Mixing-up How Researchers Work: Why the Mix Adopted The 4-Day Working Week

The 5-day working week has been society’s most widely accepted working model since Henry Ford introduced it in 1926. But since as early as 1965, when Richard Nixon suggested a 4-day working week, there has been talk of businesses shifting away from it.

However, despite successful recent trials of a 4-day Working Week (4DWW) in the UK (with no reduction in salary) working 5-days is still very much the norm. For most. But not for The Mix, who I recently spoke to about their adoption of the 4DWW.

Meet The Mix

The Mix started life in London in 2012 predominantly focusing on qualitative work. They now have teams in London and New York, offering quant and qual services to the FMCG, sports, technology and play categories.

In 2018, The Mix adopted a 4DWW. Six years before the UK publicly trialled it. Founder Tash Walker contributes this early adoption to two main factors.

Firstly, the mindset behind starting a business. When you start a business, you get to make your own choices. Take risks. Decide how you want to run things. Identify where you do and don’t want to conform to norms.

Secondly, Walker’s business partner had to change their working behaviour and patterns for personal reasons and ended up working a 3-day week. This got The Mix thinking about different working models that they could potentially use. 

Like all good researchers, The Mix investigated all the available options. These included a Friday afternoon off. Or a Wednesday afternoon off akin to the time reserved for sports by universities and the military.

Why the 4DWW vs. other options?

The Mix felt that some of the working models they looked at lacked clarity and risked instability. But most importantly, lacked impact. They were hoping to reset the way that they worked. 

At this time the 4DWW was being used in Scandinavia, in both the public and private sectors. The Mix felt that this way of working would have the impact that they sought. But it would also make them re-consider the way that they worked. This was different to some of the other options they considered, that would’ve meant only making incremental changes to their working habits. All while making a material difference to the amount of time The Mix gave back to their employees.

Implementing the 4DWW

Channelling their researcher-minds again, The Mix ran an initial experiment with the 4DWW over a 3-month period. The experiment carried risks from both a client and employee perspective.

There was the obvious fear that clients would find The Mix inaccessible. Or even worse, clients may feel that service levels had fallen and take their business elsewhere.

The Mix didn’t tell their clients that the experiment was happening. And at the end of the experiment, they were surprised to hear that nobody had noticed the experiment had taken place. Let alone think that the agency had suddenly become inaccessible. This reinforced to Walker that “businesses – including ourselves – often overstate our own importance in the lives of our clients”.

From an employee perspective, The Mix felt that the 4DWW would be something that’d be hard to take away from people once it’ been offered. Something which made the process in hindsight feel like a “mad experiment.”

From mad experiment to making it happen

Once the experiment had been completed, The Mix were ready to make the 4DWW a permanent fixture. The whole team began working Monday to Thursday with Fridays off (and no reduction in salary). And when the agency expanded to the US, they adopted a 4DWW from the outset. 

Tomorrow – read about what it’s like to live the 4DWW. You can find out more about how The Mix adopted and now use a 4DWW via their ‘Four: What is it good for?’ report here.