6 Hour Day

- [Ian] So hey folks, it's Ian here from Agency Hackers. And welcome to this session. So one thing we hear a lot at the moment is that for our, for the four-day work week, and that's kind of in the air at the moment, and a lot of agencies are trying to do it, and there seems to be a lot of innovation around how people approach time at work and their employee offering. I'm talking to an event next month about they've started an agency that never shuts, so they're doing a 24/7 agency. They work around the clock and they never close. So it seems like this is a question that's in a lot of people's minds at the moment. And recently I heard of a couple of agencies that are doing an interesting concept called the six-hour day. And they agreed that I could invite them onto a call just to kind of interview about it and see what we can learn from it. So I'm joined by Lee Carnihan from Curveball Media and Emily West from Made in Norwich, which I think is part of flocc. Have I got that right, Emily?

- [Emily] We've actually just rebranded so yes. We are the artist formerly known as Made, but we are now flocc.

- [Ian] Okay, I think on one email it was Made and now it's flocc so you completely--

- [Emily] Yes, we rebranded just like that.

- [Ian] Just give us a bit of, before we introduce Lee, Emily give us a little bit of sense of what flocc does.

- [Eimly] Yeah, so, okay, so just give you a bit of background, before we were thinking of doing a six-hour day we had several issues within the agency, and those really were internal issues of time management, productivity, distractions, and all sorts of things. And what we were finding was that people eating lunch at their desks at all different times, some people were staying really really late, getting tired, emails were getting missed, the communication was breaking down, and we just realised that something needed to be done in order to pull everyone together to make sure that we were one agency working together to get the best results for our clients. And when we did a bit of research two years ago now, we found something, an ethos, a Scandinavian ethos called lagom. And lagom literally means not too much, not too little, just right. And we did quite a lot of research into lagom, and actually we were thinking, so what is just right? What's just the right amount of everything in business? What's the right amount of time to spend on meetings? What's the right amount of time to spend talking to clients? On working on projects? And actually we wrote everything down and we realised that we were spending a lot of time or wasting a lot of time being distracted and wasting time on chatting, talking to each other about the weekends, all of these things, making teas, all of these things we were doing instead of working. So we worked out what the right amount of time actually was, and we figured it wold be six hours in the day. Now the only thing with what we do is that it's not just six hours in the day, it's zoned times within that six hours. So what we didn't do is say, okay, well, we'll let everyone go home after six hours, and we carry on as we were. What we did is cut the day into zones times to make sure that we have at least three hours a day of really productive working zonal times. So, what we mean by that is from nine until half past 10 in the morning we have what we call red time. And we don't speak to anyone. Some of us have headphones on, but it's really quiet in the studio and we don't distract each other. And the idea is you literally get your head down and you do your task for the day, and in those red times we've got two of those a day. So you've got an hour and a half to be as productive as you possibly can with no distractions, no emails coming in, no one asking you about whether you can give them something, we literally focus. We have a break after that because as we've realised one and a half hours of productive work is quite tiring. So we've realised the right amount of time is one and a half hours and then we need a break. So we all break together. And then we have what we call amber time until midday, and that's a little bit more open. We're able to talk to each other. However, we still respect each other's privacy and each other's focus times. We will have lunch together from 12 to one and then we repeat the process as a red, amber time in the afternoon, and we go home at four o'clock. So the idea is essentially we've figured out what the right amount of focus and productivity is to get the best out of our people and our work and then we stick to it.

- [Ian] Wow, now this is, a lot of questions, this is really interesting. And Lee, I know you've got kind of a, a sort of similar but different approach to this. And I wanna ask you about that in a minute, but first of all, just to stick with Emily for a second. Tell me, tell us a bit more about the problems that you were facing before you kind of introduced this. You mentioned distraction and things.

- [Emily] Absolutely, so I mean, any office, if you're sitting in an office now and you look around, there's bound to be someone chatting to someone else about the weekend or about their holiday. There's bound to be someone clattering around with mugs and glasses and folders and things like that. We just figured that we all needed some time to really focus on what we were doing, to give the best of ourselves to the work that we were doing, and when, before we made this change, we were looking around and one of our developers, actually, he absolutely loved his job, but he loved it too much to the point where he didn't know when to stop. And it would get to four o'clock in the afternoon and he hadn't had lunch yet. And that is really, really dangerous, and actually really not good for someone and not good for a team and actually not good for concentration and productivity. So we'd tell him all the time, go and eat something, go and have lunch. He'd go get some lunch and eat at his desk again. You know, it's great that people love what they do. But at the same time we wanted people to feel like they didn't have to spend time doing their work when we knew that what they were doing is actually probably not the best work that they could anyway because they weren't concentrating, they didn't feel their best. So yeah, we set about looking for a solution to enable people to do the best they possibly can, to be as refreshed as possible, and the Scandinavians seem to have the answer. Lagom, it's the right amount of everything. And it just meant that, as I said, we respected each other's concentration and productivity.

