Since October 26, 2020, Webmecanik has been experimenting in France the organization of weekly working hours over 4.5 days, making it possible to end one’s working week on Friday at lunchtime. A way to offer our employees a longer weekend and a better work-life balance.
Origin of the project and context
Webmecanik’s DNA
Webmecanik has always strived to encourage its employees. We believe that the first drivers of growth come through the loyalty of our employees and their happiness, which inevitably has repercussions on our attitude during our customer relations.
This philosophy has enabled us to achieve a constant customer satisfaction rate of 98% in our 2018 and 2019 surveys, compared with an industry average of 93% according to Zendesk.
Real actions
We are flexible on employees’ schedules in order to be able to organize their personal obligations (appointments with a doctor or an administrative office), regular satisfaction surveys to (re)organize certain methods of our organization, never hiring at the minimum wage, a Happiness Hero in the heart of our offices to take care of our employees, flexibility on teleworking, especially for those who have a little commute to the office, etc.
The cultural context
The subject of the organization of working time is not a new one. Numerous studies show that reducing the number of working days allows to maintain the same or even better productivity level while offering a more comfortable weekly rest for employees. The New Zealand company Perpetual Guardian conducted a study on 4-day work, showing that happiness at work has increased, as well as team spirit, personal/life balance and loyalty to the company, and stress reduction.
According to another study conducted by ADP, 50% of the French workers surveyed would prefer to extend their days so that they work only four days a week. This certainly requires working on a reorganization of schedules, but for employees, it is worth the effort.
What impact on customer service?
For a SaaS software company, this was a crucial issue. Indeed, our promise is twofold; the software available to our users must be available 24 hours a day (99.9% guaranteed SLA) and our customer support, which very often helps you fine-tune your campaigns must be available during working hours.
Thus, we have set up a system of rotation and on-call on the schedules to ensure that there is always someone to accompany you in Support, even on Friday afternoons. Our goal is simple, to ensure a customer satisfaction rate of at least 98% for the 3rd consecutive year!
