Alternative Work Week Series: Employees Matter and So Do I

Worldwide changes in workplace culture have introduced or emphasized solutions that increase an individual’s flexibility within the workplace. These include solutions like unlimited PTO and the “right-to-disconnect.” With burnout and workforce resignations still abounding nationally, it is important to acknowledge that offering a benefit and an employee taking advantage of the benefit can differ in degree of impact. While it ultimately is up to the staffer to take advantage, there may be unaddressed factors making the benefit psychologically inaccessible to many employees that identify with historically oppressed communities due to deeply rooted and sometimes invisible colonial norms in the workplace. It was through ReadySet’s implementation of the 4-Day Work Week Pilot, and their inquiry of my personal experience of the initiative, that I was able to highlight historically enshrined and individually learned notions of work and worth that were prohibiting my ability to integrate ReadySet benefits into my work life. Here is my story.

It is the Monday after our company-wide week closure for rest and reset. I feel calm, grounded, and ready to approach the work week with a sense of passion, kindness, and balance; balance with family and friends and balance with nature. I triaged my inbox after the break in a timely manner. Even after a week out of the office, my inbox was no more demanding than any other Monday. I attribute that to having the luxury of the entire company taking a vacation at the same time.  

I am checking Slack channels and arrive at our “watercooler” channel where my colleagues are sharing vacation photos. I’m seeing photos on glaciers and in hot springs, engagement photos atop mountains. What a joy to see my colleagues enjoying their lives and gaining new experiences. I too took full advantage of the break and visited the mountain tops and jungles of Costa Rica with my family. I swam with the sea turtles of the Mayan Riviera and took stunning photos documenting these adventures. However, I hesitate to share photos of my vacation alongside similar photos from my colleagues in the watercooler slack channel. I reflect and realize, that once again, this opportunity to participate in our intentionally inclusive office culture leaves me to feel more exposed than included, and ultimately unsafe. This is a great opportunity to connect with coworkers, but I cannot help but think that the time taken to post these photos will be seen as an unproductive use of my time. I realize this is not the first inclusive workplace practice I have underutilized or foregone.

Cambria poses with her daughter in Costa Rica during ReadySet’s Rest & Reset Summer Closure.

We are halfway through our 6-month Alternative Work Week pilot that offers one company-wide Friday closure (simulating a 4-day work week) and one Innovation and Enrichment (I&E) Friday, focusing only on internal work or professional development. This time last year, I had saved PTO so that I could take off two to four Fridays each month during our summer months. While that was refreshing and offered the benefits of a three-day weekend, many of my colleagues were still working so I often felt guilty for the delay in response. Many times I was still responding to Slack messages and peeking at my inbox for urgent requests which led to responding to not-so-urgent needs. It also led to a very full inbox on Mondays so I found myself triaging my inbox Sunday evenings to alleviate some of the workload. With our new monthly Friday closure as a function of our 2022 Alternative Work Week pilot, I am able to circumvent anxiety-driven work habits, with the comfort of knowing my colleagues are not working as well.

The I&E days, however, are another story. Initially, I found the day full of internal meetings as this was a day free on everyone’s calendars. We quickly flagged this as an organization to make room for professional development and other activities. As the burden of responsibility fell on me to schedule that day (outside of internal programming) these days end up looking similar to any other day of the week but with the added guilt of doing client-facing or client-adjacent work. I quickly and easily deprioritized my professional development for ongoing responsibilities that day. Yet another underutilized benefit.

I identify as a Black American Woman. As many of my fellow post-industrial Black Americans that were born prior to the 1990s, we were instructed by our parents “to be twice as smart and work twice as hard” as our counterparts in order to gain access to opportunities in the workforce—with the expectation to only receive half of the benefits. Recently my elders questioned my grit for only working 40 hours per week and considered my cousin spoiled for wanting the opportunity for equal pay.  It is ingrained in me to expect and accept my 63 cents to the dollar while working doubly hard. Many acknowledge that our current American work system still has slavery-inspired tenants or residuals; for example, the usage of the word task is derived from the “task system” during slavery in which the enslaved were given some form of autonomy to meet the quota or task and in some cases were given bonuses. What we often fail to admit is that many of us that have been in the United States for generations have these tenants embedded within us, passed down systematically. I am no exception. While I get a salary and have the ability to quit, I still voluntarily subscribe to a revamped “overwork system”, a system in which only through overworking would the enslaved receive benefits. Positive reinforcement, however, if I don’t work above and beyond, I am punished or worse. 

As burnout threatens the American workforce landscape as we know it, I work with an organization that strives to be kind, equitable, supportive of work-life balance, and socially innovative.

Throughout my two-year tenure, I have seen increase upon increase in optional wellness benefits. I am encouraged to take advantage of these benefits that our newer more flexible landscape offers, but how am I to trust that there will not be negative repercussions? How can I take advantage without compromising the ingrained trauma turned integrity that is so closely tied to my workplace identity? This is why I welcome the systematic change of the four-day work week. It integrates equitable practices into processes and policies. Systematic changes allow employees to lean on the organization to drive the implementation of these advantageous policies into an employee's work life.  It is about more than just an extra day off. It is a way for us to continue to shed the brutal norms of our unique American colonization. 

I appreciate this Alternative Work Week pilot and the invitation to share my honest experience with this initiative.  It was through this opportunity that I have been able to reflect on my workplace vulnerabilities and allowed myself to move towards feeling valued as an employee. My radical thoughts such as  “I can work without fear of punitive action,” “I deserve to be treated fairly,” “My employee voice matters,” and even “I am allowed to rest” can be normalized within this newer work landscape. Even in its pilot phase, the Alternative Work Week has begun to reframe and transform the origins of my work ethic from that of oppressed necessity to mutualistic opportunity, a change I never sought after.