The 4 day work week

Andy
Hell yeah.

Ange
Hey, before we get into today’s show, why don’t you come and meet Andy and I in person at Lifestyle Tradie Live this September. 

Andy
There is a better way to run a trade business if you know the right structure and systems. Register now at lifestyletradie.com.au to get your free ticket. 

Ange
Yes, we’re coming to a capital city near you. This is an event for every trade business owner who wants to implement systems to their business, change chaos to control, get back their time and make more profit. 

Andy
With the ever changing economy and the interest rate rises, there has never been a more important time to get your business structure right. Go on, you know you deserve more freedom. Now, let’s get on with the episode. Hello and thank you for joining us on The Tradie Show this week. Ange, I get the feeling lots of trade business owners will be all ears with this podcast topic. It’s all through the media at the moment and somewhat controversial when it comes to the trade industry and I am talking about, drum roll, the 4-day work week.

Ange
Yes, somewhat controversial. I know our Lifestyle Tradie membership community is on fire with questions and interest about reshaping the traditional trade business work week, basically trying to attract and retain team members by offering a far better work life balance.

Andy
And it feels like forever. The trade businesses have been operated between 7am and 3:30pm Monday to Friday, often with weekend or emergency work too. But in the post COVID era, with a new generation of workers coming through, more people are asking why? And is this the right way to operate a trade business? There’s no industry mandate to stick with this work week.

Ange
Yeah, but it is the same old story. Some of us just get stuck in the mindset that this is the way it’s always been. So why change something that isn’t broken?

Andy
And I guess that’s the point. I think as business owners, we need to be aware of what’s happening around us all the time and to think outside the box about how we can do things better. And this topic is definitely one of them. The traditional working week. What does that even mean?

Ange
Hmm. Good question. What does it even mean? What is important to note is that we’re certainly not saying that this will be the new way for all trade business owners to operate, but I do think it’s important that we talk about how it could work and hence the benefits. It could actually be better for some trade business owners in more ways than you can imagine.

Andy
This is exactly what our guests on the show today have done. Tom and Jamie Dale from J&T Dale Plumbing have been members with Lifestyle Tradie for 18 months and they’ve reshaped the work week in their plumbing business. They’re based in Shoalhaven region of New South Wales.

Ange
Welcome to The Tradie Show, Tom and Jamie. Thanks for being with us to share some insight on what you’ve done in your business and what You’ve learned along the way.

Andy
Yes. Welcome boys. It’s so great to have you today. I’m really looking forward to chatting to you both.

Tom
Thanks for having us, Andy and Ange really stoked to be on the podcast.

Jamie
Yeah. Great to be part of the show. 

Andy
Awesome. Awesome. Just to set the scene for our listeners. Can you tell us a little bit about your business, like where you are based and the style of work and also how big your team is? 

Tom
So Jamie and I are brothers. We’re based in the Shoalhaven region. As Andy said, we’ve got a team of 22, including ourselves, and we’re purely based in the home service industry within plumbing and electrical.

Andy
Yeah. And you guys are absolutely killing it. I’m just going to have to say, I’m looking at you guys, two good looking roosters right there.  So around about 18 months ago, you guys implemented the four and a half day work week into your business at J&T Dale Plumbing. What prompted you guys to implement this into your work?

Jamie
Well, we really just wanted to have a point of difference for recruitment as well as retention. And also, you know, everyone in the workplace these days wants flexibility and it offers the teams some flexibility as well.

Andy
And do you find that it works better for the younger generation or the older generation or for every generation?

Jamie
Look, I really think it works well for everyone. So, the younger guys that might not have kids, they’re just going off, they’re, they’re going camping, surfing in the snow this time of year. And then the older people, uh, that work in the company, they’re able to go and pick the kids up or go, you know, do things with kids on a Friday afternoon, have a little bit of a long weekend. So, it works, and works really good for all ages.

Ange
So, to help us grasp exactly how this works inside your business, can you take us through what the structure looks like of a typical work week?

