Chillisoft’s four-day week in software development

Anujah Bosman, CEO of Chillisoft.

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As the movement of a four-day week gathers momentum, business owners in the software industry remain divided over whether to implement a four-day week. The concept of working fewer hours and achieving more is not a new concept. It was first mentioned by Robert Owen in 1817, during the industrial revolution, when it was the norm to work between 12 and 16 hours a day, six days a week. Henry Ford introduced the 40-hour work week and, in the 1990s, there were several experiments of four 10-hour days a week. Iceland and Spain also followed suit and reported that there was increased worker satisfaction.

The four-day work week, which is based on the 100:80:100 ratio model, meaning 100% salary for 80% of the time in exchange for maintaining a 100% productivity was resurrected and gathered momentum post COVID-19, due to the increased levels of employee burnout and fatigue. It is now set to be trialled in South Africa. Chillisoft has employed the concept of a four-day week since 2010. This article shares some of the insights and learnings that we have made along the way.

Our four-day week is based on a different model where we invoice our customers for 80% of the working month, where our employees are paid a 100% of their salaries and employees are expected to participate 100% in Chillisoft practices. Our practices consist of four, eight-hour days of production and the fifth day is split with three hours of production and five hours of deliberate practice, team events or just time off to recharge. Our customers are only invoiced for the time that is spent on production. This means that Chillisoft pays for employees to learn during the week and pays them market-related salaries. It also means that Chillisoft absorbs the costs of learning and developing company-wide competencies and any downtime that is required by the team to recharge or work on projects that energise them.

Why did we choose this path? We understood that employee productivity is dependent on many factors, and that giving employees more or less time are not the primary factors that impact productivity in software development. As software development practitioners for 17 years, we realised early on in our journey that we needed to understand:

• The sources of good and bad stress;
• That employee productivity is linked to an individual’s ability to focus, which is impacted by their health, environment, sleep, stress, task complexity;
• That a software developer’s control of his or her mental landscape is critical for productivity;
• The balance of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation shifts behaviour and engagement;
• Waste in a business must be continually eradicated if we were to invoice customers for 80% of a billable month, while being able to pay market-related salaries;
• Pragmatic flexibility and autonomy are essential hygiene factors for developers and an organisation if you are to successfully self-organise for complexity;
• Sustainability of skills, performance levels and a business are tightly coupled to the provision of value, that is providing value to employees, the business and our customers; and
• Organisational culture and practices impact individual and customers' trust levels, which impacts the levels of productivity.

We also learnt that software is complex and we need a constant buffer in our operations to give us control of continually learning, and our ability to sense and adapt within a shifting global landscape.

Creating a four-day week while maintaining the expectations of a five-day week implies that there is 20% of waste in your business! Blindly adopting a four-day week without understanding the factors that impact your productivity practices, the sources of stress within your team and their levels of engagement will not solve “the burnout issue”. It may make matters worse since the software development landscape in South Africa is currently typified by high levels of stress and inconsistency, because:

1. The supply of electricity is uncertain, therefore production is inconsistent;
2. The economy is repressed and local customers are reluctant to pay higher rates even though software developer salaries have increased dramatically due to the global shortage of software developers;
3. Remote working has made employee transparency and engagement difficult to monitor and assess;
4. The rise of the side hustle means there is a high probability that software developers are working multiple jobs during working hours and after hours;
5. There is an escalation in an employee’s remuneration package that is unsustainable as companies compete to woo software developers. The addition of a free, paid day does not guarantee an increase in retention, the maintenance of productivity or a reduction of stress;
6. There is an assumption that employees will be better engaged and remain committed to the company if they have a day off. This is a large and unfounded assumption in the current software industry where a large number of developers are actively job hopping and continually shop for better packages. Providing these developers with a better package of a high salary and short work week does not equate to better loyalty or productivity; and
7. Reducing the work week, while invoicing the customer for 100% of the billable month, will stress an already stressed and possibly burnt out team. Why would you do this since engaged developers will feel compelled to work extra-long days, including the day that was supposed to be their free day? This will probably also result in resentment and conflict within the team.

A four-day week, while maintaining the same billing levels and productivity expectations, is a symptomatic solution for the stressful environment that has been exacerbated by COVID, global events, our unique South African challenges and the blistering pace of technology. Situational factors are usually the major contributing factors of burnout. Therefore we believe that nuanced approaches, organisational flexibility and a deeper look at organisational dynamics, underlying issues and mechanisms for consistent delivery are a more sustainable solution. This, coupled with employee education and interventions that promote self-care and management of job stressors and customer expectations will result in a healthier, happier team.

Software delivery is complex and we cannot control a complex system; all we can do is increase our options to guide and shape the system as we continually adapt to a shifting internal and external landscape.