- [Ian] So just go through the zones again, so nine to 10 is red time, and that's when you're kind of like--

- Yeah, so we--

- Yeah go ahead--

- Yeah, sorry, I was gonna say it's interesting 'cause the email you sent this morning about the lovely company they said they stopped wasting time in meetings. We do something similar and we have standup meeting. So obviously when you stand up you don't want to spend too long standing up, so we try and have standup meetings so that we don't relax, as such, so they're generally quicker, generally healthier as well. But we have a standup meeting every morning so that everyone knows what they're doing, everyone can ask questions. They've got time to ask questions in the morning, so we get in generally about 20 to nine. But nine o'clock comes around and that's it. We're all, we're all concentrating for an hour and a half. And that leads us up to half past 10. And by half past 10 someone cracks and says, "Oh my gosh, I need a coffee." And we all stand up, we have a stretch, we go and get some coffee, we have a bit of a chat. 15 minutes, real, just to change your, give your eyes a break. We go back to our desks about a quarter to 11 and then from then until 12 is amber time. So we go back and do the task that we were doing or change that task or set up meetings, have a chat, answer emails, phone calls, et cetera. So, 12 to one, as I said, we all go to lunch together, and we found that since we are being productive in that morning time, we love to have time to really have deeper conversations. So we all get together as a team 12 to one and all have lunch together, which is lovely. It means the conversation is so much deeper than just chatting in the kitchen. And then we repeat it again in the afternoon. So one 'til half past two is red time, have a break at half two for 15 minutes, and then from a quarter to two until four o'clock is amber time, and then we get to go home and spend more time with our family and more time doing what we love outside of work, so yeah, it's great.

- [Ian] Wow, because where you've got red time that would sort of be waking up time and kind of get coming 'round to the day, and just getting ready. What you've, a couple of questions, and then I wanna find out how Lee's approach to this differs. But just a couple of questions. So, how, I mean you're talking about big behaviour change here, regimenting people's hours, and how do you, I mean it's hard to get people to put their plates in the dishwasher in a lot of agencies. How do you kind of enforce this? I mean, how did you make it happen, make it stick?

- [Emily] I think, so, okay when you say to a team, by the way guys, would you like to work six hours for the same amount of pay? I think everyone's on board. The only thing, I think, really sold it was when we explained why. We pointed out the problems. We made people aware of how tired they were getting and how much they were working and what made them feel like they were expected to stay until six and seven o'clock, because we weren't making them stay that long. So it's about changing those expectations and setting new ones and saying, look, if you'd give us six hours of productive work a day, and that means that yeah, you do have to crack on, you do have to get your head down. If you can give us six hours of productive work a day and get that work to the best of your ability then we can give you more time outside of work, resting, rehabilitating yourself, spending time with hour family, and I think everyone just went, well this is fantastic. I mean, I don't know why more people don't do this. And that's the thing, it's just about setting those expectations to the team, explaining why and what they're gonna get for it, and then sticking by it. That's the main thing. It's really, it's really easy to slip out of that productive time, but once you get into the habit of it it's fantastic. And now it's just everyone is on board, and everyone we speak to as well thinks, well, that makes a lot of sense.

- [Ian] Wow, and so I wanna bring Lee into this as well. So Lee, you are with Curveball Media. Just explain a bit about what Curveball Media is and what it does for us.

- [Lee] Ah, yeah, so we're an animation and video production company based up in Norwich like flocc, but we also have a sort of sales and marketing office down in London, and we make most of the time 90-second explainers, either completely animated or in film or a combination of the two, most often to sell a product or a service, but sometimes it could be a brand video about your values or about something else that you wanna draw attention to. So work mainly with companies in the U.K., but we have some clients in New York and Germany and Israel and other places as well, so sort of beginning to branch out on an international front as well. So, that's kind of what we do.

