Can a four-day week work for fintech?

In June this year, 70 companies in the UK began a massive trial period involving 3,300 employees to test out the four-day working week. Challenger bank Atom Bank is the biggest business among them — and the only bank. It’s a working pattern that critics have warned is incompatible with the financial market’s opening hours. But last week Atom released its first set of data on the trial, claiming productivity was up 92%. At the same time, it is approaching its first annual result this year.

This made us wonder what Atom’s secret is: if it can do it, can all other fintechs too? To learn more about the trial, we sat down with neobank’s head of people, Anne-Marie Lister, for the latest edition of our weekly Fintech newsletter.

How do you ensure that your customers can always get help with their money?

We have changed shift patterns for employees to ensure that we provide the same level of service as before the trial. As a true digital bank, we had the flexibility to do this – it just required planning to ensure we always had the resources to maintain the level of service our customers expect.

If all UK retail banks were to convert to a four-day working week, do you think the UK would lose its crown as a global financial hub?

The High Street banks, many of which have made huge profits over the past year, could almost certainly afford to introduce a four-day week for their staff. UK high street banks have been steadily closing physical branches for years, so this should theoretically make it easier to introduce more flexible working patterns.

However, they likely rely on a large amount of legacy legacy technology, making it more difficult to make these larger changes quickly and smoothly.

People have been predicting the loss of Britain’s status as a center of global finance since Brexit, and it hasn’t happened yet. It is unlikely that a four-day week, as long as it is introduced sensibly and with the right amount of planning, would jeopardize this. In fact, it may even strengthen it by attracting much-needed talent to the sector.

Do employees report feeling stressed by having to fit five days of work into four?

Our staff survey showed that only 15% of employees felt stressed at work in March 2022, compared to 33% at the start of the trial in November, revealing the positive impact of a shorter working week on employee wellbeing.

Employees are clearly more motivated to work a four-day week as well. Almost all (92%) report that they look forward to work and there has been a significant (13%) year-on-year increase in people’s engagement in February 2022 compared to February 2021 when employees were last surveyed.

Do people get paid the same for a four day week?

We wanted to ensure that our staff are fairly remunerated, especially during the current cost of living crisis – and so there has been no impact on pay levels. Employees have still been paid for full working time (37.5 hours or equivalent shift/part-time pay).

What are the main challenges Atom has faced when operating as a bank according to this model?

Moving to a four-day week has meant a fundamental change in our operating model and working practices. We didn’t expect it to be easy. Small teams and ensuring adequate coverage and resources in the early days of the trial were essential, as was planning across the whole organization and not just within departments.

It is important that teams talk to other teams to ensure continuity of internal services to each other and shift patterns/internal service windows are adjusted or revised accordingly. It is also important that everyone in the business is included in the trial. We are dismantling almost 100 years of traditional work practices, and this is not an overnight success. It has required planning, measurement and constant review to get to where we are now.

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