UK cloud firm Civo moving to four-day working week

It comes after they trialled the move late last year

Civo has confirmed its permanent move to a four-day working week following a successful trial across the business.

The cloud native service provider trialled less working days in late 2021 and deemed it to be a "great success".

As a result, employees will now work a new week of 34 hours - reduced from 36 hours.

This shift will mean Civo teams will be able to work 8.5 hour days across the four-day work week.

Staff will also be able to work these hours across a five-day week, should that approach work best for them.

Founded in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, in 2019, Civo bills itself as a community-led cloud platform focussing purely on Kubernetes. Its CEO, Mark Boost previously founded hosting company LCN.com before it was sold in 2019.

The firm's platform came out of beta in May 2021 and went on to raise $2m in seed funding that following September led by Softbank-backed THG Ingenuity.

Ian Banks, site reliability engineer at Civo, said: "Having an extra day off really helps to alleviate pressures from inside and outside work.

"I can spend more time with my kids, get on with chores that could previously take up a whole Saturday or go for a walk and decompress. I would not be surprised to see a reduced work week become the norm in the not-so-distant future."

Throughout Civo's trial of the four-day week, the company measured and assessed how a shorter working week impacted both its employees' well-being and business operations.

It said the team "widely embraced" the move, with the flexible way of working supporting both "continued retention and attraction of new staff".

Mark Boost, CEO of Civo, said "The experience of the last two years has changed how businesses think about the needs of employees forever. Looking after employee welfare and mental health is no longer seen as a ‘nice-to-have', but a fundamental aspect of a successful business model, and rightly so.

"Our adoption of the four-day work week came from the belief that by streamlining the working week, we could create a more productive and ultimately more successful organisation. I have been thrilled to see Civo staff embrace this flexible way of working.

"Teams are more engaged and motivated, and crucially from a business perspective, we have seen no drop in the quality of work delivered. I am excited to see the company make the permanent shift to a four-day week and look forward to the business continuing to scope out new and flexible ways of working."

In the coming months, Civo's four-day working week will be added to with trials of other flexible working policies.

It said in the first instance it is trialling uncapped employee holidays and evaluating the impact of this policy for staff.

Boost added: "The uncapped holiday trial is a core part of our belief in the opportunities created by flexible working. As long as you get your job done, and it doesn't impact the team or our customers, you should be able to take whatever holiday you feel is appropriate."