- [Ian] Cool, and tell me about your approach to this six-hour idea, because I think you have a similar but slightly different approach, is that right?

- [Lee] Yeah, I love that phrase, Ian, it's similar but slightly different approach. And I love it because Emily and I have lots of conversation about this. as you can imagine. And now I'm just terrified when she gives such an eloquent explanation of what they do and it works so well that when I start speaking it's gonna sound like ours is a ball of wool and like we're a bunch of cats playing around with balls of wool all day long trying to get stuff done. Right, so we do, now we say we have a six-hour day, but more accurately it's a six-hour rule. But if I start off by saying it's a six-hour rule people go, oh what's that? Well it's not quite as instantly digestible or understandable as a six-hour day. But in short, we have a six-hour rule that says if you come in and you get done what you've been assigned to do or you need to do in those six hours, what you choose to do with your remaining hours is totally up to you. If you wanna go, you can go, if you want to stay and practise some skills in a certain piece of software or something or you just wanna hang around, just enjoy just lounging on the sofa with the dog is fine, you can. But the key thing here, I think, for us is, and I don't know what the situation is with Emily, actually, it's one question I'd put to her. All our team are on a full time contract, still 37 and a half hours a week, so no one is on a six-hour contract, six-hours per day contract. Everyone's on a full time contract, but, in a similar vein to how Emily says, if someone's prepared to give them six hours good productivity, good work a day, then flocc is able to give back, and allow people to go, essentially. And that's the same bit here in that if somebody's done what they needed to do then they get to choose what to do with that time. We don't have the red, amber, green sort of zoned times that Emily does. Not because we've tried them and they don't work, and it is something that I've sort of made overtures to, and we have implemented what are called two flow zones during the day, so between 10 and a half 11 is flow zone one, and then between one and 2:30 is flow zone two. It's during those times there's a general recognition that people will have their heads down. They're not, basically don't interrupt 'em with the latest cat GIFs unless it's absolutely critical to what you need to get done. For example, our production manager, he needs to speak to anybody at almost any time of the day because that's his job to make sure that things are being done on time and to quality. But for me and one of the animators, perhaps, who do not need to speak to lots of different people throughout the day, we know during those flow zones that hopefully we're not gonna be interrupted without good cause. Just trying to think the other features really. Oh, poor hours that we have are between 10 and four. So you can come in early. I'm an early bird. I'm sometimes in at sort of half seven, 8:30, along with a couple of others. Some people come in at 10 and then stay a bit later if they want to. So there's a lot of flexibility in the day and how people use their hours as well, which is contrast to flocc. For example, I've got kids. So sometimes I'll leave at half two to go and get my kids at three, take them home, then I'll log back on home and do another hour or two if I need to there. For us I think the key thing really is that it's about us, how can we give our employees more authority and control over how they use their time during the day. We're not so focused on doing the same amount of work in less time, or do you know what I mean? Like a factory. We're not trying to cram eight hours work into six, and I'm not suggesting, by the way, that flocc are trying to do this, they're not. I just wanna make that clear before Emily hammers me over the head with a . So, for us the focus is about creating an environment where people feel that they have, and they do have, more control over how they use their time and with respect to what they wanna get done outside of work. Like I said, I'm probably the perfect example in that I've got kids and sometimes they're off sick so I need some flexibility in the day to be able to do those things. And we allow for that. And what it, for us, really comes down to, I think, with respect to how it actually works, is that we have very good communication because we're quite a small team, there are 12 of us I think, or to sort of 14 on any given day, but we all have very good communication and we have very good planning. So no one is given a task that is unachievable for the day. We don't, we've been doing what we've been doing for what, seven, seven and a half years now? So we've got really good at knowing what people are capable of and what we need to do when. And as long as we keep communicating about the latest status of what something is then we can manage changes, i.e. somebody suddenly goes, oh I need to go now or I'm not gonna be in tomorrow until 10, is that okay? And we can manage that. It's, it does take more. I imagine, and this is where I want Emily to come back, I imagine that's probably more intensive on us to manage as a process because there's a lot more variability in the day than having the zones, but I don't know. So

