January the 31st, 2025 – The Croatian company Stillvil has made the bold move of introducing a four-day work week. Will others follow?
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, it’s become quite difficult for many companies to find and keep hold of a good employee. This is made even more tricky when it comes to people who are somewhat narrowly specialised in a certain sector. These are the thoughts that played on the mind of Vanja Šuvak, the owner of the Croatian company Stillvil.
Out of a deep desire to further motivate his workers, he decided on a rather unusual move – the introduction of a four-day work week. Although there are companies in Croatia that practice this business model, they are few and far between, and mostly related to the IT sector. This is because employees in that line of work don’t have to be physically present at the workplace. In forklift services, which is what the Croatian company Stillvil is engaged in, it isn’t possible to work from home.
“We’d been thinking for a long time about what we could do to avoid idle time and increase efficiency, without burdening anyone. Of all the ideas that came to mind, the idea of shortening the work week by one day seemed somehow the best and most convenient. However, I didn’t know how to implement it, since all the examples of such a business that I came across were related to the IT sector or marketing, and we run a service that requires a person on site.
For a while, this idea bounced around in my mind, and then we found a model that, knock on wood, does work well. We’re divided into two teams, as due to the nature of the work, we have to work from Monday to Friday, so one team has the weekend and Monday off, and the other takes Friday and the weekend,” explained Šuvak.
“When we called our staff and told them that we were reducing the working week by one day, at first they thought that we were announcing salary cuts or layoffs. When they heard that we weren’t going to touch salaries, that we’d raised them a little, and that we were giving them one day off a week, they accepted it with enthusiasm,” he said. The results of this type of business model were quickly evident, employees would come to work satisfied, not late, there’s no idle time and endless breaks – even though they work a day less, efficiency levels are higher, which pleasantly surprised the owner, according to Večernji list.
“It’s clearly visible that people come to work with enthusiasm, nothing is really too much for them and it’s as if the organisation of the work itself has improved. In fewer days, we get more done, and that makes me very happy. The same can be said for the employees. That one day off allows them to devote themselves to the things they love and that make them happy.
Before, we used to have situations where lunch breaks lasted longer than planned, other frequent breaks were taken, and so on. Now that’s no longer the case, which means that with this move, we’ve managed to do two key things – we increased our efficiency without increasing the number of working hours and we ended up with satisfied employees,” stated Šuvak. This work system applies to the entire company, including the administration and the director, or owner himself.
“At first, it was strange for me to be off on Friday or Monday, but I quickly got used to the new, better situation. I have more time for my family, children and my passion – table tennis,” he concluded with a laugh.