Tom
So the typical work week, we the four and a half day work week. So there’s the spread of the hours, Monday to Thursday and we do start at 6:30 AM to 3:30 PM.   And then Friday is 6:30 to 11:00 AM, The office team does stay a little bit later than that. Um, and then we still have our after hour service, which we rotate through the team, which works quite effectively and it’s been really good.

Andy
So guys, you, you’re doing the four and a half day work week. So let’s explain how the emergency works, how does that all work? I mean, during the week at nights and also on the weekends.

Tom
So I’ve got an on-call roster. So the guys are on that, it probably rotates about eight to 10 weeks, the guys are on call.  They go on call from Monday to Monday. So if anything does come in after hours through the week, including after 11 o’clock, we booked that as an after hours call and the on-call tech will just go to that as normal. We also have someone from the office that has the phone during after hours and that Friday afternoon. So they’re still available to pick the phone up and deal with any customer interactions that are needed and roster any jobs that need to happen after hours as well.

Ange
So I’m sure every listener is probably thinking, so do you pay your boys the same doing a four and a half day week as you would have if they were doing five? The pay structure stayed the same? 

Tom
Yeah, the pay structure is the same because they’re still meeting their hours with the spread of hours doing 6:30 to 3:30 to 4 days and then 6:30 to 11. So the pay structure is still the same. It’s just the spread of hours that are different that allows the guys to be able to knock off at 11 o’clock on Friday.

Ange
So are the boys doing any overtime after those hours? 

Tom
Yeah, there is still overtime. There is still general overtime if a job, um, you know, you know, it’s like in the home service industry, we can’t just get our tools at 3:30 and leave the water meter turned off. So there is still overtime that does happen, but that is the normal spread of hours. We work very hard on Friday morning to get everyone finished by 11 a. m. And that’s been a major part of the cultural shift there. So say a team finishes at 10 or 10:30 they know that they’re knocking off then they’ll actually ask our dispatcher. They’ll say, look, how are the other guys going? Can I drive over and assist or keep them here to get out of that job at 11 o’clock?

Ange
Wow.

Tom
It’s really well, that team culture is huge. It’s really cool.

Ange
I can imagine they’d be all super motivated and really head down to be on site immediately on time so that they can finish on time.

Jamie
Yeah, they are. And, they’re all good mates. And a lot of them are mates outside of work as well, going to the sun and going surfing and stuff like that. So they all want to make sure that everyone’s finished.

Andy
Well, they’re all hanging out with each other. So there’s no finishing by yourself.

Ange
Well, especially on the way to the snow ride, they’ll be like, dude, I’m like in my car at 11:15. If you’re not in my car, boy, you’re not coming with me.

Andy
We are out of there. And, and you know what, boys, I’ve always said this, when Dr. Drip was at its very, very best is when we had a culture like that. They’re all mates who hung out with each other, traveled with each other. There’s no doubt. So that’s really good to hear that you guys have done that. So how did you introduce these to your team? Like when you first had this idea, did you just go, okay, boys, we’re doing this and jump straight in, or did you do a  trial first? How did it all come about?

Tom
We didn’t do a trial as such, but we did come up with the idea with the leadership team within the office and really just wanted to improve our culture and the whole team sort of win with it. Initially, Jamie and I thought, okay, well, potentially maybe the bosses have the Friday off or something like that, but we really wanted to, which is awesome, but we really wanted to combine the whole team with it. So we’re all working towards a common goal, hence a four and a half day work week. So we did introduce it to the team. We have fortnightly talk boxes and then sort of like a monthly team barbecue. So we did introduce it to the team for their opinions and thoughts about it.

Ange
I highly doubt they’d push back.

Tom
Definitely didn’t push back. And then we, we just jumped straight into it and it’s been successful from there.

Ange
So how big is your leadership team to have agreed that this is something that you need to consider for the business at large?

Tom
So the core leadership team is probably four of us at this stage. So that’s usually a little bit of the brain struts. And then we involve the team once it passed the pub test.

