Freedom Services Group launches 4-day week pilot

For full-time employees this will mean reducing to 34 hours over four days which equates to 8.5 hours from Monday-Thursday. Part-time employees will be able to cut their hours by the equivalent pro-rata amount.

Motor specialist Freedom consists of managing general agent Pukka, Freedom Brokers and claims management service Action 365. Its 190 employees are being given the choice of opting in or out every quarter. So far, 75% of employees have opted for the scheme.

In January 2022, Freedom’s Employee Engagement survey revealed a desire for more flexible working models that allowed a better work-life balance. In response seven employees were brought together to examine the feasibility of a four-day week.

Executive director of culture and engagement at Freedom, Chantel Emilius, commented: “Implementing the four-day week is part of an overall strategy to increase levels of engagement and performance across the group and is aligned with our core values.

“We believe that this initiative will prove beneficial to our employees’ happiness and wellbeing which in turn will have an equally positive impact on business productivity, customer experience, and recruitment and retention strategies.”

Promoted in interviews

The four-day week pilot has been promoted as an incentive at interview stage for Freedom’s recent recruitment campaigns which have seen 24 new starters join since April 2022.

The business detailed that the pilot will see incremental changes through Freedom’s operation to assist the adoption across the whole organisation as well as measure the impacts of the reduced hours. This includes individual development plans with measurable objectives for employees complemented by the implementation of workplace management and engagement tools such as SageHR and Reward Gateway.

Emilius explained: “Implementation of a four-day working week doesn’t happen overnight. To do this initiative correctly, we needed to ensure that not only do we have the buy-in of our staff at every level, but we also had the operational processes and tools that support the transition.”

Hybrid-approach

The pilot was developed considering the hybrid-approach implemented during lockdown, which deemed a success, according to Freedom.

Emilius told Insurance Age: “Monday to Friday just doesn’t work for people anymore. People want a different way of working and the hybrid approach definitely works for us and that’s something off the back of lockdown. We said to all our employees you get to choose where you work. You’ve been effective enough working from home for two years now you’ve got the choice.”

Emilius was appointed to her role at Freedom in January 2022, she joined with the four-day work plan in mind.

She commented: “Upon my appointment, my first question was a four-day working week. There was already talk of it because I know a lot of Scandinavian countries had rolled it out and adopted that way of working.

“The past six months I’ve been busy in the background with all our senior leadership team working on this to launch as a pilot. It took quite a while to get to the point where we are now, because it’s just a lot of work to do in the background.

“By offering the four-day working week it enables people to spend time with family and do things that makes them happy, and then the four days they’re working, they’re bringing their best versions of themselves.”

Customer service

Emilius highlighted that Freedom’s customer service must be running seven days a week.

She said: “There will be a shift pattern, staff will get different days off each week. We’ve done a six-month commitment. We try to be a flexible as we can if a staff member requests a certain day. It just takes a little bit more planning in the insurance industry.

“We’ve been working on our tech and live chat, so we’re offering different avenues of communication with customers. We don’t want to impact the customer. We’ve had weekly meetings to map out what days staff get off.”

Freedom has planned out objectives to reach in order for the pilot to be a success.

Emilius concluded: “Already it’s showing that productivity has increased. We’ve got objectives to work towards and we keep track of data. We want to ensure that it is a success.”

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