In 2020, when digital marketing company Feathr transitioned to a four-day workweek, it wasn’t just to give time back to its employees. It was out of necessity.
The company, which provides marketing support to non-profits, saw business halt as COVID made its impact. Rather than conserve cash with a round of layoffs, co-founder and CEO Aleksander Levental decided to implement temporary 20% pay cuts for his 160 employees — and soften the financial blow by cutting work hours, too.
“As business slowed, it wasn’t like there was more productivity we could get out of our team,” he says. “So the 20% pay cut — which happened on a sliding scale, with high earners bearing more of that burden — along with a broad reduction in working time, felt like it wouldn’t cut too deep into our close culture at Feathr.”
Read more: 10 companies that have adopted the 4-day workweek
Of course, there were still challenges ahead: Getting buy-in from employees who just lost a portion of their pay and squeezing forty hours of work into a 32-hour week would both take focused attention from the leadership team. With a mix of forward-looking planning and transparency, Levental carved out Feathr’s new path toward success.
“In 2021, we saw our best growth ever,” Levental says, noting that salaries have returned to pre-pandemic levels. “I can’t say that the four-day workweek is the only reason things are going well. But I think the more important metric is, nothing is worse because of the four-day workweek.
Here are three steps Feathr took to successfully adjust their work schedule while maintaining morale and productivity.