Bianca Eriksen· Compensation Analyst, Halcyon Financial Group
Posted in Benefits & Wellbeing ·
We are an Australian professional services firm, about 340 people, running a four-day week pilot at full pay for 120 of them since March. Hours went from 38 to 32 with no pay change.
The business case covered productivity and client coverage. It did not cover the benefits side, and that is where the surprises have been. Annual leave accrual, for one: we kept accrual in days and effectively gave a 25% uplift in leave relative to working time. Public holidays that fall on the non-working day became a grievance within a fortnight.
Sharing in case others are heading the same way, and curious how people have handled leave and part-timers in particular.
2 helpful · 6 replies · 79 views · 6 following
Director, Total Rewards, Bellwether Consulting
Part-timers were our hardest problem. UK charity, 200 staff, pilot last year. Someone already working four days at 80% pay watched full-timers move to four days at 100%. We ended up giving existing part-timers a pro-rata reduction in hours at the same pay, which cost about 3% of paybill and was not in anyone's forecast.
Elif IversenGRS, CRP
Total Rewards Manager, Meridian Health Systems
We moved all leave accrual to hours before the pilot started and I would strongly suggest it. 152 hours a year rather than 20 days. It removes the public holiday argument as well, because everyone gets the same hours credit regardless of which day they do not work.
Reward Partner, Nordvik Energy
People Analytics Lead, Lumen Biosciences
Has anyone looked at what it did to sickness absence and income protection claims? Our insurer asked at renewal whether the definition of normal working hours had changed, because benefit calculations and the deferred period reference it. Nothing has changed in the premium yet but the question surprised us.
Reward Partner, Meridian Health Systems
On absence: ours fell from 6.1 days per person to 4.4 across the pilot group, against no change in the control group. Some of that is people booking appointments on the fifth day rather than taking sick leave, which I would count as a real saving.
Administrator, Northfield Society
Helpful, all of it. The part-timer point is the one we have not solved and I suspect we will end up where the charity did. We have not had the insurer question yet, so I will raise it before renewal rather than wait. Will report back at twelve months.
