Oracle MSP Rimini Street is introducing a four-day week

General manager EMEA Emma Hose claims the move will result in happier staff with no loss of productivity

Rimini Street formally introduced a four-day working week for all staff this month.

The company, which provides unified software support and services, primarily for enterprise software from SAP, Oracle and Salesforce, employs 1,900 people around the world, mostly senior engineers almost all of whom work from home.

During the pandemic, overwork and isolation meant that burnout became a problem. As well as typically working longer hours, most opportunities for employees to unwind had been shut down.

Last summer, as an experiment, the company introduced a scheme called "Fabulous Fridays" as a way of addressing the issue. Employees could take one working day off per week to do as they liked - so long as they were within reach of a phone and a laptop in case a customer had an emergency that only they could fix: Rimini Street's SLA commits it to 24/7 support with a 10-minute response time.

Despite the name, the off day doesn't have to be a Friday, said GVP & regional general manager EMEA Emma Hose. Indeed, the favoured day varies from country to country and the company needs to retain some residual capacity, but it's mostly organised between groups and in consultation with clients.

"There's been a tremendous enthusiasm for it," Hose said. "We were one of the first to do working from home, and now we're one of the first to do a four-day week. And actually, our clients keep asking how it's going and are interested in potentially trying it themselves."

Inspiration came from earlier experiments in New Zealand and the Nordics, "where they tend to be very innovative, including trials in the public sector," Hose said.

"Working from home sometimes can be quite isolating, and we always look at where to engage better with our colleagues."

Unsurprisingly, the scheme has proved popular with employees, but has it led to gaps in coverage? Hose insists there has been no loss of productivity or quality of delivery during the trial period, which is why the Rimini Street is making Fabulous Fridays official policy, as of this month.

The scheme applies to all employees, not just WFH engineers, and salaries and benefits remain unchanged.

"To be honest, they probably do the same work, it's just done over four days instead of five," said Hose. "We haven't changed the salary or their bonuses because the productivity has been great."

The scheme has also proved positive for hiring. The company grew last year by 17 per cent, according to its own figures, and experienced tech staff are still, despite the current round of layoffs in the sector, highly in demand and hard to find in many areas.

"We don't have a lot of juniors in our organisation because of the work that we do, so being able to provide this flexibility helps with retention, and it also helps us attract new talent."

While the four-day week is a good fit for Rimini Street, Hose said it might not be so successful for companies with a higher turnover.

"It's maybe not for everyone. We are lucky that we work with very mature people who know how to work and achieve their goal within a certain timeframe," she explained.