Do you ever feel you spend your life chasing your tail?
As a mum of a young son that’s exactly how I felt all of the time when I was working five days a week.
It didn’t seem to matter how hard I worked, I never seemed to have any free time.
I was trying to be a good mum, run the house and have a career. It was impossible.
I felt rushed all the time and stressed. I couldn’t get anything right.
I know there’s been a lot of talk of four-day weeks but I never thought I could benefit from it until I joined Fairmont Recruitment six months ago.
I’ve known the CEO Jack Donohue for a while and he changed the company’s working model to Monday-Thursday in the middle of the pandemic to protect his staff’s mental health and wellbeing.
His motto is ‘work smarter, not harder’ and that really appealed to me. Staff work 8.30am-5.30pm, Monday-Thursday, with no deduction in salary.
I’m more productive and Thursday feels like the start of the weekend. The week seems to go a lot quicker than when you’re working Monday-Friday.
Rather than suffer, I think the culture of the business benefits from going to a four-day week.
When I tell my friends they’re very jealous that I’m able to work four days with no reduction in salary.
When I wake up on a Monday I genuinely look forward to coming to work.
I feel like my time with by son Beau is better and I can spend more time with him. It’s quality time.
When I was working five days a week I was constantly tired and didn’t feel I had any quality time with him because I was rushing around.
Although I’m off on Friday, I choose to keep my phone on and check my emails but that’s my personal choice. I prefer to do that in case something important comes through rather than leave it to the Monday so it’s dealt with there and then.
Fairmont Recruitment has just moved into new offices on Mosley Street, Manchester and it’s just a great place to work. I could see more companies switching to four-day weeks.