In mid 2020 (amongst all the craziness of the COVID-19 pandemic), we decided to embrace a “No Work Wednesday” policy and shift the majority of our team to a four-day working week. Our full time people still work a 37.5 hour week, only those hours are now packed into four longer days instead of the standard five days.

“NO WORK WEDNESDAYS” FAQS

Why don’t you work Wednesdays?

Like many businesses, we found that our productivity has always tended to be lower later in the week.

We realised it was common for our people to feel fatigued by the end of a 5 day week coding websites, creating content and developing digital marketing strategies for our clients.

We also found that the standard 7.5 hour day was actually limiting the amount of “deep work” our team members could get done within a single working day.

During our months of careful consideration and research, we discovered a number of digital agencies across Australia and New Zealand had successfully transitioned to a “No Work Wednesday” model. These agencies all reported having happier, healthier teams and higher levels of productivity for their customers. Sounded good to us!

What if I need something on a Wednesday?

Since 1999, Redback has worked hard to build a strong reputation based on our reliable service and high quality work. Although we’re no longer scheduling meetings or production work on Wednesdays, we have designed our new 4 Day Work Week to ensure there is no disruption for our valued clients.

Our clients can still rely on us for support when they need us, including:

• Our office phone (02) 4962 2236 and email inboxes are still manned as normal from 8am-5pm, Monday to Friday.
• Emergency support is still available 7 days a week via our support@rb.com.au inbox for any urgent technical bugs or hosting issues.
• Account Managers and senior team members are still checking emails and are available during business hours on Wednesdays should anything urgent arise.

Does this impact my project turnaround times?

Not at all. Our people still work the same 37.5 hour week, only those hours are now packed into 4 longer days instead of the standard 5 days. If anything – our productivity, our processes and our project scheduling will continue to improve. We’re very serious about this part. So serious, we even hired an external project management consultant to help make sure our productivity levels are maintained and improved with the new model.

For now, our “No Work Wednesdays” model is in trial-mode. Our intention is to make this change a permanent one, provided we can maintain productivity levels for our clients. Our team are still expected to handle the same workload in 4 longer days as we had been producing in 5 shorter days.

As long as we’re maintaining our high level of output for clients, Redback will be a 4 Day Work Week company.