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The Problem

Developing an innovative work environment requires you to toss the current business structure in the bin. The typical work Monday through Friday slaving away more than 40 hours a week is causing people to burn out, losing motivation to be apart of the work environment and causing the best talent in each company to search for new endeavors elsewhere.

As I developed a new business operational structure during the start-up business phase of a few companies I’ve been consulting with caused me to think. How do we get people to perform at the highest, while utilizing their creative intentions to innovate with passion? 

Companies of all sizes don’t take into consideration the amount of time their employees are putting into work. So how do we as business managers develop an environment to motivate our employees? I started thinking if we as a society can rethink the way we structure our business to ensure that we are both getting 100% performance from our employees in all aspects their time. 

The Solution:

We all have skills that vary from person to person; we are passionate in very different things; we pursue different goals but in the end we all want the best in everything we do. So thinking about all of those things I mentioned, I decided to that businesses should implement a “four day” work week with the fifth day being dedicated to self development. 

I wanted my partners and employees to go out and dedicate a day to revitalize themselves, learn something new, ideate amazing concepts not pertaining to client work and help the company innovate itself. When they returned from their day off, they had to present something to the group. This in turn helps the individual, the group and the company as a whole. 

The Benefits:

Training your employees to develop public speaking skills, help them develop and grow through research while gaining new knowledge is part of the benefit of this “four day” work week.

As a group, you will learn something new and grow together. The problem these days is people tend to keep their ideas to themselves limiting their possibility to potentially invent something new and great. Maybe you have an idea that still needs to be fleshed out and if you let it out into the world (or your office). You have the potential of reaching the power of the groups collective mind, that might in turn then spark complete thoughts to complete your idea. 

For the company as a whole, you retain your top performing employees getting your investment into that person back ten folds. You get access to the ideas your employees are keeping in their heads with now the ability to implement innovation in the work place. 

The Formula:

Since 40 hours a week cannot truly be measured by an individuals performance, we are instead going to get rid of that notion. The 9-5 job does not exist in this world anymore. So here is the formula to innovate your business structure. 

We start with a typical work week from Monday - Thursday = (4) 10/hr Days + Friday “development day”. On Friday, employees have the ability to continue their work in house or can pursue personal development from outside the office.

They can run errands, clean their car, fix leaking pipes, goto the library, come into the office and so on. There is no limit or boundaries today, the only request is that they spend at least one to two hours today focusing expanding their knowledge or continuing research/project. 

Come Monday, everyone is back in the office together working, presenting Friday’s personal development either in new research found or presenting an innovative idea/project. Set aside a 2 hour block for each individual to present their findings. The mornings are usually the best time to have this happen. 

The reasoning behind this is that we work more than 40 hours a week, the problem is that you can’t measure performance in this time. Performance cannot be measured due to the fact that we actually invest more than 40 hours a week in our job, that’s why employers provide cell phones to their employees and offer them access to their corporate email accounts outside the office. 

I remember during my time at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, I always had my work cellphone near me at all times and refreshed my inbox every hour while I was outside the office to see if there were any requests or updates. The 4 day work week has been tested in government offices usually called “4/10” but no one to my knowledge has tried the 5th day set aside for personal development. In my opinion, I believe this formula works and will help companies retain talent, return employee investment and innovate new products/services/solutions.

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