Ange
And considering. Everyone leaves work at 11 o’clock on a Friday. Do the two of you, and perhaps these other people in your leadership team, end up finding that you’re staying back and doing additional work because you’ve allowed the rest of the team to go? Or do you see yourselves taking that from 11 o’clock, you’re all out of the building?

Jamie
We usually stay till around one o’clock or 12:30 just to have that overlay just so we’re finalizing the week and then occasionally the team might finish on the field at 12 o’clock. So it just gives us that little bit of lead time there and sets us up for Monday as well.

Andy
And if you had any pushback from customers, obviously as a rule of thumb, most after hours starts from say 3:30 or four o’clock every day and then weekdays and then on the weekend, your after hours starts from 11 o’clock on a Friday, right?

Tom
So the customers, we don’t charge the customers after hours on the Friday between 11 and four.  We just carry that as the company and once it clicks over, then we go into it.

Andy
Yeah. That’s awesome. And do you find that, you know, and I know all the boys want to come and help and that, but obviously if you are on a job and you, you’ve sold some additional work, is it just like midweek that if you sell a lot of additional work, you just take a deposit and then we just book it in for a day next week? Or how do you do that with your team?

Jamie
Yeah, look, we try and schedule it pretty well so that if it’s not feasible to get it done by 11 o’clock with the team and the resources we’ve got, we’ll take a deposit and we’ll return next week. We really do try and stick to that at 11am as that weekly reward so that everyone can know that we start working hard on Monday. And we’re, we’re working for this 11:00 AM weekly reward. So we do try and keep it a bit sacred as much as we can. I mean, it’s the home service industry. So like I say, things can happen, things can arise you, you can’t foresee. But, um, we really do try and stick to the 11:00 AM, Andy.

Ange
I’m curious to know if you are in that situation on Friday and you do end up doing this or sell these additional work or whatever, and you know, the boys perhaps should stick around or now you’ve actually registered rostered or on for next week. Do you actually tell the customer, Hey, our company, you know, everyone leaves at 11 o’clock. We really support the team. I hope that’s okay. We’re actually going to book your job for next week. Do you actually verbalize that to a customer so that they’re clear about how your business operates?

Tom
We do. So there’s just that complete transparency. And then the majority of the customers completely understand. And sometimes we find that too. It’s a customer’s Friday afternoon as well.  They don’t necessarily want the tradies around at their house at that time, like they’re getting in their afternoon or they might be ducking off along the weekend. So we found the best way is just to be transparent about it, communicate it, and then we’d probably booked in for Monday and get the job done.

Ange
Perfect. I could imagine that your customers would be actually super supportive of the fact that you as a business are actually conscious of how your team is operating. So I can imagine that they would embrace that if you’re really open about it. So in implementing this four and a half day work week, have you had any teething problems at the beginning that you’ve had to perhaps iron out?

Jamie
Now, look, really, everyone has been pretty on board. When we put it to the guys, we did sort of say to them, look, if there’s a team that’s on a bigger job, we’re going to require everyone sort of getting onto that job. So if you finish at 10, you’re probably going to get asked, Hey, we’re going to have to go and help these guys finish off a solar hot water system installation. We thought that we’d have to say that and really teach and coach the guys along with that. They just took that and ran with it. So from the first week, When they knock off, they just ring and it’s 10:30. You guys are done for the week. The first thing that they say is like, okay, awesome. Is there anyone else that needs a hand? So there hasn’t really been too many tweaks. The guys have really just taken it and ran.

Tom
I think Jamie hit the nail on the head earlier, Andy and Ange with that weekly reward. I think that the biggest key to it is everybody’s working towards that common goal and that weekly reward for Friday. And it’s amazing, even I know myself, you feel like you’ve got a long weekend by Sunday afternoon or Saturday afternoon, you come through and it’s like, Oh, it’s only Saturday afternoon, I’ve still got Sunday.

