Crash celebrates four-day working week

Northern Ireland-based repairer Crash has celebrated two years since introduction a four-day working week without wages being reduced.

It launched the four-day week in 2020, reducing working hours from 35 hours to 28 hours.

Jonathan McKeown, CEO, said: “When we launched the project in summer 2018, there was real excitement within the team. We have been in operation for over 25 years and we have always wanted to offer the best working environment and employee benefits package, so our staff were reassured this was not about cost-cutting.

“Staff wellbeing has also never been as important than this year, with the new challenge that Covid-19 has brought. Thankfully, the groundwork we put into our working practices since 2018 ensured we were able to cope with the challenges the restrictions brought.”

Michelle Murphy, head of operations and HR, said: “When we first launched this project in 2018 we knew there was a lot of preparation to do before we could implement the new working patterns. We set our teams the task of reviewing every working practice, encouraging every person to look at their individual role and ask what was inefficient.

“This has been an insightful process and they have eliminated some parts, streamlined other processes and used technology to make time savings. These suggestions were then documented before being reviewed by the management team with the vast majority of the recommendations being implemented.”