Company introduces four-day work week and says productivity is through the roof

San Francisco’s Bolt says workers and managers overwhelmingly wanted switch

A California tech company introduced a four-day workweek and says that its productivity has skyrocketed.

San Francisco-based Bolt piloted the programme last autumn, and its CEO says the results were overwhelmingly positive.

“I couldn’t imagine running a company any other way,” CEO Ryan Breslow told CNBC.

“We don’t care if you are working two hours a week or 200 hours a week, if you are passionate go for it. We only care about you delivering results to the organisation.”

He said that productivity at the e-commerce developer improved, work was streamlined and employees were happy.

A survey taken at the end of the three-month pilot found that 94 per cent of Bolt’s workers and 91 per cent of managers wanted it to continue.

Mr Breslow said that 84 per cent of employees reported an improvement in their work-life balance by taking Fridays off and making better use of their time at work.

“A lot of companies operate with a lot of work theater, which is people caring more about the appearance of working than the actual work,” he added.

“So you have countless meetings, countless documents, countless presentations. It’s impossible to sift through the noise and get to the heart of the matter.”

He added that the company wanted its employees to achieve results “while being kind and good to your team around you”.

Bolt, which has 550 full-time employees, is among a handful of companies in the US to switch to a shorter work week.

And Mr Breslow admitted that the change had taken some time to smoothly implement.

“This wasn’t the easiest operational lift. It definitely took some work,” he said.

The company says it is flexible in its schedule, with staff expected to work more during busy periods, such as Black Friday and Thanksgiving, but given time off afterwards.

Earlier this year the Congressional Progressive Caucus introduced a bill to reduce the standard work week to 32 hours.