The 6pm Challenge.

When I co-founded my business in 2003, it was common in the digital industry for people to work 60+ hours a week, in fact it was the expectation. Long hours have been the expression of commitment; it represents the ambition of the employee who must be working hard because they are at their desk at 8pm. Family, sleep, friendships suffer with this kind of relentless schedule, no matter how much you love your job. I could see it causing all kinds of horrible outcomes personally and there was a lack of dynamism and imagination in our relationships with clients.

I knew as a young CEO the long hours looked productive but were having the opposite effect. It just didn’t make sense on any level and I wanted my business to be a wonderful place to work, where people had time to actually live their lives. But how do you encourage your employees to leave their desks by 6pm? In a world where the rate of change increases in volume and velocity every day, I kept it simple and created ‘The 6pm Challenge’.

Having the permission and support from leadership to leave the office in time to see your family and friends, or go for a run, feeds the human spirit and is good for profits. Time outside of the office is food for the soul, which enhances how people deliver for your business.

The 6pm Challenge was a slogan we used to encourage our employees to get as much done as they could by 6pm and then walk away from their desks and go home! I let our clients know The 6pm Challenge was an important philosophy in our business and that our employees wouldn’t be on call 24 hours a day.

The challenge was on and I could feel the difference in the workplace overnight, the company came alive. You could walk out of the office without an ‘excuse’ or guilt about ‘time on the clock’. Our clients resisted at first, and then they saw the results. We proved our team was more efficient (and amazing!) during a busy and full working day, and we were more productive because of the time we all had to decompress. When I had my first daughter later that year – I appreciated our 6pm challenge mantra :)

We embedded this in our culture and it became a key part of our DNA, attracting employees because we had a reputation as a fun place to work. My digital start-up became a success and we earned a number of accolades such as Australian Business of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year and listed as one of the Best Places to Work in the country. We sold the company a few years later.

Looking after people looks after business and yes, also the bottom line. Start the 6pm challenge today!