Rimini Street has introduced a four-day working week for all staff this month.
General manager EMEA Emma Hose claims the move will result in happier staff with no loss of productivity
The company, which provides unified software support and services, primarily for enterprise software from SAP, Oracle and Salesforce, employs 1,900 people worldwide, mostly senior engineers who mostly work from home.
Last summer 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.
The off day doesn’t have to be a Friday, said GVP & regional general manager EMEA Emma Hose.
Hose said that staff were particularly enthusiastic.
“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 our clients keep asking how it’s going and are interested in potentially trying it themselves,” she said.
The scheme applies to all employees 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.
