We’re so excited to share the news that TGW has officially moved to a permanent 4-day workweek. In fact, we’ve been at it for about a month now. How’s it going? Really great.
What the hell does this mean? For our team? For our partners? For our community? Quite simply, all good things. There’s abundant research (that we’ve spent the last year digging through and deliberating), like this NPR article, stating the benefits and data of a 4-day workweek. We feel we’re in a great place to make this move and capitalize on those benefits (and more!), and we’re already seeing great results through the first month.
Our team members will be more productive. We’ll be more creative. We’ll be happier. We’ll be healthier–mentally and physically. It’s also not just a change for the benefit of ourselves. We’ll have more time to focus on things that benefit our communities (more time for serving others, donating time/energy, hitting the streets, driving a family member to an appointment, cleaning up a trail, making some cookies for the neighbors…).
We trust our team members immensely. We now know each of them through and through. They’re good people who will do good things. We trust that they’ll use this extra time out of the office to do more good. More good for themselves. More good for their friends and loved ones. More good for their communities. More good for the planet.
“Busy for the sake of being busy” doesn’t mean better. Really great work is really great work regardless of the amount of time it took to complete. Getting really great work done in a more condensed amount of calendar time is a win for everyone. If someone is out there trying to sell you on something because of how much they work or how late they’re staying in the office to get it done, like that’s a badge of honor, we think there’s a good chance you should look the other way. We take pride in our quality of work and the way we do business. We think it’s very good. We’re ok with saying that. That’s not going to change. The damn we give is just as big and always will be for as long as we’re TGW.
Have we been thinking about this for a while? Yes. Did the pandemic put us over the edge in terms of making a move? Admittedly, yes. We’ve all been forced into refocusing on priorities and ways of working, living, and being. When we first started this business almost a decade ago, we had to take any work we could get to keep the lights on. Over the past few years, we’ve been able to be selective with the work we take on and do, driven by the fact that we want to work with really good people doing really good things. That certainly won’t change. We want to do what’s right. We know this is right.
Perhaps most important in this all, is the fact that we understand our privilege of working in an industry and environment that allows us to make this decision for ourselves and our team. Certainly, not everyone can make this leap.
