“I have a fairly unusual background. Before becoming an independent HR consultant specializing in four-day weeks, I was first a web developer after studying at the Centrale Marseille engineering school (renamed Centrale Méditerranée in 2023).
During a gap year in 2018, I did an internship as the CEO’s right-hand man at the start-up Lalilo, which offers a digital assistant for teaching writing to primary school teachers. Lalilo is a company at the forefront of managerial practices: we are entitled to unlimited vacation, salaries are known to all, we decide our own increases…
I like the corporate culture so much that I’m going to do everything I can to go back there. Lalilo employs a lot of developers. So I decided to specialize in this subject in a master’s degree by taking all the computer science options.
Developer with an HR cap
My plan is working. In 2021, I am rejoining Lalilo as a developer. I have the opportunity to participate in internal projects unrelated to my main missions. The opportunity for me to discover the HR sector: I conduct numerous interviews, I manage recruitment, onboarding… At the time, the four-day week was making more and more noise in the media and fueling numerous office conversations. With colleagues, we decided to set up a working group on the issue.
Our objective: to set up a test of several months of the four-day week without extending hours on worked days and without loss of salary. In short, work less while continuing to earn as much. We submit the idea to other employees. The project is validated by the vast majority of them and especially by management. Here we go!
But such a change does not happen without preparation. To ensure that the project is implemented with as little stress and tension as possible, we take the time to communicate and detail the upcoming reorganization as much as possible. We start by consulting all employees to find out their opinions and concerns.
Upstream, we also think about the reorganizations necessary so that this change allows everyone to work calmly and efficiently: which meetings are really essential? For who ? When a person is absent, can their tasks be delegated to others? If this is not the case, should certain employees be trained in new skills? We choose a model with fixed days of absence, Wednesday and Friday. Each team must then organize itself in order to have employees present during these two days to ensure continuity of service. We also limit meetings to thirty minutes maximum.
A minimal drop in production
Then we launch a three-month test phase. During this period, we carefully monitor several indicators: production, stress level, impact on collaboration and work-life balance. If necessary, we propose organizational adjustments as we go along.
At the end of the test, the results were astonishing. The four-day week had almost no impact on employees’ production. In most departments, production remained balanced. In others, we observed a small drop of around 5 to 6%. On the other hand, some jobs, such as developer, saw their production increase. For us, these figures are very encouraging given the short duration of the test. And above all: the drop in stress levels and the increase in satisfaction with the work-life balance are enormous.
But establishing this new organization was not done without difficulties. Certain positions are more difficult to integrate into this new organization, particularly those occupied by people who are solely responsible for their missions and cannot delegate, and by the customer service department which requires great responsiveness to respond to users.
More in fine, the four-day week only exacerbates pre-existing problems. For example, thanks to its implementation, we realized that one person at Lalilo had too many responsibilities alone and never took vacation. This test was an opportunity to think together about how to reduce our workload. To enable customer service to move to the four-day week, the product team was trained to take over. New tasks which are also useful for them to better understand customer needs.
Overall, by reviewing the entire organization in the phase preceding the test – elimination and reduction of the time of all meetings that could be done, modification and training for new tasks of certain employees so that everyone can delegate their missions during his absences, highlighting of certain organizational problems and search for solutions, etc. – many problems have been resolved and productivity, in factimproved.
The magic of the four-day week
At the end of the experiment, almost all of the fifty employees wanted to keep this new organization. But how can we explain that the employees of a company can produce almost as much in four working days as in five? I have identified several explanations.
First, the four-day week allows employees to arrive at work more rested and thus limits the risk of occupational illnesses, such as burn-out. Secondly, it is a mode of organization which allows for better partitioning of the private and professional spheres. When you work five days a week, you sometimes have to take time out of the day to go to the doctor, to the bank, etc. During a four-day week, employees tend to concentrate these appointments on their day off. This lightens their mental load and allows them to be fully focused on their four days of work.
Another explanation: the more time we have to complete a task, the more time we take to do it. By introducing more time constraints at work, employees are generally more efficient!
At Lalilo, we have chosen a model with imposed days off: either Wednesday or Friday. Due to the absence of many employees these days, these have become days without meetings, offering entire days of “deep work”. A real gain in productivity!
And finally, the implementation of the four-day week, if done well, requires improving internal processes upstream, and therefore improving productivity.
The big leap into entrepreneurship
At the end of this project at Lalilo, I really want to move 100% into the world of HR. Why not start my own business? I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, I had trained at Centrale Marseille in entrepreneurship, I was “just” missing the subject into which to throw myself body and soul. He was now all found.
After four months of HR training at IESEG, followed in parallel with my work at Lalilo and financed by my employer, I decided in December 2023 to start my own business as an HR consultant, specializing in the four-day week. My mission: to support companies that are hesitant to switch to the four-day week but do not dare to take the plunge.
It’s not easy every day, especially financially. After enjoying a comfortable salary at Lalilo – 51,000 euros gross per year – I still don’t pay myself. But I’m lucky to have been able to negotiate a mutual termination with my company and to be able to benefit from unemployment for a few more months, the time to get my business off the ground.
I made the choice to leave my job to be able to devote myself 100% to this new adventure. And I don’t regret it for a second! Despite the financial difficulties, I feel totally at home. »
To note
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And to read other inspiring testimonies, it’s HERE.
