Times changing

This is Flow will next month move to a nine-day fortnight. The media agency’s 40 staff will receive “100 per cent of the pay, and deliver 100 per cent of the output, but work 90 per cent of the hours,” said CEO and founder Jimmy Hyett. “We’re not making them work overtime to make it up.”

Hyett and strategy chief Catherine Rushton said the initiative was the key ask emerging from last month’s all-staff conference. The two mulled how to do it, what additional training, process and resource are required, and then told staff yesterday (4 April) that is the new deal.

“They were blown away,” said Hyett. “We’re effectively giving staff a 10 per cent pay rise – but more than that the feedback was pretty much ‘you guys listened and implemented really fast’.”

T-shaped push

Rushton and Hyett said they made the decision almost immediately, but spent the following weeks bouncing the plan off clients while planning process and skills adaptions.

“Most of our key clients are already operating some sort of flexible Friday and some are also doing nine-day fortnights,” said Hyett. “They were all really supportive. We’re confident in our staff and they are confident in their ability to deliver.”

The agency will now “implement a ‘T-shaped' structure, so every staff member has broad experience, and can speak a little about a lot – the top of the T – and then has deep speciality, the stem of the T,” per Hyett. “About 80 per cent of our staff already have that ability, now we will ensure the rest do too. That allows us to have half the agency off on a Friday and still answer client calls, without people having to make up the extra hours.”

He said the initiative is the first of a number lined up for the next financial year: “We’re looking at how to maintain energy, passion and culture as we grow – to hold on to what made us in the beginning.”

Profit share

The nine-day fortnight also provides a solution to relative dilution of its all-staff profit share, launched in 2021.

The deal is that all staff who score 70 per cent or higher in their annual performance review (described at the time as “very achievable”) are eligible for a share of 5-50 per cent of profit dependent on how far the agency goes above its overall net profit target. If Flow hits 80 per cent of its target, staff share five per cent; if it gets to 150 per cent of target, staff share 50 per cent of profit – uncapped.

Hyett said the agency will this year share “six figures” among staff, as it did last year. But the challenge is that Flow now has 40 staff, almost double its headcount when launching the profit share.

“As we grow, dividing that profit [becomes less meaningful to individuals on a dollar basis],” he said. “So a nine-day fortnight is the evolution. It’s scalable, it still works for 200 staff.”

No squeeze

The challenge facing firms mulling four-day weeks or nine-day fortnights is how to keep up when many in media and marketing are struggling to get through increasing workloads in five long days a week.

Hyett said that is not the case at Flow. “Work-life balance is such an overused term, but it’s always been our core focus. We have always resourced properly – almost over resourced – to ensure service level is really strong. On Fridays, people aren’t necessarily busting their arses,” per Hyett. “Our hours are 9-5 and at 5.15, the office is empty. Whereas in some places people are working until 8, 9pm most nights.”

Future model

Catherine Rushton said staff recognise the need for flexibility – and that the productivity gains from working fewer hours are proven in numerous studies. Rushton, who worked on the Unilever account for years at Mindshare, pointed to the FMCG giant’s recent move to a four-day week as the shape of things to come.

“There will always be times when things ebb and flow. But this is not about crunching staff and squeezing more hours out of the team in fewer days. That’s why we talk about productivity rather than efficiency. The team understands that there might be times when a pitch falls on their off day – and we will give them another day off in that month,” said Rushton.

“But I think [Unilever and others] show the way the world is going. The benefits are well proven: Better mental health, staff wellbeing, less absenteeism – just giving people time to do their personal admin. Now they have 23 days extra to do that and use as they like. Trials around the world show that the benefits are exponential,” she added.

“It’s also about preparing our operating model for what is to come in the next 12-18 months with AI starting to change the way we work. Hours-based extraction of workforces will become redundant. It will become value-based output.”

Hyett agrees: “That applies equally to people and to remuneration from a client point of view; we’re moving from a percentage of people’s time to what does value look like for you. That is part of the evolution of where the world is heading – pretty quickly.”