The pandemic has had a huge impact on how we do business. Two years down the line from the first lockdown, we have finally emerged from the rubble of the ‘old ways’ into something new - and effective.
Necessity forced us to innovate, to accelerate and take brave, bold steps that we wouldn’t even have considered a couple of years ago. While it’s been frequently terrifying, now the dust has settled we can see that many of those bold moves have paid off.
In the middle of a pandemic, our bold move was to let 18 clients go, take our streamlined workforce completely remote and implement a four-day week.
We know it looked like madness to many, with little new work coming in and the ‘great resignation’ seeing staff leaving companies in their droves. But we looked at the work we were doing, reviewed what made money and - importantly - what made our staff excited.
We’re software development consultants, so leading projects, scoping and building products is where our hearts, brains and skills are at. Yet we still had some web design on the go, taking our time, energy and sapping enthusiasm.
They were great clients but after 10 years, we’d evolved. It was time to pass them on to other excellent city region tech businesses, who we knew would do an amazing job.
With our focus clear, we turned our attention to our staff, implementing regular virtual meetings and socials to keep us connected and supported. We saw existing consultancy projects extend and more new ones come in. We got excited, we innovated and we won more work.
Our four-day working week, while a huge change, wasn’t something we formally announced. In fact, our clients didn’t even notice because the team was delivering with even greater efficiency than before.
All these changes have improved our performance and mental wellbeing. A three-day weekend has provided the space in our brains to solve problems more effectively. We deliver the same outputs in less time, because we are well rested and more focused. We work less, live more and our business is thriving because of it.