A CEO tried a four-day week—but stopped after employees were secretly working Fridays

When Austin-based workforce management company Safeguard Global piloted a four-day workweek in 2023, the goal was to improve recruitment and retention. After initially looking like a success, however, the experiment ran into problems. Some employees often worked late to preserve Friday as an off day. Others used Friday to secretly catch up on work. And some who strictly adhered to a four-day schedule felt like they were falling behind. It was “not the culture we wanted to create,” Safeguard Global CEO and founder Bjorn Reynolds recently told Fortune. Safeguard Global has since pivoted to giving its roughly 1,000 workers the option to choose their own working hours and days, which Reynolds described as a culture of “freedom and choice.” “Choose the hours that fit best for the work product you need,” he said. “If you can do that in four days, great; if you do it in five [days], but you’re taking two half days, whatever works for you.” In recent years, the four-day workweek has moved from a fringe idea to a serious workplace experiment, joining return-to-office mandates and flexible work among the most hotly debated issues in the post-pandemic workplace. Supporters point to evidence …