Friday on his mind

Eighty4 Recruitment’s Mark Fisher is about to make a nine-day working fortnight permanent for his staff. He has advice for businesses looking to do the same.

It’s well documented that most workers are only truly productive for a few hours each day. The much-publicised move by Perpetual Guardian to a four-day-week, with its 230 staff being paid for five, actually saw productivity rise. 

But if you think a shortened work week is something only the big boys can offer, think again. 

Mark Fisher, owner of Eighty4 Recruitment, introduced a trial Freedom Friday or nine-day fortnight for his 11 staff about six months ago and, when NZBusiness spoke to him in March, was just about ready to make it permanent. Half the staff take one Friday off, with the other half taking the following Friday. 

Eighty4 specialises in recruitment for the engineering, surveying, transport, planning, construction and design sectors and, as a small business owner, Mark says that the smaller a business is, the more nimble it can be.

“You can dream up your desired outcome and you are small enough to make your own rules. It was important for me to operate in a way that helps my team live a better life – and for a long time I’ve wanted to offer them a bonus day off that they can use on personal admin or to do what they love.”    

The irony for him, speaking before the Covid-19 outbreak, is that he needs to encourage the majority of his staff to actually take the day off. They must still meet their weekly targets, but even then, some are reluctant to take the day. 

Mark set up the trial in consultation with his team and they worked through a series of rules around the nine-day fortnight. One of those mandates was very clear:

“Number one, we want everyone to enjoy Freedom Friday, but don’t be fooled that if you are not performing and meeting targets it will lead to a performance chat.” 

Mark let his employees know that this premise was for everyone, and about making good decisions around their efficiency and productivity.

“If they are ahead of their targets, they get to enjoy it. If they’re behind, they know they need to figure out what they’ll do to ensure they meet them.”

He explains that the recruitment industry has very outcome-focused roles so it’s easy to see who is performing and who is not. 

Adding value

Mark says his personal business mantra is to empower people and allow them to have a good life, so they achieve both inside his business and outside it.

He wants his company to be the recruitment company of choice so people in the sector will choose to work with (and for) Eighty4 before everyone else. 

He sees the nine-day fortnight as a “value add” for his staff and has already had approaches from people interested in joining his team as a result of it. It is also an excellent retention tool.

Eighty4’s Freedom Friday rules are loose, with Mark stressing that the day is a gift to his employees. 

In implementing the trial, he says, they did not go heavy on the contractual or legal side of things. Instead, they ironed out all the possible scenarios with a set of FAQs, such as “What if the Friday is before a long weekend?” (Answer? That’s your good luck.)

Other rules include things like no swapping days with someone else; and while employees can choose to do anything they want with the day, they must still be available on mobile if a client or candidate needs to talk to them. 

“For me it is all about expectation and we haven’t gone too far into the nitty, gritty detail. I’m trying to think about the overarching reasoning of implementing this and that’s to have a better life balance.”

The roles at Eighty4 are partly commission-based and he says the irony of the trial is that not many of his employees are using it to the full extent. He’s having to encourage them all to use it more, including himself; he hasn’t taken all his allocated Fridays either. 

While it is being used somewhat sporadically so far, Mark says the best takeaway from this might be that people are making good decisions about what they need to be doing.

“I think it is about creating a trust environment to let people make their own decisions around managing their workload and when – and how – to work to get the job done. It’s leading to good discussions, with employees asking their peers whether they should take the day if they are behind. So it’s self-moderating.”

He says the employees’ targets have not changed and some staff are still getting their heads around how to work more efficiently to have the extra day off and still meet their goals. 

“It’s leading staff to understand they can do the job more efficiently. My ultimate goal is to take it up to every Friday becoming a Freedom Friday.”

For other SMEs thinking along similar lines, he says the wider team talked through all the different scenarios and downfalls before they started the trial; things like making it clear that the Freedom Friday cannot be included in annual leave.

Mark, who is in his mid-30s, says while he’s on the cusp of the millennial generation, he was trained in the old-school way of having a particular starting and finishing time. He is now “trying hard to move into the zone where I’m focusing on outcomes, not on when someone starts and someone finishes for the day.”

One of the hurdles of implementing Freedom Friday is knowing the desired outcomes from each individual – many businesses may not have the stats and data to see who’s performing and who’s not.

He says that having access to data on all systems, including analytics on mobile phones, is the way to make it work.

“My advice is to have transparent data on goals and obligations of the role and that should be available to everyone,” – meaning it becomes a self-managing environment. 

Key metrics

Mark’s business has developed a bespoke data model, updated weekly, which shows the three key metrics employees are monitored on. This makes it easier for staff to see how they are performing and if they are meeting targets.

Mark would advise any other business to know what the three most important key metrics are for each employee and see at a glance if they are meeting these targets.

That said, he does look more deeply into the qualitative data, rather than just the quantitative.

He suggests businesses phase any changes in, perhaps starting with one Friday a month.

“By starting small, you can be sure it works for both the business and individuals.” 

He also notes that if you give staff no option but to do this, you could potentially set someone up for failure. 

With staff not taking up the Freedom Friday as much as they could, Mark says his job now is to help them to achieve their goals by coaching and mentoring his team on how to make the most of their in-office work hours by working more efficiently.

“I can’t wait to get to the stage where every employee is making full use of all of their Freedom Fridays, to add more balance to their life.”