How a shorter working week can yield long-term gains

Thanks to constant innovation, Tioga has rapidly grown to become one of the UK’s leading privately-owned CEMs (Contract Electronics Manufacturers). Based in Derby, the firm offers a broad spectrum of state-of-the-art electronic assembly, including complete product manufacture and full turnkey solutions. Last year, Tioga introduced a four-day working week trial, to see if it would benefit its staff. Here, in a question-and-answer session, chief executive Andy Grimmett reveals the thinking behind the change – and more importantly, whether it worked.

What prompted Tioga to consider working a four-day week?

Tioga prides itself on looking after its staff and is constantly looking at ways to make the business a great place to work.

After reading about a large-scale trial of the four-day week in the UK and becoming aware of a couple of our customers making this move, we decided to investigate whether it would be viable for us as a business.

What made you think that it might be possible at Tioga?

We did a lot of research, finding out about the potential benefits, but also drawing on the experience of companies that ran into problems.

There are many subtleties that need to be considered and we wanted to ensure that we’d carefully analysed all the possible issues before defining our particular scheme.

Once we’d mitigated the potential risks and determined how we could implement the four-day week, the benefits clearly outweighed any downsides.

When did you first introduce working four days a week?

We decided to implement a year-long trial, which started in July 2023.

Our business historically has a couple of extremely busy months during the year, and we wanted to ensure that four-day working was sustainable for us through various business conditions.

We also wanted to see how important the set of benefits were for staff throughout the year, for example, parents being able to spend more time with their children during school holidays.

How does your four-day week operate?

We used to work 40 hours per week, eight hours a day, Monday to Friday.

During the trial we worked 36 hours per week, nine hours Monday to Thursday.

This meant that staff were working 10% less hours per week, without any reduction in pay, and had a three-day weekend.

What has the feedback been like from staff?

Obviously, the staff were delighted when we announced the introduction of a four-day week.

Over the years, we’ve had a lot of requests to finish early on a Friday, but I don’t think anyone had a clue what we were about to do, and it created a real buzz around the business.

The feedback was incredibly positive. People really value having that extra day to pursue their hobbies, interests and spend more time with their families – but most of all, they appreciate the improvement in their overall work/life balance.

How did you measure the benefits throughout the trial?

We carried out a staff survey prior to starting in July and again six months into the trial.

Part of the survey asked staff about their stress levels, as well as their physical and mental health.

When we carried out the second survey, staff perceived their overall health to have improved by 33%.

Interestingly, our HR records also demonstrated that absences had reduced by a similar number, which underscores how the improved work/life balance of the four-day week is having a positive impact on the levels of staff in the business.

This is a massive win for both our staff and the business.

How are you managing the workload with less hours?

Tioga operates a continuous improvement programme called the Tioga Improvement Journey, which encourages all staff to propose better, more effective ways of working.

When we announced the four-day week to staff, we asked everyone to consider what improvements they might need to make in their individual areas to enable them to be as productive given the shorter number of hours.

It clearly worked as we completed our financial year at the end of March and achieved another record turnover, hitting the budget that we put in place while working five days a week.

Did you encounter any problems with the new way of working?

We had to overcome a few hurdles for our part-time staff, for example, to ensure that those who didn’t already work Fridays would also benefit.

And we also worked with those staff who were unable to work the longer hours due to their personal circumstances.

The initial concerns of how being closed on Fridays would affect our customers and suppliers, disappeared very quickly though.

As a business-to-business manufacturer, it was relatively easy to inform our customers and suppliers and they adapted to it almost immediately.

What happened at the end of the trial?

While the trial officially ended in June this year, it was clear that the four-day week had been an overwhelming success for Tioga.

So, in May, we announced to all staff that we would make it permanent.

As well as the continued benefits for both staff and the business, it has been a contributory factor to ongoing staff retention and recruitment.

What advice would you have for other businesses considering introducing a four-day week?

The main advice I’d give, is to consider the needs of all parties, staff, customers, suppliers and the way your business operates before thinking about how it might work.

There are many ways of implementing four-day working and it’s worth spending the time considering all the scenarios to find out what would work best.

I also think that running a trial is a vital part of the process to test whether it works and providing a chance to adapt and iron out any issues