Ange
That’s so good.

Andy
So you’ve been doing this for around 18 months now. So I’d love to know how it’s impacted your team with retention and also how has profitability been within the business in regards to this as well?

Jamie
In regards to our profitability and our productivity across the week, we’ve just been increasing and increasing and increasing. So it hasn’t affected that at all. If anything, I think it’s brought that common goal again, and I’ll go back to that, is just to get everything done within that week to a high standard. The team’s smiling, happy, and I really do feel like that’s retained our current team as well.

Andy
So you feel like that half a day that everyone says has off really has changed everyone’s mindset to such a point that even starting on Monday, they’re starting fresh, they’re in zoos. So everything is just running so much smoother and so much better. No one’s whinging, moaning, complaining that it’s getting the job done, making the money and moving on. And you’re just finding that it’s just being seamless and it’s been a huge change. Huge? Little?

Jamie
Yeah. Huge change.

Andy
Huge change. Wow. Wow. That’s great. And how does the team in regards to retention and actually bringing more staff to your business, like they’re all mates. So I’m assuming some of these guys may have worked together in different other places and all like, has that helped in any way getting people to the door?

Tom
So we have recruited some really good team members of late, which is awesome. Our team at the moment, it’s unreal. We’ve got an awesome team and they really all just do being together. And, yeah, the retention has just been very successful. And of course it is a great sales pitch when you’re talking to guys that want to come on board. It’s a great sales pitch to be able to say we have a 4. 5 day working week.

Andy
Oh yeah. And are there any other trade businesses in your, I don’t know many trade businesses doing it. So I’m assuming there’s none in your area. Is that fair in saying?

Tom
To our knowledge, there isn’t any doing exactly what we’re doing. And it’s, it is at large quite a difference just looking after the team and we’re all humans at the end of the day. We all want the same thing. So why doesn’t everybody benefit?

Andy
I will say, I do know quite a few companies that are doing it, but they’re more in the construction space. They’re not in the home services, the maintenance space, right? Everyone’s always afraid and when we hear about these four day work weeks and these Four and a half day work weeks. It’s like, Oh my God, just another thing that us business owners have to deal with. But you guys have flipped that completely on your head and gone, no, no, we’re going to embrace this. At first, probably started off with you guys as you said earlier, we want more time off and then it’s like, but if we want more time off, the team probably wants more time off. So let’s put this in play and it’s a win win for everyone.

Tom
Yeah. Look, as owners, it’s really taught us that we don’t need to necessarily stick to, you know, the traditional way of running a trade business.  And I think the biggest knock on impact from implementing Half Day Friday has probably been learning to accept and be comfortable with change. Whether it’s something as large as changing the whole workweek structure as we did, or whether it’s something that is a little less significant, you know, change is good and it really has helped us to grow.

Andy
And I love the fact that it’s something that happens every Friday because I know there’s people out there listening going, well, on a Friday we knock off and we go to the pub for lunch sometimes and never go back to work. And that was something that we’ve all done probably over the years. But when staff look back, they don’t actually look at that as such a massive benefit. They’re still hanging with the boss drinking beers and now they can’t drive home. What you’ve done is really opened them up for the lifestyle side of things.  And they can get out dirt, bike riding, camping, snowboarding, surfing, whatever they want to do. And they’re pretty much driving away at 11 o’clock in the morning ringing their mates going, Hey, you’ve still got another four or five hours to go buddy. The surf’s going off you and giving it to their mates.

Jamie
Hey, that, that’s it. A hundred percent. And, and, and we’ve been known to hold some pretty good Christmas parties, which we still do.

Andy
Yes, I can imagine.

Jamie
Telling the guys in February, Oh, hey, don’t forget, we’re going to have an unreal Christmas party at the end of the year. You know, it’s a long way away. We’re saying on Tuesday morning, Hey guys, yeah, we’re in for a bit of a slob on this job. We can’t get a machine in here. There’s going to be a lot of shovel work, but hey, 11 a. m. Friday, we’re hitting the snow fields, we’re out of here. So it’s, it’s that weekly reward. It works really well.

