Atom Bank moves to four-day work week without cutting pay

Bloomberg

Atom Bank has moved to a four-day working week, one of the most dramatic flexible working policies introduced by a finance firm since the pandemic upended office norms.
The UK fintech, which has 430 employees, moved to a four-day week, the digital lender said in a statement. Contractual working hours will be reduced by 3.5 hours to 34 hours per week, with no change in salary.
Mondays or Fridays are expected to be default day off for majority of employees, except for those working in operational and service roles whose day out of the office may vary, to ensure customer service levels.
“While we appreciate a four-day working week will not be right for all workplaces, the move to working from home has proved that working practices that may have seemed years away can be introduced rapidly,” Chief Executive Officer Mark Mullen said in a statement. “We firmly believe that this will prove beneficial for our employees’ wellbeing and happiness and that it will have an equally positive impact on business productivity and customer experience.”
Atom Bank was the UK’s first mobile-based lender when it opened in April 2016. It offers savings accounts, mortgages and business lending and had $3.6 billion of total lending assets under management at the end of March.
The bank reported its first full quarter of operating profit in the three months to September with business lending growing 16% to 879 million pounds.
Other lenders are also moving away from traditional ways of working. Banks like HSBC Holdings Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc are cutting office space as they let employees work some of their time from home.