Edinburgh based Vault City Brewing has become the first commercial brewery in the UK to adopt a four-day working week.
The brewery made the move permanent across its business as part of its commitment to a healthy and balanced workplace culture.
It is known for creating modern and innovative sour beers with flavours including Iron Brew, Cloudy Lemonade and Rhubarb and Custard.
The firm’s 13 employees now work from 8am to 5.30pm Monday to Thursday, with the working week reduced from 40 hours a week to 35.
The new working schedule was phased in over eight months from April last year.
The four-day week concept had been in Vault City co-founder Steven Smith Hay’s mind since he left a corporate career which included spells at BT and TSG to start the firm in 2018.
Despite expecting significant challenges – particularly implementing it around the unpredictable production schedule of a fully functioning commercial brewery – he believed it was important to create the right work-life balance for his team.
Smith Hay, began brewing beers in his Murrayfield kitchen in 2018, said: “It’s been fun to watch the fanbase grow. It’s all part of the sour beer revolution – and we’re delighted to be at the vanguard.
“Scaling up something that started small is challenging at the best of times, but committing to a four-day work week when you’ve more than tripled in size, and opened a bar could seem like an impossible stretch. However, we believe work-life balance is a big part of our culture, and something worth striving for.
“A four-day working week is completely unheard of in the brewing world, an industry which has developed a reputation for long hours and hard graft. To be honest, that was part of my motivation – to create a different way of working. It hasn’t come without its challenges, though."
Charlotte Brooke, Vault City’s Brewing’s sales coordinator, said: “The work and life balance it affords me allows me to enjoy my time to the fullest and arrange long-weekends away without needing to take time off. I feel less tired, more mentally and emotionally well rested and generally just better. I don’t think I can go back to a five-day week now.”
A trial of a four-day week without pay reduction is set to take place in Scotland, with 30 businesses already signing up to a trial in England and Wales set to begin later this year.
The pilot programme was announced in January and was launched by four Day Week Global in partnership with think tank Autonomy, the four Day Week UK Campaign and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.
Turnover at Vault City Brewing has risen by 175% in the past 12 months, with the brewery’s output increasing to around 250,000 litres of beer each year.
Vault City puts the success down to a spike in direct consumer demand during the pandemic, and new contracts with Tesco.
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