After adopting a hybrid schedule during the pandemic, the 17-person team at James Thomas Interiors in Chicago had lost its groove. To get it back, the firm’s co-founders, Tom Riker and James Dolenc, decided to implement a radical new structure: the four-day workweek. The goal was to give staffers more agency over their time, boosting productivity and employee retention in the process. Here, Dolenc explains how you can do it too.

At our firm, we feel that time is the most precious gift of all, and one that our team really appreciates. We offer a sabbatical for team members who have been with us for 10 years or longer, so they get a paid month off where they can spread their wings and forget about James Thomas Interiors. Time is just a huge asset, especially for our younger staff—which is why we started mulling over the idea of a four-day workweek.

It all stemmed from the pandemic. Like most firms, we were remote for a good portion of the time, and then when we came back, we had a hybrid schedule. Everybody was working from home on Fridays, and a handful of senior people also worked remotely on Mondays. That schedule was mostly left over from Covid, with some of the moms in our firm needing more time at home with the kids, and some of our senior team members requesting more flexibility. For most of 2022 and 2023, we had only three days per week where the entire studio was in the office.