Summer is on its way and I am so excited because it means longer days, hot weather, going to the beach, BBQs and hanging out with my family and friends.
When Summer rolls around it really energises me and I want to enjoy it as much as possible. One of my favourite activities is playing golf, it’s a great way to catch-up with friends, play some nice courses and generally be outside. I was thinking at the end of October how can I do more of it without it disrupting the business and home life? When I started Hello Monday it was about me, but now as the company has grown and we have more people joining the journey, I wanted everyone to have the same time benefits as me. It just didn’t feel right to be finishing early to go and play golf or some other activity, while the rest of the team were still hard at work. That philosophy of giving everyone the same opportunity as I have is now becoming a standard in our business. If one of the team needs to finish early, start later, take a half day, or go and see their children’s sports day or assembly they should, and they should not feel guilty about it – for me it’s not a problem, it’s a must. I want to continue this philosophy as we continue to grow.
Just because I’m the owner of the business I shouldn’t be the exception with all the benefits such as time. Internally for me it doesn’t feel right to keep it to myself. So, on Friday 2nd November I announced to the team that we would be finishing early every Friday at 2.30pm starting that day, until 31 March 2018. This is going to be our ‘thing’ every Summer. I didn’t feel like I needed to write a policy or some guidelines around it, as it would rob the appeal and the nature of it, but also being a small team we’re mature enough to make it work.
The idea of the ‘Summer hours’ is for our team to finish early, go home and be with their families, leave early for the weekend, or use the time to do things that they would normally do on the weekend, or struggle to do because of lack of time. That extra 2 and a half hours has meant a lot to our team. The feedback I’ve got has been awesome, they love the concept, it gives them time back and they feel so much happier and look forward to finishing early every Friday. From a productivity perspective I’ve seen the team, come to work earlier, get work done faster without cutting corners and prioritising their time and work.
I don’t see ‘Summer hours’ as a benefit, I see it as value added to our teams lives – they are leaving feeling great and they get to use the time to get things done in their life, that allows them to spend more time with the people they love. Who knows we may make it a permanent thing!