- [Emily] I think it's really interesting, and flexibility is something that a lot of people comment on when I talk about six-hour or we talk about the six-hour day and the way that we do it. And we actually call it rigid flexibility. I know that's a little bit of a juxtaposition, but the point is in order to allow people that flexibility to do less, to spend less time at work, we need a rigid timeline in there in order to get the best productivity out of our people. And that's what we've all really come 'round to realise is that in order for all of us to focus we all need to be on the same timeline. We all need to focus at the same time. Otherwise, if someone else's focus time is holding up someone else's work because they need to speak to someone and they're waiting for that person to finish their focus time before they can focus. So having the right, having a consistent timeline and consistent times means that everyone knows where they are at all times. You just leave me to look at the clock and you know how much time you've got to spend on things. But also, we're not robots either and we're also human. If someone really does get stuck and goes, I literally need to speak to you. We're not silly. We understand that that's got to happen. But the more it becomes a habit the more it means that we're able to be more flexible within those times knowing that we respect when we're focusing and when we're not. If that makes sense.

- [Ian] Yeah, and Emily, you mentioned kind of like distractions being like ping pong tables and kind of like things like that that you would not, you would stereotypically associate with agency life. I mean, how do you, how does that sort of impact the culture, I guess, of being in an agency?

- [Emily] It's really interesting, I've done lots of talks on this before and I've always, I've always looked down my nose a little bit at ping pong tables and slides and agency bars in the evening. You know, all of these things that companies create and companies have to distract people from actually working. So anything that keeps you at work not working, what's the point? However, we just moved into a brand new studio, a brand new, it's called Fuel Studios in Norwich, fantastic. There are ping pong tables and a PlayStation. There's a foosball table. And at first I thought, oh gosh, like someone's gonna call me up on this. But the point is, I think, we still have loads of fun using those things, but we have times that we can use them and times that means that they're not going to get into the way of work. And I think that that's really interesting and that a culture is all about trust, as Lee says, he trusts his whole team to manage their own time, which is absolutely fantastic. And I think that the trust comes with us that we know that our people are giving as much as they possible can in that six hours. Therefore, the rest of the time is up to them to spend doing what they want to do. And you know, there are some people that do want to go out and still research or do some work after work. We try and tell people, just don't, because actually you need to get your rest. You need to concentrate the next day and sometimes, and you'll probably notice as an agency, I know, yourself, you've got a problem in front of you, whether it's a development problem or a design problem or you can't think creatively or something or you've got writer's block. The amount of times you just walk away or you go home for an evening, you have a meal, you go and play football with your kids, you come back the next day and you've got the answer. And essentially that's what we're trying to do, to try and breed a culture that has these expectations, that meets them, and therefore is more creative within them as well.

- [Ian] Cool, just a question, sorry Lee, you gonna jump in?

- [Lee] No, no, I was just mm-mming in agreement.

- [Emily] We have the same contracts. So before we started this we had obviously an eight-hour day contract as Lee does. We didn't change our contracts. We also didn't change our pay. So it's just essentially a trust thing that we say that we have, we work between nine and four. And actually all of our clients, we've let them know as well, and they are all on board. They are absolutely fine with it. We've been doing it for two years now and we've not had a problem either with our team or our clients. So it's great.

- [Ian] Yeah, I wonder if you could just both outline sort of what it feels like to kind of everyday how people leave at four. It's sort of like, are they able to sort of do things they wouldn't otherwise do?

- Yeah, Lee do you wanna go?

- Do you wanna go, Emily? Well, yeah.

- [Emily] We're both so polite.

- [Lee] This is Norwich for you. The last outpost of polite civilization. Yeah, well, for us it's a bit, there is no exodus at four o'clock, in that sense, for us. Partly I think that's a result of the fact that we have sort of flexible hours, in that if you start at 10 and you know you need to get whatever it is you need to get done and that takes you seven hours, then you're not gonna go at four. Or if you start early then, we don't have that sort of, I'm trying not to use the word rigid here.