Andy
And the one thing that tradies hate is getting to a Friday or getting to later in the week and then a bomb is thrown in front of them and they’re thinking they’re finishing at a certain time and then all of a sudden they’re not. So you guys, as soon as you sense it’s going to be a big week, you sit down with them, you tell them, you say, Hey, this is what’s going on. Everyone goes, yep, we understand. And they’re on board and away, everyone charges into it.

Tom
Very heavy on our communication and that teamwork to get the job done for that.

Ange
I can imagine the beauty of that constant reinforcement of the fact that that’s what you do is you’ve created this change in the industry, which is something I, I love about you two is you actually challenged the status quo. You actually asked the question of, but how could we be better in our business to stand head and shoulders over everyone else? And how do we create this incredible culture that everyone wants to stay working with us? Um, I can imagine a lot of our listeners who, you know, are clearly trade business owners, are going that’s just not going to work for us or whatever. And if that is you as a listener, I would say then maybe something like this four and a half day workweek could actually work for you. And maybe you even just started in summer. I used to work for Coca Cola in marketing previous to working with Andy and Dr. Drip. And you know, this is in the early 2000’s. And we did half day Fridays just through the summer. And in all honesty, even though I knew that I could leave at 12 o’clock, I very rarely left at 12 o’clock because of whatever workload I had on at the time, but I knew that I could. And people did love, I mean, everyone loved to work for Coca Cola anyway, but the retention definitely held and it was definitely an advantage as a business. So for trade, where we have as an industry always worked really long hours and it was actually back in the 60s that they were doing like 10 hour work days, six days a week. And it was actually yet again, the trade industry that changed this working week to now be like this seven to three 30 times in five days a week. So I like the fact that this concept has been embraced and considered that this is a possibility for our industry especially for maintenance where you go, Oh, there’s no way we could do this in maintenance. It’s pretty much any other side of trade that you could perhaps do this. But I love that you’ve really pushed back on the status quo and you’ve done it. And the culture is being embraced and clearly proven. And I love that you’ve got proof that productivity hasn’t failed, profitability has flown, and the boys are just tighter than ever because they just want to help each other to ensure everyone has a great lifestyle, especially where you live. You know, so good. It’s such, it’s really fabulous.

Tom
Definitely fits into the South Coast lifestyle. 

Andy
It definitely does. So I know we’ve talked about some advantages, but I want you now just to put your owner’s hat on, your owner’s hat on and what has been the biggest impact for you personally? What has been the biggest impact by implementing this for you guys personally as a business owner?

Tom
I’d have to say: Accepting change and getting rid of that mindset that won’t work for us.

Andy
Yeah, that is huge. And in that, what is holding other trade business owners back from trying something like this? Like why are you guys so much different than every other trade business out there? What do you think that may be?

Tom
I think a lot of time it is a little bit of a battle of just something different and a change and you’re in a stereotypical sort of trade business and it is something different and you’re like, well, that’s not going to work or you can’t do that. And I think whether or not it’s just Jamie and I just grabbing at that opportunity and going, well, let’s just do it. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. If it does, fantastic, which it did.  Yeah. We just benefited from that really.

Ange
Change your thinking, right?

Tom
Yeah, right, right.

Ange
And be open to actually push the boundaries to say what’s the possibility of. 

Andy
But I just want to say, um, to the listeners out there that don’t know you guys as well as Ange and I, you guys are at the forefront of everything you do. So you’re not just at the forefront of this four and a half day work week. Your business is a serious business and you guys are absolutely flying. So that just comes with the territory for you guys. You’re always willing for change. You always want change. You’re looking for change every single day. You guys are looking to see how you can be better. And I’m constantly watching you and obviously we’ve been watching you quite closely in the last 18 months since you’ve been with Lifestyle Tradie. But even before that you had a killer business and you just keep getting better and better and better every single day. So seriously, guys, hats off to both of you.

