Adam Hart juggles leading his team of seven staff in a growing business with the demands of raising two young children.
It’s a full-time job, which is why he does it only four days a week.
“It wasn’t that long ago where my wife and I would be having conversations about the fact I wouldn’t really see the kids,” he says.
“I’d leave just as they were waking up, to go into the office in the city — I live in the southern suburbs it takes an hour and a bit to get into town — and by the time I’d get home they’re either in bed or pretty close to being in bed.
Mr Hart is part of an experiment that could reshape the Australian working week and potentially reduce our rapidly rising rates of unemployment and under-employment.
Recruitment firm Beaumont People began a pre-pandemic trial with nearly 50 staff across offices in Sydney and the regional centre of Byron Bay, reducing the working week to four days but maintaining the same salaries and requiring the same productivity.
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When management asked staff to work out how to compress their working week into four days instead of five, Mr Hart found a simple solution: follow the example of women who had returned to the workforce after having children.
“We’ve been learning from the people in our business,” he says.
“Many of those were the return-to-work mums who know how to do this stuff really, really well in three days or four days and have been doing it for years … they’re some of the highest performing, productive people I’ve ever come across.
“So asking them about how they do it, how they st