Barrie, ON — With hopes of improving mental health, productivity and staff morale, Community Builders, a not-for-profit construction-based social enterprise that creates affordable housing, announced it will be testing a four-day workweek.
“We have always believed in a work-life well-being ethos, and while this talk generally seems to be reserved for office jobs, we hope to prove this can work in the construction industry as well,” said Community Builders via a press release.
For the next six months, Community Builders employees in Simcoe County and Greater Sudbury will work Monday through Thursday for 10 hours a day, while getting a three-day weekend.
Results will be shared after three months, and some of the metrics that Community Builders will track include employee health and happiness, customer satisfaction, productivity and profitability.
“It was really important to me that our whole team be part of the decision-making process for what this four-day workweek could look like and how we would collectively ensure its success for not only ourselves but our clients and stakeholders,” said Brandon Day, CEO and co-founder of Community Builders.
Day added that the construction industry needed a renovation and that people are no longer willing to work 60 hours a week and get yelled at and feel unappreciated. He hopes this new model can become more present in North America.
“There have been variations of four-day workweeks like this done successfully in many other countries and industries for decades, but we don’t see it being done too much in North America or in construction. However, the future of work is changing, and we want to be on the cutting edge of that in Ontario,” said Day.