4-day week experiment set to go in South Africa with 29 companies signed up for March pilot kick off

Twenty-eight South African businesses and one Botswanan business – the first participant from elsewhere on the continent – have signed up for the 4 Day Week SA Pioneer Pilot.  It’s the country’s first ever trial of the four-day week - due to start on 1 March 2023. This means 500 business owners and employees will test out a reduced hour working week, in a bid to improve workplace productivity, wellbeing and talent attraction and retention. They will follow the 100-80-100™ model which prescribes 100% of the pay, 80% of the time, in exchange for a commitment to delivering 100% of the output.

Some of the latest companies to sign up are: Precision Vehicle and Asset Tracking  - an ICT security company from Botswana; jt&a – QCTO Accreditation Advisory Services; Dream Team Catalyst – an events and consulting company; Tax Maverick and The Tax Ladies - providing tax and finance services; Communicare – specialists in social housing and property development; Elnatan IT Solutions – an IT sales and support company; Marais Software Solutions – an IT software development company; marketing agency -2Stories;  employment services company - APSO; and Stellenbosch University’s fitness gymnasium - Maties Gymnasium.

With registrations for the Pioneer Pilot now closed, Karen Lowe, Director of 4 Day Week SA, says there will be a four-week intensive onboarding to get participants ready for the start on 1 March.  The trial will run for six months, guided by experts at 4 Day Week Global, the entity conducting trials around the world.  It will be underpinned by research before, mid-way and at the endpoint of the trial – conducted by Boston College and Stellenbosch Business School.

“To have 29 companies joining South Africa’s first ever pilot of the four-day week is testament to the forward thinking of business in this country. Pilot participants are embracing the idea that it’s time to change the nearly 100-year-old convention of a 5-day week. Reduced work hours are a central tenet to the future of work, and they are willing to give it a try. There is potentially so much to be gained, and nothing to lose from the experiment, “says Lowe.

Research findings from trials across the globe continue to make a clear case for the four-day week. Results from trials run in Ireland, the United States (US) and Australia, released in November 2022, showed company performance, productivity, and revenue improvements. Importantly, employees placed a high value on the four-day week. Seventy percent of participants said they would require between 10 to 50% more pay to go back to a five-day schedule. Thirteen percent said they’d require more than 50%. And 13% said that no amount of money could convince them to give up the four-day week.

Findings from the United Kingdom (UK) trial, the world’s largest to date, will be released towards the end of February 2023.  

Recruitment is already underway for South Africa’s second four-day week pilot, due to kick off in May 2023.  Organisations wanting to be part of the next trial can sign up by logging on to www.4dayweek.co.za

The latest companies to sign up for the 4 Day Week SA Pioneer Pilot have the following to say:

Precision Vehicle and Asset Tracking

"We joined the pilot because we believe very much in giving our employees opportunities to be more productive as well as taking care of their mental health. From the research that we did it's clear that there are productivity and well-being benefits that come up with having a  4 day work week." Kealeboga Kaelo, CEO.

Jt&a

“As a team we decided to embark on rolling out our Freedom Fridays aka Fridays off to spend more time with our families and work on our mental and emotional well-being, after all we only get one life.  As we prepare for our 1st March 2023 4 Day Work Week roll out we are eagerly engaging with all the resources this pilot programme has to offer to assist us with achieving our company objectives in a more automated stream lined manner.” Jeanine Topping, Director.

Dream Team Catalyst

 “At Dream Team we have always been interested in productivity and efficiency. We have become masters at doing more with less at a constantly increasing space. We realised though that we were burning the candle at both ends and that we needed to focus more on wellness and bring balance back to the lives of our most valuable asset – our people. Reducing our work hours seemed a pipedream until we discovered 4 day week SA. We love the fact that we are embarking on a process that could be a game changer for our company and that we will be supported with a proven process, a supportive community and exceptional expertise and resources every step of the way.”  Gerry Skerritt, Marketing Director.

Tax Ladies

“We, at The Tax Ladies, are mothers who work from home.  We run our families while earning a living.  We have chosen to put family first, and have adapted our working hours accordingly.  A 4-Day Week approach allows us to have mornings and afternoons for family, and fits our work-day right in with the school day.  We do not live to work full days;  we work to live full lives.” Jennifer Lopes, Master Tax Practitioner.

Tax Maverick

"You don't build a great company by accident. Having a 4 Day Week at Tax Maverick is an innovative step towards building and maintaining a great work culture." André Bothma, Founder & CEO.

