More and more companies are starting to adopt a 4-day work week in Canada, the latest one being a Toronto-based software company with hundreds of employees. Alida Inc. is introducing the shortened week in the form of a pilot project starting in July, giving employees three-day weekends all summer, reports The Globe and Mail.
Alida is now one of Canada’s biggest companies to try out a shortened work week, the outlet says. The company has 500 staff members across five countries, and everyone will continue to get the same salary and benefits while reducing the number of hours they work in a week.
The company’s CEO Ross Wainwright told the Globe that the pilot is aimed at helping employees deal with burnout and stress as a result of the pandemic. Staff are expected to stay equally as productive at work but will now have the flexibility to “work smarter” and enjoy some extra time off.
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“We want this to become a permanent part of Alida. But of course, if productivity levels drop we will have to reconsider. I don’t think that will be the case,” he said.
A few months back, a Toronto-based company called The Leadership Agency made its 4-day work week pilot permanent after the decision led to them doubling their success.
“We started the 4-day work week in 2020 not having any idea what to expect from it or how it would play out. Here’s what we did; we didn’t overthink it. As a result, our profitability and success has doubled 200%,” the company announced on Instagram in July.
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Several other Canadian companies followed suit, including a Quebec-based video game developer and Toronto’s Juno College of Technology.
Other employers have taken it a step further by adopting a results-only work environment (a.k.a. ROWE), giving employees full control over how long and when they work. As long as employees are hitting their goals, they can work as much or as little as they want and still get paid their regular salary.
If this is the beginning of the end of the 9 to 5 grind, we’re definitely here for it.
