I tried a 4-day workweek at my company and it failed — for some of my employees

As the CEO of a nearly 1,000-person workforce spread across 60+ countries, I thought a four-day workweek made sense for my company, so I tried it.

And it didn’t work.

Leading a globally distributed workforce means I’m constantly thinking about how and where people work.

In theory, the idea of a four-day workweek was aligned with how our company operated, and it seemed like a natural experiment.

Our employees already worked across different time zones, countries, and workweeks, and we’ve long believed people should be measured by what they deliver, not by how many hours they spend sitting at a desk.

The idea started from a simple premise: Could we give people more time back, create a better employee experience, and still deliver the same or better outcomes for our customers and the business? For several employees, that answer was a resounding yes.

However, as the experiment matured, I started to see that what felt flexible to one employee was restrictive to another.

The reality is that people’s jobs and personal circumstances are different.

Some employees loved the four-day structure, and some still work that way today.

For others, having everybody work the same four days wasn’t particularly flexible at all.

As we listened to our people and looked at how different teams and roles operated, it became apparent that the four-day workweek wasn’t working equally well for everyone.

We had changed the schedule, but we hadn’t necessarily created true flexibility.

If I tell you exactly when you have to be flexible, that’s not really flexibility.

We’d replaced one schedule with another.