by Ceara Sowell, on February 20, 2024
The Power of the 4-Day Workweek
I'm Ceara, the Product Analyst Lead at Arkatechture, and I've been an Arkabot for 6 years. After the 4-day workweek had been a goal for Arkatechture for many years, they announced in 2022 that all employees who reach their 5-year Arkaversary (the anniversary of your hire date at Arka) will receive a four-day workweek (32-hour week) as a benefit. Recently, this benefit has been extended to everyone hitting their 3-year milestone, so more Arkabots than ever are out there enjoying an extra day off every week!
I hit my 5th Arkaversary in January of 2023 and immediately started tracking the ROI of Arkatechture's investment in me. I wanted the humble leaders here to understand the sheer amount of life they were giving back to their employees and personally, I wanted to keep this log as a gratitude journal so that I never forget how much of a gift it is to have a shortened week and elongated weekend.
The ROI of 1 Year on 4-Day Workweek
After recently reaching my 6th Arkaversary, and thus the 1st anniversary of my 4-day workweek, I had amassed quite the log and it felt like a good point to stop and reflect on the aggregate effects this benefit had on my life. With some help from Tableau, I found that I:
- Made 15 plans with family or friends
- Spent 54 hours outside soaking up the fresh air apart from my hiking time
- Completed 23 hikes
- Wrote for 39 hours
- Read over 550 pages in 12 unique books
- And more!
I was able to stack chores, errands, and appointments on Fridays to keep my Monday-Thursday free from distractions. Anecdotally, I believe the four-day workweek did exactly what it was meant to. The three-day weekends allowed me to decompress so I could sprint right through the last minute of my work week, avoiding the Friday and Wednesday slumps and thus being much more productive with the time I spent in the office.
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