Tom
Look, I really appreciate that Andy and really appreciate all the help that we’ve had from yourself and Ange. It’s just absolutely awesome and we’re always striving to be, to be better, um, and seek those opportunities to learn. Big time, the whole Lifestyle Tradie community, really, just being able to reach out to talk to people, not only at events, Facebook, by the phone. It’s fantastic. You guys are doing a great thing. So, paddle that back to you guys, too.

Andy
Oh, I’ve almost got a little bit. I love it when I get that nice feedback.

Ange
It helps when we have members like you that are so open and honest about what’s actually happening inside your business. You know, as an industry, we’re normally quite closed, right? We tend not to share. Successes and failure stories and failures is where we actually learn these challenges along the way. So in all honesty, we appreciate the fact that the both of you are really, really open and honest about what’s going on and then question everyone to say, well, how can we all be better? So yeah, I really appreciate it.

Andy
Yeah. And let’s face it, you know, there’s no doubt Lifestyle Tradie is an incredible program, like you said, and we do some incredible things, but our community, and I keep saying it and people keep hearing it is second to none. And it’s people like you within our community that are pushing the envelope and all of us as a community, the best couple of a hundred trade businesses in Australia are just pushing each one of us along every single time. So, you know, for Lifestyle Tradie to have the people that we have in our group, we absolutely love it. And people like yourself that are stepping outside, outside of the norm to make sure their business is better every single day. And I just love it that you guys have absolutely nailed it.

Tom
Thanks, mate.

Andy
There’s no doubt about it. We are going to get a huge response and a lot more questions from our listeners out there. Um, and I’m really looking forward to helping every single one of you. But first, are you ready for a few rapid fire questions, boys? We play a bit of a game with all of our listeners. I’m going to ask you three questions. Are you ready? 

Tom
Consider ready mate.

Andy
So here we go. What is the number one strategy that you use to start your day right?

Tom
All right. So to start our day right, we do a 5-5-20. Then we put on a group chat with the team in the morning. So that’s five gratitude listed, five goals for the day and 20 reps. At the moment, our 20 reps are pushups. It’s a really good motivation personally and for the team.

Andy
So is every one of your team, is it on zoom or anything, or they just get it that everyone puts it through and then they say, tick, we’ve done our 20 pushups or?

Tom
It’s on a, it’s on a group chat. So you post what your gratitudes are, what your goals are and your pushups. It’s really good to see it inside of everybody’s day. And you, you really motivate each other to win.

Andy
That is huge because we’re hearing time and time again that everyone should be doing their gratitudes. What you’re done is not only brought it in for yourselves, but then you’re brought it into the team environment. So they’re starting their day off on a positive note every single day and also banged out a few pushups. So they’re looking good when they’re heading down the beach later in the day.

Tom
It’s awesome. Really good.

Ange
We all know how good that is to actually get your body moving. Right? And definitely an insight into each one of your team members when they talk about gratitude.

Andy
So what they’re actually doing is stopping people going to the server and grabbing those massive cans of Mubba and sculling it and having 20 teaspoons of sugar before they start the day, you guys are doing it the right way.

Ange
Okay. Next question. What’s something that made you smile recently, Jamie?

Jamie
That’s a tricky one. There’s, uh, probably too much to list to be honest, but, um, one thing that does stand out is, uh, Kano, one of our great plumbing techs. He gave us a call the other day to let us know that he got Nathan, one of our up and coming apprentices, to actually fully install a storage hot water system cylinder. Both the boys were very proud of their work. So it worked on two different levels there. Kano was actually paid off and all the hard work and time he’s put into Nathan. And Nathan was actually able to see his training go full circle from him. Just getting gear out of the van to actually being able to stand there unassisted by Kano and install this unit. And as proud tradies, Tom and I were really happy to see that. And the guys were sending us photos and stuff. And it’s really nice to see that.

