Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2014, and all company details reflect that time: Treehouse’s four-day week since 2010, its 75 employees, the $13 million raised from private investors and Carson as CEO. Its policy and leadership may have changed since.
Work is where we spend most of our lives. In fact, the usual assumption is that the more hours we put in, the more productive we’ll be. Who hasn’t dreamed of having three-day weekends? In other words, a Monday-to-Thursday working week (four days): on Thursday you walk out of the office and don’t come back until the following Monday. Treehouse is a company that has been successfully running this schedule since 2010. According to its CEO and co-founder Ryan Carson, at Treehouse people work only from Monday to Thursday, eight hours a day, and under no circumstances is business done on a Friday.
Carson says the system has brought them many benefits, as reported by Inc.com in an interview. The company has 75 employees and, according to Treehouse, many of them turned down offers from big tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter to work there.
Carson says that three-day weekends make employees even keener to come to work on Monday morning, after recharging their batteries during what amounts to a mini-holiday.
What’s more, employees work very hard to hit their weekly goals within this time-limited working week.
Workers also have more time for their families and personal interests, as well as for all the errands that can only be done during working hours. The system is perfect for balancing work and family life, a major problem in society today.
(Read: There is no success for successful people)
For Carson, the four-day week is neither an experiment nor an option: it’s the company’s top priority. As for the myth of entrepreneurs working 16 hours a day, seven days a week, Carson has a few choice words: he thinks it’s crap. In his view, many entrepreneurs work seven days a week because it makes them feel more important, and an entrepreneur doesn’t have to give their whole life to the job to do good work and be competitive. He doesn’t feel that his company and his team should be working all the time.
When it comes to hiring
Here, Carson’s view is that with a 32-hour week and no direct supervision, Treehouse needs employees who show initiative. As he puts it, if you’re lazy, there’s no way you’ll survive at the company.
Clearly, a four-day working week is an attraction in itself for job candidates, although some find it suspicious at first, and some even struggle to get used to the ban on answering work emails on a Friday.
Treehouse has raised $13 million in funding from private investors, which suggests that investors don’t mind this company policy.
What do you make of the four-day working week? Is Treehouse an exception, or could any company stay competitive working this way?
Further reading
Featured image: jimjarmo, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