- No you can. Rigid flexibility--

- I don't want to imply it's a bad thing. I like this rigid flexibility term. I think I like it 'cause I understand what Emily's talking about. But so there is no sort of mass exodus or mass arrival in that sense. It's quite sometimes I'll look up and I'll notice and like now there are, what, one, two, three, four, five, six of us in the office. Half the office is not here. And we're only at like 3:30. And yet sometimes I can look up at sort of 9:30 and the office is full, everybody's in. So there's a lot of variability. I don't know, I've not worked in a place like this before, and I think in terms of how it feels, the one thing that I noticed after about two or three months is my guilt at wondering if someone was clock watching me and making a note of how much I'd done and whether that was enough and whether they would be saying hey, hang on you, come back, you haven't finished. Or we need you to stay on, you haven't done what's required. There's none of that. There is a lot of trust. But as I said we've got good planning and communication and everyone's given manageable tasks to do, but the guilt still didn't disappear. And that's the hangover, I think, from all my previous jobs whereby I never really knew, or I don't think I believed I was trusted. And I think somewhere along the line I thought someone was always monitoring the exact amount of minutes that I was doing. And that's finally the guilt subsided. And it's quite a relief to know that I'm trusted, but at the same time expected to do what needs to be done. It's not a free for all. It's like Emily was saying, they say, look, in exchange for six hours we want you to give us your best productivity and take care of yourself when you're not in work. And in the same way there's that expectation from us. We have this amount of flexibility, but only in exchange for, only on, if you like, the condition that people do what they're expected. But we have good support structures in place to enable people to do what's expected and needed, and if they don't then we're all here to support them and make sure that plan B is actioned, if need be. That rarely happens. Our process is so well oiled that it's not very usual that any drastic change ever has to happen. But guilt is the main feeling that I used to feel and don't anymore.

- [Ian] Emily, what does it mean for you in terms of your people's quality of life?

- [Emily] So I have two points, and the first is talking about that expectation, and as Lee pointed out, in lots of other jobs there are so many expectations put on staff members and so many rules and regulations and I think a perfect example of this is the unlimited holiday that's sort of going around at the moment. Like lots of companies are giving their team unlimited holiday. They can choose how much they want to take. I feel like that is putting the expectation on the employer, oh sorry, on the employee, so on the team. They're looking around going, "Well, how much holiday are you taking? "Well I don't know how much holiday I can take. "Do I take more than I usually would? "Or shall I take less "'cause I need to look like I'm working hard?" That's a decision that the employee now has to make, and I don't think it's fair. And that's what we feel about our six-hour day in that I can go home, leave the office, leave the studio at four o'clock, quarter past four and feel I know that my bosses and the directors and the team know I'd worked as hard as I can in those six hours because I know that we've all been in the same boat, and we've all been as productive as possible. And that is a wonderful, wonderful feeling, not feeling like I'm looking around seeing if anyone else is staying behind or whether I should stay later or whether I think I haven't finished something or getting worried about whether I have to do more work. It's an expectation of okay, I've done what is expected of me. If I want to do more, that's my choice, but I don't feel like I have to. And that is a huge, even subconscious, weight off anyone's mind. And it just feels so wonderful to be able to go to the gym, cook dinner, go shopping before even my partner even gets home from work. And it's allowed me to have so much more freedom, so much more time to relax after work. And also to have the ability to think about work at home. Now, I know that goes against a little bit of what I've been saying, but the idea is that because I don't have to think about work at home I do because I enjoy to. So it's not like I'm going, oh my gosh, I can't wait to leave on a Friday. I can't be bothered to think about work anymore. It's actually like, well, I feel completely refreshed and relaxed and therefore work just pops into your mind sometimes and you find that sort of creative space when you're at home. So I mean for us it's a huge weight off of our shoulders, and we all know where we all stand and it's a real team effort as well.

- [Ian] Cool, well listen we'll leave thank you so much guys for this. I feel like it's just sort of like work culture thing. It's a bit like sort of vegan food category it used to be just like tofu and now it's the great innovation, jackfruit bites, there's kind of all sorts of things, and it's just like, they used to be nine to five and that was it. And now in our agency there's all sorts of innovation going on. And I think this is one of the more interesting ones that I've heard. So, yeah, congratulations. Sorry, go ahead.

- [Emily] No, no, sorry. I was just going to add, I think for anyone out there, for any advice, to keep it simple. Keep it really simple. Don't go into all these fads and bringing in unlimited holiday or pool tables or all of these things, keep it really simple. Ask your team what you can give back to them and what they need to give to you and then work it out. I think that's as simple as that. Work out what the right amount is.

- [Ian] Lagom, find your lagom.

- Yep.

- Yeah, yeah. I would agree with that. You could ask one simple question, why is it you're working in the way you're working and what effect is it having? What is that? What's the purpose of the manner in which you're working? That's it, and really explore that from every dimension.

- [Emily] Thank you so much for having us anyway, thank you.

- Yeah, yeah.