Invest Blue’s productivity boon from 9-day fortnight

Nearly 18 months since Invest Blue adopted its nine-day fortnight structure to support employee wellbeing, it has enjoyed positive results across all success measures.

In February last year, the national advice firm first launched a nine-day fortnight pilot to enhance the health and productivity of its staff, at a cost of $1.9 million annually.

The structure gave half of the business every second Friday off, with the other half working in the office and vice versa the following week. Staff retained their current working hours on existing days and salaries stayed the same, ultimately giving full-time employees an extra 26 days off per year.

Following the six-month trial, the nine-day approach was formally implemented in the business and has been running for nearly 18 months in total. The firm has more than 400 staff including 125 financial advisers throughout its 36 rural, coastal and city locations in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, the ACT and Tasmania.

Kasey Patterson, head of people and culture at Invest Blue, spoke with Money Management to reflect on the success of the initiative since they first took the “leap of faith” one-and-a-half years ago.

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“We set key measures of success that we wanted to monitor over the trial period, all of which trended in a positive direction, which was an outcome that we were looking for.

“After the six-month period, we implemented it as an ongoing people benefit. After 12 months, all the metrics were looking the right way which included quantitative metrics as well as a survey we did asking our staff about morale, motivation and work/life balance,” she explained.

The notable benefits born from the initiative have ranged from strong financial results to increased productivity levels and record-high engagement rates, Patterson observed.

“We just finished the 2023–24 financial year and had our best financial results ever as a business. We still retained high client trust scores and had record-high people engagement scores over the last 18 months. When we look at it on the strategic levers, they’re all positive.

“On a micro-level looking at client meetings per adviser, that’s trended upwards even though people are working 10 per cent less each fortnight. Personal leave taken has also decreased. When we look at task completion, tasks per role have increased as well – so people are being more productive in less time.”

Moreover, the positive impacts have extended to the company’s recruitment team. Since including the additional 26 health and wellbeing days in role openings, Invest Blue has seen spiked interest levels from job applicants.

The head of people and culture added: “For us, it’s been a really positive experience, which has come down to the way that we’ve structured it.”

Client impact

Invest Blue’s initiative was also designed to have no disruptions or negative impacts on the client side of operations, Patterson said.

The advice firm works in small teams of six to eight staff in each of its 36 offices. With half the business working on any given Friday, this ensures clients can still contact a relationship manager or adviser.

“We didn’t want clients to be impacted. The way we’re structured is each of our offices needs to have a relationship manager and a financial adviser in the office every Friday, so if a client rings there’s obviously a person there to answer the phone or greet them. It may not be that person’s financial adviser on that day, but if there’s anything that needs advice, there will be someone with that expertise to answer.”

Employee impact

Noting that overall productivity has increased despite employees working one less day per fortnight, Patterson boiled this down to the flow-on benefits of greater work/life balance.

“I really do feel that a Friday off per fortnight gives people the opportunity to refill their cup in terms of doing things that give them energy and motivation, so that when they come back to the next work week, they are feeling better in themselves to then be more productive during the week,” she remarked.

“The feedback we’ve received is that because you’re out an extra day and you’re conscious of it, you’re more focused on achieving what you need to do so that you can enjoy the Friday off and not have to think about work.”

Research assessing the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on the workforce continue to underscore flexibility and greater work/life balance as a key driver of staff retention. Robert Half recently found that over 60 per cent of Australian employees crave a four-day work week while retaining their current salary, and 93 per cent of Australian employers aim to implement new flexible benefits for their staff this year.

Looking ahead, Patterson said Invest Blue would continue evaluating the markers of success to ensure the initiative was not having a negative impact on clients or staff.

She concluded: “It’s been really successful; I don’t see it going away. I’m proud to be a part of a business that is traditional in nature, but has taken on board the research across the world that people value flexibility. By giving staff some time off, it really does improve their health and wellbeing which then improves their productivity at work.”