The Challenge of a Four Day Workweek

What happens when you reduce the hours your employees work, offer three day weekends, and increase pay to keep salaries the same? The results are actually surprising—so surprising that we’ve been getting a lot of attention from television news stations around the country because of our recent success with our decision to go to a 4-day work week. Our story has aired on Fox 17; News Channel 5; WSBT out of South Bend, Indiana; WLOS in Greenville, South Carolina; WCHS in Charleston, West Virginia; and other stations!
 
At All-American Pest Control, we have always put an emphasis on taking care of our employees. Not only is it the right thing to do, it is good for business. Happy employees make happy customers. A few years ago, when we were faced with rapid growth and difficulty finding and retaining full-time employees, increasing our benefits package seemed to make the most sense.

While drawing new, high-quality employees and retaining them was certainly the goal, at the heart of the change in benefits was a desire to help our service team members find a good work/life balance. With a reduced commitment at work, they would have more time to take care of family needs, health needs, and odd jobs around the house. Plus, they’d have more downtime, which really helps to recharge the batteries! We knew that this would have a positive result on our service team.
 
You might think that reducing employee hours would result in less work being done but we found the opposite to be true. Our service team members are more productive than they’ve ever been before. When you treat people right, they do right by you. And most importantly, they treat customers right. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about, giving our customers the best service possible.
 
Along with increasing employee morale and productivity, this change in benefits also had the desired effect on our ability to attract and retain great people. Since January of 2018, when the change went into effect, we’ve grown 20% and 2018 was a record-breaking year for us.
 
If you own a business and you’re considering adopting a 4-day work week, we highly recommend it. We’ve seen great results and we think you will too. It pays to treat people right.