Despite the deadlines and hectic holidays, the team at large is able to come together and help each other out when needed.
“I’m starting to feel the stress, but I went to my team and we problem-solved together,” an employee said. “I think it’s a great opportunity for all of us to work together to streamline our processes and hand-offs.”
Lesson #2: Holidays are weird
No, we’re not talking about your weird aunts and uncles who have strong opinions about politics at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
The way holidays work for the 4DWW Challenge is that they replace the day that an employee would typically have for their day off. For example, since July 4th fell on a Tuesday this year, everyone took that day off instead of either Monday or Friday.
When this happens, it requires a lot more shuffling of people’s schedules — which could prove to be incredibly disruptive to workflow, not to mention sucking the wind out of what would normally be a day people looked forward to.
“This week was weird with the holiday being on a Tuesday,” one employee wrote. “It was very disjointed and felt like I had two Mondays. Not a fan of the mid-week holiday, it seemed to add more stress than anything and I honestly didn’t feel like I had a holiday at all.”
“I think the holiday with its [out of offices] made things trickier than usual,” another wrote. “When a task involves multiple handoffs, it becomes really tricky. This was an issue around holidays before 4DWW, but it just added one more day to juggle around.”
Lesson #3: 4DWW is a powerful motivator
4DWW remains an incredibly potent motivator even 7 weeks in. Not only is it helping employees stay on track with their tasks and projects each day, but it’s also infusing a sense of pride into some people’s work that they haven’t necessarily felt before.
“The 4-day workweek makes me feel valuable. Not just another ass in a seat doing work, but someone who is made to feel like their rest and stress level is important to the company,” one employee said. “That’s a company I want to work for, and it makes me do even MORE of my best when I’m working.”
“It’s a motivator to get stuff done, so you’re not thinking about it on the weekend,” another employee added.
This is a common refrain. Even when there is a lot of work, the company wants to work together to make sure it’s done so everyone can enjoy their day off.