2degrees to experiment with a three-day-a-week work-from-home model

Saturday, 27 June 2020

2degrees is considering a three-day work-from-home week and will trial it over a month, says chief people officer Jodie Shelley.

Telco 2degrees is experimenting with letting staff work from home three days a week.

The trial will last a month before the company decides whether it will continue with the model.

Chief people officer Jodie Shelley said, when the country began to come out of the higher alert levels, it communicated to workers that it wanted them back in the office at least two days a week.

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'We’re just trying to test and learn and see what works for people,' says chief people officer Jodie Shelley.

“There is benefit from a mental and emotional health point of view for that connection to still happen. And that sense of normality that was there before to be re-instigated to a certain extent,” she said.

Workshops were held with different teams to establish what was non-negotiable in terms of time needed in the office, and also how much flexibility they wanted to work from home.

“There might be teams that will work from home three days a week, teams that work from home four, and there might be some that it’s really not going to work for at all. The nature of their work says they have to be here five days a week.”

Perpetual Guardian has been a champion of the four day week (video first published in 2020).

She said it was hoped that after the exercise there would be some company-wide protocols that could stay in place.

“We’re just trying to test and learn and see what works for people,” she said.

2degrees was already in the process of planning a move from Newmarket to Fanshawe St in central Auckland.

The company would use the move to put in place new ways of working. But Covid-19 had “put the pedal to the metal” and accelerated the process, she said.

A staff survey had revealed that only 20 per cent of workers wanted to go back to working in the same we they had before coronavirus.

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“We had a real opportunity if our people are up for it,” Shelley said.

Other companies have also been experimenting with new ways of working.

A Morrinsville legal firm, Jacqui Owen Legal, recently experimented with a four-day working week and has decided to do it permanently.

Full-time staff can take a day off between Tuesday and Thursday.

“We need to be open on Friday – that's when a lot of settlements go through – and we're usually quite busy on a Monday as well.

'Although we're not taking a long weekend, it does give people the flexibility to get things done during the week without having to ask for time off,” owner Jacqui Owen said.

In May, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern encouraged businesses to consider switching to a four-day working week to encourage more people to take domestic holidays.

She said people had reported that they would travel around New Zealand more if they had the flexibility of leave to do so.

“Ultimately that really sits between employers and employees. But as I’ve said there’s just so much we’ve learnt about Covid and that flexibility of people working from home, the productivity that can be driven out of that,” she said.

“I’d really encourage people to think about that if you’re an employer and in a position to do so. To think about if that’s something that would work for your workplace because it certainly would help tourism all around the country.”

The four-day week has been promoted in New Zealand by Perpetual Guardian, which found that it boosted productivity among its staff by 20 per cent.