Addvanto introduces four-day week

Addvanto is one of the few companies in Switzerland to make the real four-day week the new working time model: four days of work and three days off - with full pay. In addition, one of the four days can be worked in a home office.

"Tom Vogt, Karim Weber and I, as partners in the management committee, have continuously exchanged ideas on how we can relieve the burden on our employees," said Stefan Planzer, CEO and partner of Addvanto. "We are extremely satisfied with the current business situation, and our capacity utilization is very high. With the changeover to the four-day week, we are now consciously taking an entrepreneurial risk. Because of course we don't want to lose 20 percent capacity and 20 percent output, on the contrary," continues Planzer. "For us, the introduction of the four-day week is not a reduction, but an actual growth case. We can only meet our order volume by growing and creating and expanding jobs. With the introduction of the four-day week, we gain additional attractiveness in the highly competitive labor market."

Attractiveness as an employer

According to Addvanto, the four-day week is an important instrument in the recruitment of proven specialists. This is because specialists are in great demand in the newer disciplines of digital marketing. This development means that new, convincing work models must be developed within the framework of New Work that support a favorable work-life balance and enable greater flexibility for employees.

"With the consistent four-day week, we deliberately want to break with the stereotype of classic agency working hours, which has become obsolete with New Work at the latest," explains Planzer. "The decisive factor is efficiency and mentality, not the highest possible workload. Our employees should have enough time for their individual creativity and for recharging their batteries, and thus time outside the office."

In the past two years, many areas of the working world have undergone fundamental changes, new forms of collaboration and customer interaction have proven to be suitable and have thus made efficiency leaps possible. This experience is also reflected in Addvanto's new working model. Specifically, employees have been working four days a week since the beginning of May, and weekly working hours have been reduced to 34 hours. For this 80 percent workload, employees receive the same salary as for full-time employment.

Optimized processes, secured information flow

With optimized processes and appropriate tools, Addvanto has redesigned and streamlined workflows and secured the flow of information. Every morning at 8:30 a.m., the entire team meets digitally or in the lounge of the new office for "check-in". The status of the work and the upcoming tasks are discussed. At 5:30 p.m. is "check-out." The deputy arrangements guarantee that customers continue to receive the best possible service every working day. The individual teams organize their days off so that ongoing customer projects can continue seamlessly.

Positive first balance

Once a month, the new working model is discussed intensively, challenges are addressed directly and, if necessary, adjustments are made. The inclusion of employees and their needs in the implementation is important.

Addvanto's management wants to gather experience and test the effectiveness by the end of 2022. Initial experience has shown that the four-day working week does not harm productivity - on the contrary. After a few weeks, Planzer draws a positive first interim conclusion.