A new year is a time for new beginnings, a time to take stock and a chance to reinvent yourself. And at Chief Nation, we’re seizing that opportunity for reinvention with both hands. As of today, we’re proud to offer a four-day working week option for all our employees with no reduction in salary.
The move comes as we aim to further improve employee wellbeing, make our business more sustainable, and take account of the realities of flexible working.
"We want our team to have time back to pursue their hobbies, spend time with friends and family, and improve their work/life balance."
— Richard Porter, Managing Director
The introduction follows on the back of a whole new Chief Nation HQ, which we redesigned in 2021. Our intention there was to provide a collaborative environment for our employees, a place where they could come together and work alongside each other to deliver stunning results. After months of remote working due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the new office was a hit with the team.
However, the success of our hybrid working transition got the management team thinking about how else the company could evolve to accommodate shifts not only within Chief Nation, but in the wider business landscape. A four-day week was a not-so-obvious next step – yet certainly an exciting one!
Why move to a four-day working week?
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, plenty of companies out there didn’t do much remote working – Chief Nation included. We felt that it was important to be together in the office as much as possible, especially given that we hosted events all over the world and several members of staff could be working on-site at a venue multiple days a week. The office provided a space for us all to come back together.
But in 2020, that all changed. Not only did we move to remote working, we also found it to be a great success for the company. Our brand Chief Wine Officer began to offer virtual roundtables that went down well with our community, and 2020 ended up seeing us host more events than any other year in our history.
With remote working deemed a success for the company, we wanted to find out how the move had impacted our staff. We surveyed everyone when we were planning to open the office again, asking how everyone felt about a return and how they found working from home.
At the time, 64% of our employees said they would like to come back into the office for one day or more per week once reopened. They cited the improved work/life balance remote working offers as a significant reason for this preference; fewer hours in the office or spent commuting to it would mean more time to wind down in the evening or spend quality time with their families.
Not only did we redesign the office as a collaborative space with this answer in mind, we also began planning how to improve that work/life balance even further.
The four-day week is the fruition of those plans.
How does the four-day week at Chief Nation work?
We’re offering our entire team the option of moving to a four-day week starting from today. In December 2021, those who wanted to take up the option submitted their request – and we saw an almost 50% take up for it!
Our four-day week colleagues will be online Monday to Thursday each week, working extended hours per day to ensure the company maintains its productivity. But there is no impact on salary for staff on the four-day week option.
The hope is that this will give more time back to our employees to enjoy their weekends and come back to work on Monday refreshed and rearing to go. For employee wellbeing, it’s a great leap forward.
“Here at Chief Nation, we are continually trying to find new ways to improve the working life for our team and make this a great place to work,” said Richard, one of our Managing Directors.
“We want our team to have time back to pursue their hobbies, spend time with friends and family, and improve their work/life balance. We also believe this will improve productivity and morale, as well as help attract new talent to our agency.”
The four-day week option will be open to all who join the company going forward. If you’re looking for a new opportunity and this sounds of interest, check out our careers page.
This comes on top of our wellness days, introduced in 2021
The efforts to improve employee wellbeing and work/life balance don’t stop at our new four-day working week. In 2021, we transformed the standard “duvet day” benefit into a wellness day.
These wellness days are perfect for when someone just needs to take a little time back for themselves. Twice a year for employees working five days a week (reduced to one wellness day a year for employees on a four-day week), our team can phone up on the day and say they’re taking a wellness day. As long as it doesn’t impact any critical deadlines or meetings, their day is theirs to do with what they want. And taking one doesn’t count as taking a holiday, either.
Just another way that we’re committed to our humans!