This Nonprofit’s Four-Day Workweek Helped Retain Its Staffers

When Healthwise employees began “quitting in droves,” CEO Adam Husney made a decision to revamp the nonprofit’s culture: implementing a four-day workweek. 

According to Juliet Schor, an economist who consulted with Healthwise to adopt this new arrangement, said that the nonprofit readily embraced the four-day work week after a successful six-month trial. 

Starting in August of 2021, employees at Healthwise moved to a four-day work week without any loss in pay, which led to happier workers, increased revenue, and improved customer satisfaction according to Schor. 

“Healthwise employees are spending their Fridays off doing family activities like sports or errands,” said Schor at the TED2022 conference in Vancouver, Canada. “One mother of young children reported that now she can occasionally manage a guilt-free pedicure.” 

Healthwise is just one of many organizations and countries who are shifting to shorter workweeks in order to attract and retain workers, which has become increasingly difficult amidst the Great Resignation. 

By adopting a four-day workweek, Schor says companies can help decrease employees’ mental stress, which inevitably leads to better productivity levels.  

Instead of finding ways to juggle work and personal responsibilities, the extra time off gives workers the ability to use this day for non-work-related tasks, allowing them to work harder when they are in the office. 

“There’s a lot of talk these days about the future of work and the opportunities that it offers, but there’s more at stake here than opportunity,” said Schor. “We have an imperative to face the challenges of our current moment, the pandemic burnout and depression, inequalities of race and income.”