Why I’ve decided to take Bandit to a four-day work week

Who came up with the idea of the 5 day work week? Why is it an unspoken rule that we have opted to abide by without giving too much thought to it? What if we broke the rules, could it be better?

I’ve asked myself these questions many times over the years. Maybe you have too.

Usually, it was a fleeting thought that would be whisked away by the next email that slid into my inbox. However, after an absolutely eye-opening year that was 2020, and over the earlier months of 2021, my once fleeting thoughts became more of an urgent inquiry.

An article I came across earlier this month by Philip Sopher read, “The seven-day week is completely man-made. If it’s man-made, can’t man unmake it?”. Applying this to the way our society is deeply entrenched in the five-day workweek, I couldn’t agree more. I think it’s time we business owners moved it to the top of our list and educate ourselves, question it and take action. Because honestly, I believe the traditional workweek is dead and it’s time for something better. Better for our mental health, better for our creativity, and better for business.

If you’re a business owner yourself, I know what you’re thinking…and of course, it crossed my mind, moving to a four-day workweek would mean that we would be at a disadvantage in a world that favours the five-day workweek, right? But hear me out, after sitting with the idea, I realised the service and creativity we can offer when our team is refuelled and firing with all guns blazing is far greater and our clients will reap the rewards too.

Being in the creative industry, it can be hard yakka forcing creativity between the hours of 8:30 am-5 pm Monday-Friday, and quite frankly unrealistic and unfair to expect our team members to be ‘on’ unfailingly day in and day out. I believe mental health and creativity are intrinsically linked, each feeding the other.

So, what if, like many other businesses over the world, we made a more sustainable shift and took a 60/40 approach to the week to recharge, operate on a deeper level at work, and create space within our lives for those things that light us on fire. Would it feel better? Would our work be better? My gut says yes.

Our Mission statement here at Bandit is to ‘create killer design and have a good time while doing it’. It’s time to throw the ‘rules’ in the bin once again, and do what we’re here to do; to do things differently.

[

]