More than a schedule change: the four-day workweek brings wellbeing to immigrant- serving North Bay non-profit.

By Johanna Schleret 
Chief Human Resources Officer 
Canal Alliance

In February 2024, Canal Alliance began a pilot of a four-day work week. In June  2024, we made the new schedule permanent. As the four-day work week gains momentum internationally — in Iceland, Tokyo, and beyond — Canal Alliance continues to fine- tune, reflect, innovate, and celebrate our successful implementation of a shortened schedule. We are proud of the progress we have made, and even more proud of the positive impact this change has had on our staff.  

At Canal Alliance we believe that all people deserve happy, healthy, successful lives and that Marin should be a place where everyone can thrive. With that in mind, today I would like to share what we have learned — what we now know for sure — about adopting a four-day workweek. I would like to pay it forward.  

Preparation is paramount 
The foundational work Canal Alliance did in the two years leading up to the four-day workweek project proved to be crucial to our success. We invested significant time and resources into developing our organizational culture, building an environment centered around strong relationships and trust. This process included extensive leadership development; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Belonging work. We redesigned our approach to performance management, prioritizing professional development opportunities for staff at all levels. Together, these collaborative and deeply personal initiatives created a strong commitment to the organization by employees, and to employees by the organization. The result? A solid foundation upon which we could build, and a framework that could support dramatic change to the way we work as well.   

We knew we wanted Canal Alliance to be a place where supervisors and employees had strong relationships built on trust and open communication, relationships in which employees were invited and encouraged to question, and challenge, the status quo. We wanted an entrepreneurial and employee-centric culture in which this type of problem-solving was valued and rewarded, not met with resistance.  

Before we began our four-day work week pilot, we had already done this work. We had created a strong team, capable of doing difficult projects together. The changes we sought to implement were co-created by teams across the organization and across all levels of the organization. In decentralizing decision-making, we allowed for better decisions to be made by the people most familiar with the challenges.  

A four-day workweek is about culture change, not schedule change. 
Once we were in a place where we were ready to begin our four-day workweek pilot, we approached the endeavor as a project about continued organizational culture change, with the schedule change serving as a lever of that change, not an outcome. 

As we began our pilot, we simultaneously rolled out a number of efficiency measures to the entire team, employees at all levels, including: shorter and fewer meetings, calendar holds for deep work time, dedicated available time each week for quick questions, prioritization practices for time management, a continued focus on transparency, and more. And while our full team adopted these new initiatives with gusto, after 18 months of work on this project it is clear to me that changing the way a 100-plus person agency works is an ongoing task, not a one-time affair. Canal Alliance’s leadership team and full staff now observe regular check ins to hold ourselves accountable to our own policies and practices, inviting share outs about lessons learned, and circling up each month to report on progress, challenges, and build consensus about additional innovations for consideration.   

Effective onboarding is essential 
Since we launched our four-day work week pilot in February of 2024, we have hired 44 full-time staff people. For our new hires, their first three months at the organization are also, almost unanimously, their first three months ever doing a full-time job within a 32-hour four-day workweek. Their success is dependent on a variety of factors, including robust onboarding to our philosophy and efficiencies practices, support from their supervisors to adopt Canal Alliance’s ways of working, and regular, clear communications at all levels of our teams about organizational procedures and expectations. It is fair to say that in a four-day work week environment, a successful onboarding process is critical to success, both of new hires and the four-day workweek program overall.  

A four-day workweek solves for turnover, but more can be done to support well-being 
Since February of 2024 we have had zero resignations due to burnout. Zero. That is down from a turnover rate that had hovered around 34% for years, at a huge cost to the agency and to staff morale. And while we offer a great working culture, competitive pay, and benefits, I can say with confidence that our team is now staying put because of the four-day work week. 

With a stable staff in place, I can also report that while we have resolved turnover at Canal Alliance, this does not mean staff wellness is “fixed” forever.  

Our team is producing the same outcome – or more – in a  compressed schedule. And our goal remains: to help our team work smarter, not faster. We have struggled with meeting fatigue, prioritization, learning how to “say no” at an agency level, and compressed time frames for planning and reporting.  

In tandem with the cultural change and onboarding work, we continue to hold employee wellness at the center of all that we do. In 2024 we added: additional mental health benefits, including 100% employer paid therapy sessions; our agency also has a paid sabbatical policy to allow longtime-staff to step away from work after five years on the job, enjoy a month of rest, restoration, or exploration of other interests.  

The four-day work week is for all genders, and supports equity in domestic labor and caregiving.  

The four-day work week tackles societal inequities around domestic labor and caregiving in two ways.   

First, it allows for full pay and living wage for women balancing domestic labor, parenting and caregiving, and careers, rather than being forced to choose part-time and often lower-paying roles.  

Second, because the 4DWW offers all genders the opportunity and invitation — or maybe even the imperative — to more fully step into domestic roles, whether that’s parenting, caregiving, homemaking or taking on the mental load that makes families function. 

The four-day workweek shines a light on areas of organizational improvement  

For us at Canal Alliance, the adoption of the four-day workweek has shown us, sometimes in stark relief, the gaps in our own process, areas in which we need to improve. While this has not been without discomfort, we also find comfort in knowing that, by forcing our own hands, we are requiring ourselves to walk the talk, put our values into practice, and create change wherever and whenever needed to serve our community, care for our staff, and continue to serve as a beacon of hope and opportunity for immigrants and Latinos in Marin.  

Our data, so far: 

Between February of 2024 and July of 2025: 

• 82% of staff reported a sustained improvement in their work-life balance 

• 74% of staff reported improved mental health  

• 72% of staff reported improved physical health  

• 0 resignations a result of burnout in 2024 or 2025 

• 70% increase in applications for open positions, and a 40% increase in qualified applicants 

• 50% reduction in turnover rate, which in the 2024 calendar year = 

•  ~ 200 staff hours not spent interviewing job candidates 

• > 3,000 staff hours saved by not covering for open positions 

• > 2,000 staff hours saved by reducing need for teaching, training, and onboarding new hires 

The four-day workweek is gaining momentum in the US 

• Since first announcing our transition to the four-day work week and garnering some local press , I have been informally consulting other non-profits on the process, all of whom reached out to learn more about how to make the change.  

• Our 4DWW blueprint has now reached as far as Austin, Texas: Family Eldercare, under the leadership of Executive Director Aaron Alarcon, PhD, and Chief People and Culture Officer Marisol Calvo have made the switch, and so far are reporting that turnover plummeted and surveys prove that the mental health of the employees has improved tremendously.  

• Nonprofits across the nation are facing unprecedented challenges – the 4DWW is one proven way to set all of us up to face these challenges, each nonprofit in their own unique way – and to successfully and collectively move progress forward. 

• Will your organization be next?  

Johanna Schleret 
Chief Human Resources Officer 
Canal Alliance