As banks around the world struggle to find the right balance between flexibility and authority over their employees, the CEO of British digital bank Atom has a simpler solution: eliminate the fifth working day.
talk to Financial Times, Atom chief executive Mark Mullen said the bank’s landmark four-day working week, introduced in 2021, was “significantly less onerous” than the clunky hybrid policies being rolled out across many of the world’s biggest companies.
To prove his point, Mullen points to lower attrition and a clean bill of health for his employees, in addition to the bank’s freshly secured profits.
Atom’s four-day week
In 2021, Atom introduced a four-day week for its then 430 employees. Contract hours were to be reduced by 3.5 hours to 34 hours per week, while employee wages remained the same.
In addition to the four-day week, Atom’s 547 employees are now free to work from anywhere as part of the bank’s flexible policy, with no mandatory days in the office.
Mullen says this incredibly loose structure has benefited day-to-day operations.
“During four days of work, we planned shifts, planned changes, consulted on changes to employment contracts… [Y]you have a resource model that will ensure your business…[T]that didn’t happen with flexible work,” Mullen said FT.
These benefits contrast with mandated back-to-the-office days under the hybrid structure, which Mullen said could make managers “scared to ask their employees to come back to the office” while encouraging “rebelliousness” among employees.
By introducing a four-day week in 2021, Mullen said he had “demonstrated that work practices that may have seemed years away can be implemented quickly.
Since then, says Mullen, attrition and sickness rates have fallen at the bank, matching findings from the world’s largest pilot of a four-day working week, which took place in the UK in 2022.
Founded in 2013, Atom posted its first-ever profit last year, earning £7 million ($8.9 million).
Banks are breaking up
Banks around the world are scaling back flexible working policies introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
New US regulatory policies have forced banks in the States to bring their employees back to the office five days a week. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said employees who do not want to return to the office should seek alternative employment.
Other banks are struggling to roll out the new hybrid policy, often with clumsy results.
In February, Deutsche Bank introduced a restrictive telecommuting policy that prohibits employees from working remotely on Fridays followed by Mondays. Most Deutsche employees have to work three days in the office, while CEOs have to be on site four days a week.
However, DBV union president Stephan Szukalski told Bloomberg that the policy faced “tremendous opposition among employees,” confirming CEO Atom Mullen’s fears of a revolt.
Atom’s case is the latest example of some European banks going the opposite way to their American counterparts.
Mike Regnier, chief executive of Santander UK, has taken on his $4.2 million role at Britain’s fifth-biggest bank only on the condition that he does not have to work five days a week from the company’s London headquarters.
This allowed Regnier to continue living in Harrogate, about 200 miles from Santander’s UK headquarters.
“I wouldn’t want to be away from home in London five days a week.” That wouldn’t be good for the family or me,” Regnier said guardian.