Winster moves to "Compressed Hours"

21 Oct 2022

Published in: Member News

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Winster are running a trial of new working hours to improve work / life balance

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Winster Limited, the hose and accessory experts are committed to a good work / life balance for all their staff. In practice that means introducing new working practices that help everyone feel more fulfilled and content in both areas of their life.

We all know that when things are out of balance, work or home life, and often both suffer and unnecessary stress can be caused. Conversely, when there is a good balance, we are happier and more productive.

After discussion with the whole team and with their full agreement, Winster have immediately implemented a trial of “compressed hours” which will run to the end of 2022. In practice, this means they will be open slightly longer from Mondays to Thursdays but close the office at 12pm on Fridays. Full details of the new opening hours can be found on their website.

Commenting on the change, Val Gardner, Managing Director of Winster Limited said “This is just the first step in a series of changes we are hoping to introduce to improve the work / life balance for everyone at Winster. Many companies in other countries across Europe, Scandinavia and Australasia are seeing significant benefits from making similar changes and a recent trial of 4-day working in the UK has shown some strong results, with 86% of companies involved saying they are likely to extend the policy beyond the six-month test period.”

So, will Winster be moving to 4-day working too? “The decision to start the compressed hours trial was taken by the entire staff, so we have to see how it works for everyone, including our customers and suppliers, and if we all feel it has worked, then it is certainly possible that we could make further changes to opening hours in the future.” commented Val.

In addition to improving work / life balance, a realignment or reduction in opening hours could also support a separate initiative to reducing energy consumption, along with other initiatives that are being introduced at Winster.

Of course, changing opening hours can impact on customers and suppliers, so Winster have notified them of the change and asked them to get in touch if they have any concerns about how the new hours will affect them.

“We believe that a better work / life balance delivers benefits to everyone; inside and outside the company, and we’ll be getting feedback from all our stakeholders to ensure this is the case” said Val.