Employee engagement and a healthy work life balance have always been cornerstones of FDAQRC’s business practices. Management consistently reviews and evaluates how we can create a more positive company culture and offer employees better support. In the Summer of 2022, we changed our policy from standard five 8-hour workdays per week to a compressed four 10-hour workdays.

Changing the schedule brought forth great benefits for our FDAQRC team. We saw an increase in productivity and more positive attitudes overall. One employee explained, “It’s been great to have an extra day off. My family has been able to take weekend trips and I get to spend more time with my kids during their summer break!” Due to the compressed schedule, most meetings are held in the middle of the week to ensure all client needs are met, while still having enough time during the week for employees to get quality work done. At FDAQRC, we have demonstrated that we are able to maintain our exceptional quality standards while giving employees the space to take care of themselves and maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Overall, the compressed 4-day work week has been an overwhelmingly positive change for FDAQRC. We plan to keep the schedule through the end of the year, with the potential to continue indefinitely. Our Human Resource team shared that there was a decrease in sick days and vacation time used throughout the summer of 2022. Employees can now save their PTO for longer trips or other circumstances when in need.

At FDAQRC, we are always looking for trends to improve. Having a great, experienced, responsible team made this an option we wanted to explore.

Considerations that went into our compressed schedule:
Do we give options for the flex day or offer one specific day? 
Many of our projects requires collaboration across varying staff and departments, as well as with external individuals. When discussing the schedule change, it was important for us to have multiple days in the week where all staff was available for meetings. Due to this, FDAQRC decided to offer employees the choice of either Mondays or Fridays as their flex day. This way, we knew the whole team would be available three days a week, which made scheduling meeting internally and with clients much easier.

How do we ensure our clients’ needs are met during flex days?
Since we decided to offer a choice between Mondays and Fridays, management wanted each department to have an even split between the days. To accomplish this, we made a “buddy system,” where each member of the team had a partner who worked during the other’s flex day. Doing so ensured that if a client needed an update about a project, etc., we had someone who knew the project available to help them.

How will this impact holidays?
FDAQRC chose to treat holiday weeks as a regular 8-hour day work week to simplify the process.

Evaluating Effectiveness
In order to understand the effectiveness of the new schedule, FDAQRC management relied heavily on feedback from employees. Teams had regular check-ins to discuss progress and productivity on projects, as well as personal opinions on how the new schedule was working for everyone.

“Our staff made it clear that they greatly appreciated the option, and our managers found no decrease in productivity or availability of the teams.” FDAQRC chose to continue the 4-day workweek through the end of the year.