Our 9-Day Fortnight ‘Perk Day’: What We Learned from our 1-year trial and its implementation! 

Over the last year and a half, we have trialled and implemented a new way of working here at QueryClick: our 9-day fortnight perk day policy! 
 
We have since reflected on how the trial went, what we learned trialling it, and how it became an ongoing addition to QC’s flexible working policies. 

To find out more about the initial stages of the 9-day fortnight trial read our blog: How We’re Making the 4 Day Week Work For Us. 

What is QueryClick’s 9-day ‘Perk Day’ policy? 

Our 9-day fortnight is an alternative flexible working policy to the traditional 5-day week.

Instead of working a traditional 5-day work week every single week, our team can work for 9 days and receive the 10th day off as a ‘Perk Day’. This ‘Perk Day’ is available to all team members on completing their work, with no impact on their pay and benefits package. 

Why did we do it? 

We are committed to ensuring our team feel heard and that they feel trusted to deliver excellent performance to our clients. That’s why we are always pushing ourselves to challenge the norms and to find new and innovative ways of working. 

Following the successes of our remote-first policy implementation, and a desire to have some deep conversations about how we work, we decided to look at ways we can continue to improve our flexible working practices. 

Offering flexibility for our team is important to us, to support their work-life balance while also ensuring, as a business, we continue to attract and retain the best talent (this is further backed up by a recent CIPD report and proposed legislation changes). 

So, we sat down and explored options, and that’s how the 9-day fortnight ‘Perk Day’ came to be!  

How did we do it? 

It was vital to us that we implemented this trial with minimal disruption to our ways of working, and that we continued to provide excellent levels of service to our clients.  

We began with an initial 3-month trial to assess how it would work for us which, following completion, we then extended to a full year. 

The core elements of our trial policy were: 

• No impact to pay or annual leave. 
• Working hours would remain the same, so no expectation to work condensed hours.  
• The ‘Perk Day’ would be every second Friday and couldn’t be swapped. 

We recognised that the success of the trial would depend on the entire team’s commitment and contribution towards it. To achieve this, we agreed on success criteria with our managers and team members. 

This included: 

• Having a responsibility to manage our own time to deliver on expected outputs across the fortnight.  
• Working efficiently as a team to take the fortnightly Friday off, this required everyone to commit to effective meetings, focus time, and looking at where we can make efficiencies in our processes.  
• Monitoring any impact on stress levels throughout the process of transition to this new way of working.  
• Managers reported on our success metrics monthly and made positive changes in team ways of working.  

Post-trial: What we learnt 

What went well? 

We surveyed our team each month to monitor how the 9-day fortnight trial was impacting their wellbeing as well as their ability to complete work. 

Upon completion of the trial, it was clear to see that it had an incredibly positive impact. 

Key quantitative post-trial results include: 

• 9.57/10 for ‘working 9 days has had a positive impact on my wellbeing’. 
• 9.27/10 for ‘having the capacity to deliver work within 9 days vs 10 days‘. 

We also had some great qualitive results: 

• Our team productivity metrics were maintained and not affected vs pre-trial.  
• We maintained our customer delivery and service levels.  
• Our team felt able to complete work efficiently within 9 days and provided feedback on how it positively impacted their work life balance and wellbeing.  Some of our team members were able to take up new personal development courses, were able to spend more time with family and some used the time for pursuing new hobbies   

What did we learn? 

Like with the introduction of any new policy into a business, there are always learning curves. 

Here are a few things we learnt: 

• Early in the trial, we realised the importance of having the right success metrics that can be effectively measured. 
• The importance of continuing to monitor overtime hours and sickness leave to make sure a new way of working wasn’t impacting team members stress levels. 
• Consideration into how new ways of working will work alongside existing benefits packages. 
• Working more efficiently can impact having the time to build social relationships together as a team, so we factored in time for team stand-ups and quarterly in-person team meet ups in person to achieve this balance.

So, what’s next? 

Following the success of our trial, we were pleased to continue with our ‘Perk Day- 9-day fortnight and have now made it a continuous part of our working policies at QueryClick! 

We’re delighted by the positive team feedback in response to our trial and after a few tweaks, are now comfortably operating with it as a part of how we work. 

As with any new way of working, we will continue to review how it is working for us, and receive regular feedback from our team, for new elements we can incorporate! 

How some of our team spend their ‘Perk Days’

“I had the best perk day last Friday, enjoying the great outdoors on a farm pumpkin, carrot and raspberry picking. Quality family time which is so precious. Thank you QC.“

Jackie Wakefield, SEO Lead

“We managed to take the kids to Chester Zoo, get up to the Lake District for my birthday treat/running session and take the kids deer spotting in Dunham Massey”

Pete Allcock, Senior Software Sales Executive

“I often use my Perk Day to spend some valuable time with my dog, Buddy, who loves getting to run around on the beach!”

Julie Molloy, Head Of Marketing

9-day fortnight FAQs 

Have you reduced salary for employees?  

No, our salaries have not changed, and we still review these annually.   

How does the 9-day fortnight impact annual leave entitlement?  

There is no impact on annual leave entitlement.  We just ask team members to manage their time and only take a perk day if working more than 50% of their week or Part time equivalent.  This is so we don’t overwhelm team members who are working when others are off.  

Can you opt-out of the 9-day fortnight?  

All team members will be part of the scheme after their first 3 weeks with us as we are inclusive to all.  We also don’t want our teams to feel guilty for taking their perk day but if anyone really didn’t want to take part it’s not contractually obliged and can discuss with line manager.