The nine day fortnight and 26 extra days off a year: how it works in reality

As Scotland plans to trial a four-day working week, discussions about work-life balance have flooded social media.

This often-passionate debate coincides with ongoing talk about what a post-Covid ‘return to work’ looks like, with many organisations using this transitionary period to overhaul their policies and rethink how, where, and when their teams work.

While we’re not a four-day agency, we do offer our team a nine day fortnight (9DF), and it’s safe to say, we (and the Gods of productivity) bloody love it.

What is a nine day fortnight?

Simply put, you work the same amount of hours, but condensed over nine days instead of 10. For example, instead of working 8am – 4pm, you work 8am – 4:45pm. Every other Friday is then your own lovely day off!

Those on the scheme at Reason Digital are split into two teams; A and B. Team A takes the first Friday off, and B the next. That way, every role or department in the organisation always has a contactable representative on Fridays.

The scheme means we can offer the team 26 more days off per year without affecting our business model or productivity, which is awesome!

The lightbulb moment: Why we started 9DF

What feels like 3,000 years ago – back in 2018 – we were reviewing our employee package; looking at what benefits we offered compared to other organisations. Which could we adopt? And which were out of the question?

During that time, our co-founders Ed and Matt were floating the idea of a four-day week for the team at Reason Digital. Dreamy, right? Whilst we explored this idea in a bit more detail we had to consider that as an agency, ultimately, we sell time. To move to this structure would change our operating model completely, causing disruption for our charity partners. It also would affect our pricing model due to reduced resources – something we were keen to avoid. 

So the nine day fortnight concept emerged from that middle ground. It provided some of the benefits of a four day week, without reducing capacity, work quality, or client happiness.

The impact of the 9DF

Concern over whether extending the working day would have a negative effect on the team’s wellbeing made us tread cautiously, so we avoided a full-steam-ahead implementation of the 9DF.

We ran a pilot for three months with team volunteers who gave the scheme a try, fully aware that it was purely a pilot.

But long-term 9DF plans were quickly realised. The worry we had around the impact of a longer day was outweighed by the benefits. Productivity actually increased slightly and pilot volunteers reported the mental health benefits that come from having an additional day off every fortnight.

9DF became a permanent, opt-in feature at Reason Digital in early 2019. 

From then on, it’s been slightly difficult to measure the long-term impact. We’ve had the minor inconvenience of a pandemic, and all the workplace changes that brings. There’s a haziness between what’s happening as a result of 9DF, what’s happening as a result of remote work, and what’s happening as a result of everything else the world has dealt with since 2019.

Here to stay

As our team has said, it would be incredibly difficult to move back to a regular five-day week. The nine day fortnight has made us more productive, more flexible, and most importantly – happier.

We’re proud to say that our team’s wellbeing is our top priority and since we can offer this benefit without negatively affecting our projects, we don’t feel like we’ll be ditching 9DF anytime soon!

Finally starting that gardening project, making new music, taking on an all-day hike, meeting with friends who work weekends, or simply recharging and owning that role of couch potato; We love hearing what our colleagues use their 9DFs for. What would you do with 26 extra days off a year?