Andy
Absolutely love that. I absolutely love that because I’m hearing and I’ve heard and I’ve even had staff where they’re like, you know, I’ve got this apprentice and I don’t have the time to teach them what to do because they’re so highly strung or whatever that may be. But all of us start as apprentices, we’ve all got to help. So this is the bonding that you guys have. This is the culture you guys have. It’s a helping culture. It’s to make sure we’re all great and then our week will be better together.

Jamie
Absolutely.

Ange
History will fail without apprentices at the end of the day. So we need to be supporting them and help them to succeed.

Tom
Absolutely. Look, we get a real thrill out of getting all our apprentices through their time and then having these great apprentices at the start of day one out of the local high school. And now they’re tradesmen driving around in their own van for us. It’s just fantastic.

Andy
Yeah. That’s awesome. I absolutely love that.

Ange
Brandy, J&T Dale Plumbing.

Andy
And the final question is, what is the best piece of advice you’ll ever receive, Tom? Does anything spring to mind?

Tom
Best piece of advice off cuff would be give us gain. We really do love this philosophy, probably internally within the company and myself and Jamie personally in our lives. It’s just to give us gain. So sharing knowledge, we have learned a lot over the years, just from many different experiences, courses, and people. We always see a lot of people that have always been very sharing their knowledge to us. So we really embrace that philosophy and love to share. So the whole industry is growing and anybody that needs advice or help or anything like that. And I think that’s why it’s aligned us so well with the Lifestyle community.  Because as you said earlier, the community is just, they’re an awesome bunch of people and everybody’s just sharing their knowledge.

Andy
Give as gain is amazing. So the more you give, the more you get back and we help each other and goes on and goes on and goes on. And you guys have definitely been very good at giving over the years. And we want to thank you about that as well.

Ange
I think you’d also be considered leaders in your region. So I imagine every other trade company, I mean, not just nationally, but if you just looked in your area, they would all be looking up to you, which yet again from a community piece, I think is excellent.

Andy
Well, yeah, but I’ve been working with tradies for a very, very trade businesses and yourself for a very, very long time. And you, These guys are up the top of the tree. There’s no two ways about it. It’s not about how big you are. It’s about your structure, your style, what you do. You guys are seriously up that top end and you should be so proud of that. You’ve come such a long way. So just so the listeners know, how long have you been in business?

Tom
This is our 10th year.

Andy
Yeah. Wow. That’s amazing. Ten years isn’t that long. Not really. It’s not really that long when a lot of people in their first three years struggle a little bit and you guys, ten years, amazing. You guys are absolutely killing it.

Ange
At the end of the day, it’s a huge congratulations for breaking free of tradition and trying something new.

Tom
Really appreciate it. A hundred percent. It’s awesome trying something new and it works. Just enjoy the journey as you go.

Andy
Yeah. We loved every minute of talking to you guys. I know that everyone out there listening to this podcast right now is going, these guys are absolute legends and you are, and they love to listen to you today. I just want to say a real big thank you from all of us.

Tom
Thanks.

Jamie
Thanks, Ange.

Andy
I tell you what, Ange, that’s two legends right there.

Ange
Yeah, look, I love that it’s working well for Jamie and Tom, this adopting a four and a half day working week. It is a brave thing to do to go completely against industry norms, but it’s clear that it’s working for them and it’s been the right move.

Andy
Yeah, that’s right. And for some of you out there, it may not be right for your business, but I tell you what, there’s a lot of positives that I’m seeing, but you guys, other business owners, you make your own decisions.

Ange
True. And that’s why it’s important to weigh up these pros and cons, but I am convinced that this isn’t the end of the discussion of a four day workweek, or in this case, a four and a half day workweek, and that there will be many more trade business owners adopting this new way of operating.

Andy
I 100% agree with that. There’ll be a lot of people doing that. Just make sure that when you do it, remember very hard to take it back.

Ange
Yes, that’s all we’ve got time for today. So see you next week.

Andy
Always great having you here to listen to us on The Tradie Show.

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