It isn't a free pass to slacking off, but one trades business owner thinks flexible working hours could be crucial to keep young people in the industry
At the end of last year, Eifion Roberts hit rockbottom. From staffing issues to cashflow woes, the pressure of running a small roofing business was squeezing the 31-year-old from all sides.
“I was suffering from the trauma of what the lockdowns had done to us,” he says. “That’s when I thought, ‘I’m sick of this, business isn’t fun anymore. I had to draw some energy from nowhere to turn it around.”
Instead of throwing in the towel, he stuck in his heels and put his thinking cap on. “That’s when the idea of the four-day work week came into play.”
So far, the shortened work week has been a bit of a white-collar job concept. Financial services firm Perpetual Guardian is the main champion of the idea, claiming it has increased productivity and worker happiness. As The Guardian reports, more than 3000 workers at 60 companies in the UK are giving it a go.
After reading about the four-day working week, Roberts thought about how this could work for his Matamata-based business, Prestige Roofing, and its 30 or so staff.
The business isn’t quite following the four-day work week to a tee, instead reworking it into what he calls a 5-4-3 model. This sees staff work five days one week, then four days the next followed by a three-day weekend. Employees work their usual nine-hour shifts and that extra day off is fully paid.
The catch? The staff must get through all of their work in the nine days they’re on the tools.
He formally made the switch about a month ago, so it's a bit too early to gauge the scheme's success. He’s gathered historical data on costing and labour rates so that he can measure how well it's working.
While these changes are partly driven by Roberts wanting a more balanced lifestyle himself, he’s hoping it will also lift the wellbeing of his staff, leading to improved concentration and efficiency at work.
“Those guys [with families] never actually have the time to take five and relax. It’s about going fishing or doing whatever they want on that paid day off," – Eifion Roberts
“It's hard for the workers with families. They’ve got the sports and bits and pieces on Saturday, then the chores to do around the house on Sunday,” he says.
“Those guys never actually have the time to take five and relax. It’s about going fishing or doing whatever they want on that paid day off.”
The expectation is workers will turn up to work refreshed and ready to knuckle down. Slacking employees should be wary, as Roberts isn’t ruling out a “clean-out” of staff who aren’t pulling their weight.
He’s also hiring a part-time chef and gardener who is tasked with growing fresh produce at the main office and using some of this to prepare healthy and nourishing lunches for the workers.
About $15 will be docked from the worker’s daily pay to cover the lunch, but Roberts hopes his staff won’t make a once, perhaps twice, daily visit to the snack house which costs the business both petrol and time.
“I did the maths and trips to the bakery were costing the company about $1800 a week,” he says.
'Genuine care' key for worker wellbeing
This concern for workers’ well-being could reap many rewards for the business if study data is anything to go by.
New Zealand human resources organisation Skills Consulting Group’s Wellbeing Survey, released in April 2022, polled about 1800 workers around New Zealand.
It showed genuine care shown by the organisation had the biggest impact on driving overall wellbeing in the workplace, with 24 percent of employees rating this as the most important factor.
This is followed by enabling care of their own well-being (24 percent) and genuine care shown by their manager (17 percent).
“Your staff aren’t just a number, they’re not just an asset. That old chestnut has gone out the window," – Jane Kennelly
Jane Kennelly, the general manager of wellbeing at Skills Consulting Group, says businesses that want to hold onto staff need to realise that well-being is vital in the workplace, especially in the Covid-19 environment.
“Your staff aren’t just a number, they’re not just an asset. That old chestnut has gone out the window,” she says.
Instead, employers need to view their employees as an autonomous person who can often make decisions about who and where they work - especially in this tight labour market.
There are obviously limits to how much bosses can do to care for staff, but she says having good support structures and well-equipped managers is a good place to start.
“Organisations can’t do everything. The individual has to take responsibility and be accountable, but to enable them to look after themselves is really good,” she says.
“The business needs to be saying to its staff, ‘You are a really important person in our organisation and we want to look after you as much as we can.”
Working smarter, not harder key to attract fresh blood
The 5-4-3 scheme isn’t without its challenges. Since roofing work is weather dependent, workers have had to down their tools when ideally they’d be hard at work.
This has required some flexibility around what days the workers have off. Roberts says the foremen are letting him know whether they’ve been able to hit their targets for the week, but it does mean staff won’t always get their scheduled day off.
“The older generation just thinks I’m nuts, but the younger generation that we’re trying to target, the 20 to 30-year-olds, are all over it because they are a different breed," – Eifion Roberts
Like many other trades businesses, he’s currently on the hunt for staff to join the crew and he’s crossing his fingers that the appeal of the working schedule will lure tradespeople who value some work-life balance.
“The older generation just thinks I’m nuts, but the younger generation that we’re trying to target, the twenty to thirty-year-olds, are all over it because they are a different breed.”
This cohort, he says, is not interested in working 12 hours, six days a week. While that’s what used to be the norm, Roberts does not think it’s the future for the industry, especially if companies want to attract youngsters to pick up the tools.
“If we want to bring people into this industry, we have to make changes. [Younger people] are not tuned like we used to be, working all hours of the week.”
