How Qwick pivoted to a four-day workweek

In late 2021, a period of heavy growth at the hospitality staffing firm Qwick left employees burned out. Workers needed a reprieve from the grind, but Qwick was intent on scaling up, Retta Kekic, the company’s chief marketing officer, explained to HR Brew. “Everyone was working really hard. And we were trying to come up with ways that we could make [work] more sustainable to continue achieving high growth,” she said.

The dual task of tackling burnout while maintaining intense productivity required unconventional thinking, so Qwick embarked on a journey to implement a four-day workweek. In order to actualize the plan, Rachael Kratz, chief of staff at Qwick, said she thought of the four-day workweek as an extension of the company’s benefits plan, similar to what unlimited PTO used to be.

Years ago, many “thought that unlimited PTO was wild…and just sort of unfathomable,” she argued.

Now, Kratz’s mentality has transformed alongside Qwick’s working schedule: In April, the company reached the milestone of piloting the four-day workweek for one year, a trial that provided a multitude of lessons in strategic planning, in addition to an effective bulwark against burnout, Kratz claimed. Though the official trial won’t be over until July, both leaders said the new schedule has paid dividends and there are no plans to reverse course.

As the company’s senior HR leader, Kratz reinforced that granular communication between HR, department leads, and top brass was paramount throughout the process. Making the initial case for the change came down to presenting evidence to leadership that a four-day workweek could present a boon not only for work-life balance, which aligns with the company’s values, while not hindering productivity, Kratz said.

Four-day workweek as a benefit. While brainstorming, Kratz started wagering whether or not a four-day workweek needed a rebrand. “The four-day workweek looked like that next iteration of benefits,” she said. In the initial stages, Kratz found a dearth of actionable advice online. “I did a lot of research on what other companies [had] done for implementation, and it didn’t really exist. There’s no playbook on the internet—there might be today—there was not a year ago,” she said.

In presenting the case for a four-day workweek to management, Kratz attempted to explain how the paradigm could reflect the company’s values. She homed in on the issue of female employees, who at one point led the exodus of workers during the Great Resignation. The four-day workweek could help working mothers, for example. “It’ll be a day that people don’t need to pay for childcare,” she said.

Kekic was among the executives who reviewed Kratz’s plan, and said her team was initially skeptical about how the plan could work. “As we went through her presentation, our hesitation turned to curiosity and intrigue,” Kekic explained.

Communication lines. The next step involved getting buy-in from team leads, so Kekic turned to senior leaders to ask targeted questions: “How would this impact your team? What concerns do you have?”

Once department heads agreed to take the plunge, the HR and executive teams began a period of careful assessment. “We started really going down that path of ‘Here’s the changes we have to make company-wide. And then here are the things that need to happen at the department level,’” Kekic said.

One of the bigger hurdles involved customer service reps, who work with businesses looking to hire freelance talent seven days a week. Ultimately, Kratz said, the solution involved having two teams work revolving schedules, “so they would still get a weekend and everyone is still working a four day workweek.”

Reflecting. Looking back, pivoting to a four-day workweek has provided Qwick with a formidable recruiting advantage, Kratz said. “During that period of the Great Resignation, we were not seeing turnover over that time,” she claimed.

Research suggests that the four-day workweek may provide workers with ample time to recharge while still maintaining ambitious productivity goals, but some remain skeptical and worry that workers might just end up having to cram five days of work into four days.

So far, this issue  has been more of an assetthan a dilemma for Qwick. Having fewer days has provided a “bit more of a fire under…, get done what you need to get done,” Kekic said.