Communicare

“At Communicare we strive to give our staff the tools and time they need to focus on their emotional and physical wellness at work and at home, to ensure work life balance and operational productivity.  To enhance our employee value proposition, we believe that implementing the 4-day work week could have a further positive impact on mental wellness as it will provide our people with some valuable extra time to spend with their loved ones, and ultimately contribute to a more positive experience for our customer.”  Makhosi Kubheka, COO.

Elnatan

“Elnatan is very excited to be part of a new way of thinking regarding a better work/life balance for our employees and at the same time improved productivity in the workplace.” Annerike Meiring, Human Resource Officer.

Marais Software Solutions

“Programming firms have a great tendency to be very hourly driven and have extreme hours for staff. Designer Solutions has pledged not only to ensure great turnaround times for our clients, but to ensure that our staff are healthy and enjoy a solid work/home balance. We have thus joined the 4-Day Week Programme, to ensure that we stick by this pledge, and create wellness for our team. We believe that rested employees can be more productive.”  Llewellyn Marais, Managing Director.

2Stories

“2023 is the year of people for 2Stories. We are putting the wellbeing of our team at the centre of everything we do – and the best way to do that is by giving them some precious time. Best of all, everyone will win: a happy team creates great work, and great work leads to happy clients.” Anelde Greeff, Chief Content Officer.

“The 4-day work week pilot is not just about achieving a better work-life balance for our employees, it’s about fostering a culture of innovation and productivity. By giving our team the opportunity to have more time for themselves, their families, and their hobbies, we’re investing in their overall well-being and creativity. We anticipate that this will, in turn, lead to new ideas, fresh perspectives and ultimately, greater success for our clients and our agency.” Joanne Hope,  Chief Operating Officer.

“Embarking on this trial has already sparked game-changing conversations that we might not have had otherwise – and it hasn’t even started yet! I’m so excited to find ways to bring the best out of everyone on our team through honesty, creativity, flexibility and collaboration, without sacrificing anything that makes our agency so successful.” Linda Scarborough, Editor.

APS0

“As a Professional Body operating in the employment services industry, we are at the forefront of the Future of Work in which digitalization and 4IR are everyday realities.

As such, we are well positioned to look at innovation, process improvement and the well-being of our team so that we can increase productivity and lead and deliver value to our membership base. We are excited to embark on the pilot of the 4 Day Week and look forward to this journey!” Jacqui Ford, CEO.

Maties Gymnasium

“The business operates in the fitness/ leisure industry, where long hours and 7-day work- weeks are the norm. Employees really struggle to find and achieve a sustainable work-life balance in this industry.

During the Covid pandemic, we have seen that when staff are rotated (according to the various levels of Government Restrictions), we can work smarter with our staff rosters. Furthermore, the industry is very Key Performance Indicator (KPI)- driven, and we feel that we should focus more on deliverables, rather than the number of hours worked. For us to achieve the University’s vision of being an employer of choice, we need to take care of the mental wellness of our employees in an industry that mostly centres around physical wellness.

We hope that the gym’s contribution can show that businesses in the fitness industry (specifically) can work smarter and still achieve the desired set of deliverables”. Dr Francois Kotze, General Manager.

About 4 Day Week Global:

4 Day Week Global was founded in New Zealand by 4 Day Week architect Andrew Barnes alongside entrepreneur and philanthropist Charlotte Lockhart in 2019, following the world-renowned success of their pioneering trial of the four-day working week in Perpetual Guardian in 2018. 

Since then, 4 Day Week Global has supported hundreds of companies from a variety of industries all over the world to run four-day week trials, or make the permanent transition to reduced-hour, productivity -focused working. 

Their approach is based on the 100-80-100™ principle designed by Lockhart alongside the Perpetual Guardian trial in 2018 - 100% of the pay, for 80% of the time, in exchange for a commitment to delivering 100% of the output. 

This model is proven to deliver both improved company productivity, efficiency and performance, alongside greater employee wellbeing, engagement, and work-life balance. Research from leading international academics suggest the four-day working week can be a truly triple-dividend policy: better for the economy, better for society, and better for the environment. 

Initially established as a networking community for like-minded people and organisations interested in exploring the shorter working week and as a vehicle for global advocacy, 4 Day Week Global has grown to become the global market leader in supporting businesses and governments who wish to experiment with or implement work-time reduction. 

The development of 4 Day Week Global's pilot programme in 2021 enabled the organisation to respond to the exponential growth in demand for and interest in the four-day working week, and to shift to a model which can uniquely support employers and employees to run trials at scale. 

The organisation has now joined forces with some of the world's most prominent and preeminent experts in this field, including speaker and consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang as global programs and development manager.

Its ambition is to make a four-day working week the new default and reduced working time the new standard. Its intention is to lead and grow the global movement for a shorter working week to make this a reality all over the world.