Medibank to trial 4-day work week

Australian insurance firm Medibank will be launching a four-day work week trial that aims to offer employees further flexibility while reducing their unproductive time.

The trial, which will last six months, will include more than 250 Medibank employees, including part-time staff and frontline customer teams.

The four-day work week will be based on the 100:80:100 model, where employees get 100% of their pay, reduce their working hours to 80%, while maintaining 100% productivity. This means one less workday for full-time staff, while it will be pro-rated for part-time employees.

Kylie Bishop, Medibank Group Lead – People, Spaces and Sustainability, said their goal isn't to create a compressed work week, but to give employees the opportunity to rethink waster or non-value-added work.

"Our hypothesis is that by creating the opportunity for even greater flexibility, our people and teams will adjust their way of working to improve the value of their outputs and reduce unproductive time," Bishop said in a statement.

"As a result, our people will be happier and healthier, and absenteeism and employee retention will improve. We think that's worth trying and learning from."

'The Gift' of time for Medibank employees

The trial has been dubbed by the organisation as "The Gift," referring to the gift of time granted to employees once the trial is in effect.

Medibank said employees will get the time to carry out activities that bring them joy in return for their effort to remove low-value work. These activities include more "more time for rest, family, friends, exercise, cooking and hobbies like gardening, music and golf."

Bishop said the company's "Gift" comes amid pressures faced by employees, including the cost-of-living crisis and work-life balance.

"We're constantly thinking about how we can help balance that for our people and invest in their health and wellbeing to help prevent issues like burnout," Bishop said. "We believe that by developing a creative and innovative culture within our organisation, we will be able to improve the experience for both our people and customers in the process."

The trial has been designed by the insurance firm with the 4 Day Week Global.

4-day week to be monitored by university

The scheme will be extensively and independently monitored by the Macquarie University's Health and Wellbeing Research Unit, Macquarie Business School.

The unit will utilise a range of employee and customer metrics, operational metrics, as well as employee health and wellbeing metrics to assess and refine the initiative over time.

Medibank's trial of a four-day work week adds it to the list of organisations implementing the arrangement amid strong demand across the world.

In fact, even the Senate Committee on Work and Care previously proposed the implementation of a four-day work week trial, which will be carried out across different sectors and locations in Australia.