'We'd like to see the four-and-a-half-day week become commonplace', director says
Accounting firm UHY Haines Norton has been trialling a four-and-a-half-day working week since December 2023.
Under the initiative, the company’s three offices – Henderson, Kumeu and Helensville – close at 12.30pm every Friday.
“This initiative is part of our commitment to prioritising the wellbeing of our staff and enhancing work-life balance,” UHY Haines Norton said in a statement last year.
The trial is set to end on 31st March 2024 and so far the initiative has seen positive results.
Why a shortened work week makes sense
Yvonne Wood, practice manager at UHY Haines Norton, explained how the company decided to try the shortened working week.
She told HRD New Zealand that every six months, the company surveys its team, with a lot of the questions being around health and wellbeing.
“We started this after COVID because we noticed… we had to work from home for so long,” she said. “And the culture of the firm – we wanted to enhance it – and to welcome everyone back in the office and make sure they felt supported. And it came out that people were talking generally about their family time.”
Andrew Scott, director at UHY Haines Norton, added that the directors took that staff feedback onboard. He acknowledged that while the company had learned to adapt to working from home during COVID and had discussed workplace flexibility for a long time, one thing that really stood out from the feedback was the importance of life outside of work too.
“We took that advice on and that feedback from staff and had a roundtable discussion as a board,” he told HRD New Zealand. “And we came up with this idea of a four-and-a-half-day working week.”
The company also made sure it informed their clients about the new working hours.
“We've advised clients that that's what we've done on all of our emails signoffs on a Friday,” Scott added. “After 12.30pm, there's an automatic out of office reply, which just reminds clients that the office is closed — but there's always people that they can reach out to in an urgent situation, like the directors, for example.”
Employee response to new work week
UHY Haines Norton joins other companies in New Zealand that have trialled a shorter work week, including Unilever and accounting firm Grant Thornton. In addition, a survey from Hays found 40% of Kiwis believe a four-day working week will "become a reality" within the next five years.
Scott described the positive results of the four-and-a-half-day week trial among employees.
“It's been really well received by everyone,” he said. “The objective was to enhance the culture and focus on the wellbeing and health of the staff. And I feel like we've achieved that three- or four-fold.”
Wood described how employees have been able to attend school assemblies, pick their children up from school and attend appointments on a Friday.
“They can actually do all these things and have more family time,” she said. “And there's a real good buzz in the office on Fridays.
“We’ve always been a family focused firm, which is really important to us. And so I think it’s just made a big difference to people knowing that on the Friday afternoon… they can actually have time for themselves. And that in itself is enriching and it makes our team feel really valued.”
Matthew Dawson, a senior accountant at UHY Haines Norton, considered the trial a good incentive for the company to reach its goals and since it has been implemented, he found it to be “a very good change”.
“You go into Friday morning very motivated,” he said. “You only have a limited amount of time but I feel everyone's a bit more focused. And we get quite a bit done that Friday morning.”
Colleague Leah Anderton, a senior administrator at the company, also described her experience with the trial.
“I’ve been spending my Friday afternoons doing appointments, just getting things done that I need to get done so that on the weekend, I've got more time to spend with my family,” she said.
Making a 4.5-day week permanent
When asked whether she would want the company to permanently implement a shorter work week, Anderton said, “Definitely, I don’t know who wouldn’t want that.”
Not only have staff welcomed the trial, but the response has been positive among clients as well, Wood said.
“We've had really good feedback from our clients,” Wood said. “I’ve actually had quite a few clients call me up asking why we're doing it, how does it work, this is something that they're thinking about with their business. And that's been a really nice experience. And we've had absolutely no complaints at all.”
While the trial will end on the last day of March this year, Scott said the company is looking at doing another trial.
“We'd like to see the four-and-a-half-day week become commonplace,” he said. “And the way that we'll approach that is running another trial and seeing how successful we are second time around. I'm sure that we'll get there.”
Advice for HR teams on shortening the work week
When asked what advice they would share to other HR teams who are considering implementing similar working week, Scott emphasised the importance of setting achievable targets, getting feedback from staff and acting on that feedback.
Wood also highlighted the need to have a policy that outlines the goals employees need to achieve if the company was to implement a shorter working week.
“I think that was important,” she said. “We wrote a policy about it – what our goals were and what everyone had to do to work towards these goals, how we would report on the goals, and what date the decision will be made.
“So everyone knew exactly what was going on and when it was going happen. And that was before [the trial] started, when it was actually launched to the staff. We had it all prepared but then we asked for feedback, then we finalised the policy and then we rolled it out. And so everyone knew exactly what was going on.”
