Is It Ok to Say "I Enjoyed Lockdown?"
Careful, Im not saying the pandemic was good. The thing that was discovered was the new life of simplicity, sense of time, focus on health and shared experience.
It gave people the time to rediscover what was important. Rediscover a sense of self within their local tribe or community.
We were nice to people, we more caring and sharing.
So our shift for our Architectural Practice was to do something we always talked about. We stopped talking and started doing. We just did it.
We moved everyone to 4 days a week with the same salary.
We should have planned it, we should have, blah blah.
Sometimes you just need to leap, just need to do. We figured we would sort the challenges as we come across them. We didn't know what the issues would be so how can you plan for them.
We just did it.
The time scales are we have been running 4 day a week now for coming up to a year.
What went wrong?
Ok, lets talk about what went right first.
Staff are fricking super happy. The 40 hour work week (ok 37.5) with 2 days off is a trap. You need 1 day off to over come the work week and then the second day your starting to get your mojo back and then wham your back to work. A week bleeds into the next, the month into a year. Pass the booze to dull myself.
Having 3 days off allows you to recover yourself. Find the perspective, we are nicer with clients, nicer with each other. Life is happening.
What went wrong?
Did we go crazy with too much work? too much to do. Well no. Call it more focus, less time wasting from all, we were working when we were working, on it. We also used our software that we developed to get more organised. This was a corner stone. You can not do it with out a system. A spreadsheet mentality will not do.
There are a number of systems, the rewards are there for us Architects.
Nothing went wrong. We hired a new staff member, we paid what they asked, how happy were they when we said, oh, we are all working a 4 day week for full salary. Boom!
If you are a boss, you need time to dream, plan, discover. Can you then crack the market niche you want? Hell yes.
We stopped thinking about what what what, we started doing doing doing, started living.
If you want to discuss, seriously call me 02089546291 or email me believe@yoopknows.io
Gordon
further stuff on 4 day weeks
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