organization. But did any, any of your employees struggle with it or like, you know, have dissonance with the decision or anything there?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah. Interestingly enough there, there were some challenges when it came to like thinking about the pace of work and people who like, I think we had some people who like, they kind of just wanted to show up. They just wanted to like, do their thing. They wanted it to be like, a little slower. And then when we went to a 40 workweek, it was like, hey, there's relatively the same amount of work that needs to get done. There's less time to do it. So you do have to be super focused and you have to, you know, self prioritize or work with your manager to prioritize. And that was tough for some people and they did not do well. And ultimately, like, you know, self selected out. And so, yeah, I, that was actually more surprising, I think, than the clients having challenges with it. But those who did stay, like, and those who obviously joined the organization now, like, know it from the beginning or they really love it and work well in that environment.

[Kevin Dunn]

And so it's not a transition for those folks. It's ingrained into the, the business. Yep, yep.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

So, yeah, that was, that was a unique kind of. I was not anticipating that part as much in the process. And we did have to have a lot of conversations around, like, hey, we want, we don't want the work to be unsustainable or the pace to be unreasonable. And so if that's ever a contributing factor, like, we have to know those things. Right. So we can address it. And we, we had to have conversations too, around, like, hey, when you're here, like, you're here and you're super focused.

[Kevin Dunn]

Totally.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Because instead of getting, you know, a 30 minute break here and an hour break there and kind of, oh, maybe I'm shopping on Amazon for 45 minutes during those five days. It's like you have whole eight hours to do that on Friday if you want to. And so it's just kind of like stacking where those things fall in the work week instead of maybe them blending as much. If that makes sen. Yeah, it's like it's.

[Kevin Dunn]

You don't have to sacrifice any of that. But where and how it fits into your day and into your week fundamentally changes. Right. Because now it's all bunched and batched on Friday versus Yep. It totally.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yep. That is a fantastic way of thinking about it. It's like, you don't have to sacrifice that. If anything, you hopefully have more time to do that. It's just kind of set aside on, on this other day. And it's also been great for like, our employees in terms of like, hey, take your car to the shop on Friday. Like, you can go to a doctor's appointment on a Friday. Like the time out of work Monday through Thursday has certainly gone down in that there's obviously this Whole day to do your life, which is awesome. And that's exactly what everyone should have time to do if they need to.

[Kevin Dunn]

Yeah. There's like team wide appointment, you know, scheduling, you know, for life appointments on Friday. Yep. That makes us. Yeah. The. That's also an interesting point is that like, yeah. The folks out of office Monday through Thursday, the percentage or the frequency diminishes because they have Friday available.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah. And that's something we like try to communicate in the hiring process is hey, generally if you can schedule something on a Friday, like if your doctor is open on a Friday, if your dentist is open on Friday, try to make sure that that's the day that that's happening.

[Kevin Dunn]

Yeah. It's highly encouraged to maximize. That's the point of that day. Right.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yep, exactly. Yes. I'll have you start joining our onboarding process so that you can.

[Kevin Dunn]

I got it. I think I got some of the sound bites here. Yeah. And before we get to the last question, which we kind of wrap every episode with the same one. So I'm going to put a pin in that for one more minute. Feels like there's been a lot of tips and actions that partners can take, agencies can take. What is step one if they're ready to embark down this journey. Is it half day Fridays and kind of taking it from there?

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah, I think I would say create some type of test like. Right. Especially in agencies we love a B testing. Right. We love optimizing. So this is a great place to do some a B testing and figure out what works well. So create a test, get those baseline metrics before you go into the test and then test it out and you know, see what works well for you. It doesn't even have to be like Monday through Thursday. Right. I think a lot of, you know, this audience is specifically focused on agencies. So I do think that like our industry probably lends itself maybe the best to a four day workweek. And I also think something like a four day workweek and AI are like going to have to force agencies to not think about time in a traditional way.

[Kevin Dunn]

I mean if you want to talk about how to find efficiency gains. Right. And like how to do more with less time. Right. Yep, totally.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Oh, for sure. For sure. So I think that yeah, our industry is, is probably pretty well suited for a four day work week, which means you could go that traditional Monday through Thursday, but you don't have to. Right. Like there's so many different options can do staggered teams like test out what works well for, for your organization and I think like anything when you're making big shifts, communicate with your team and get that feedback loop of what's this going? What can we do to improve this? What ideas do you have to help us make a four day workweek a reality? You know, those are kind of the two things is test it and get the feedback. Get the feedback from clients, get the feedback from your team and you know, keep iterating on that. You don't have to like jump all into a four day work week. Right. Right from the get go there.

[Kevin Dunn]

You know, if, if we are going to ab test it, I hope I'm the ver part of the variant that gets to experience the four day. You know what I mean? I don't want to be the other variant that doesn't. That's key. And honestly, I can't believe we wait until the very end to bring out the implications of AI. It's such a hard door to shut once it's been cracked open. It's taking like every ounce of my willpower to not get another 40 on it. But I imagine they're very much intertwined. Right? The implications of generative AI and success in a four day work week.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yeah.

[Kevin Dunn]

And a final question we'll wrap here. What is. So I'll say the question and then maybe we tweak it. What's the strangest part of agency life? Or what's the strangest part of a four day work week? Agency life, you know.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Oh. So I will say the strangest part of agency life is. And I will filter this through. The perspective of being an agency owner is like, I mean you never know what's going to happen. Sometimes it feels like you're on a reality TV show. Like you're just like, did someone just drop this in here to like get a really funny clip like there you could be, you know, meeting with a bunch of CEOs and boards of directors one day and then the next day you could be sitting there saying, oh no, our conference table broke and we are having our team summit and we don't have a conference table. So you know, like just every single day is a wild ride and I love it. And so that is probably the craziest part about agency life for me specifically. I also love that we know so many weird niches and industries and you get to like really ingrain yourself into those. Um, it's like in what other world would I know about custom whirlpool bathtubs and also know the matriculation cycle for like a higher ed program?

[Kevin Dunn]

Like, you know, how would I ever been able to predict the depth of knowledge I now have on these. These things? Yeah, totally.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Yes. And it's so fun. What a great party trick, right? So, yeah, that's the weirdest part about agency life. The weirdest part about a four day workweek. Agency life. I mean, your weekend starts on Thursday, so I don't think that's weird. I just think it's awesome. Right?

[Kevin Dunn]

Thursday night's the new Friday night. That's pretty nice.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

That's pretty much Thursday night is the new Friday night and therefore, hopefully you don't get the Sunday scaries. Like, you combine those two things together and it's pretty awesome.

[Kevin Dunn]

That's great. Well, Hannah, thanks so much for coming on, really unpacking this thing. Glad to hear it's going so well and working so well for your team. And obviously, hopefully by the time you tune in and you committed to a download, you know, you're, you're enjoying a, you know, sightseeing in Portugal or something like that. So happy sabbatical. But thank you so much for coming on. It's been, it's been super helpful.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Thank you for having me. I am a huge fan of the podcast, so this is like a career check mark for me.

[Kevin Dunn]

Send me your Venmo so I can bribe you to, you know, for saying that and then, you know, just putting it out in the ethos. You know, I will pay for, for positive feedback like that. But thank you and I appreciate it. And for everyone that's tuned in today, this has been another episode of Agency Unfiltered.

[Hannah Collins Lee]

Sam.