Work in progress
IN APRIL, AS OFFICE WORKERS ACROSS THE WORLD stared down months of being stuck at home while juggling childcare, their jobs and general anxiety about a global pandemic, Lisa Kribs and Gavin Thomas, the co-founders of a marketing firm in Rochester, N.Y., decided to try an experiment to make life more pleasant for their stressed-out employees.
They implemented a four-day workweek at their eight-person company, TGW Studio, and cut the number of meetings by about 50%. By paying everyone their same salaries while expecting them to work less, they hoped employees would be more productive during the hours they were actually on duty.
They were right. Two months later, productivity had increased, and employees were generating the most creative work they’d done in a long time. A shorter workweek was something TGW’s leaders had been dreaming about for a year, but they worried how clients would react, says Kribs, 37. “And then COVID happens and we’re like, You know what, let’s do this,” she says. “It was it’ kind of a thing.”
