The 4-day workweek in action with Anand Narayanan

Anand Narayanan is a Vice President at Beroe and dons the dual hat of Head of Marketing and Head of HR. Beroe is a global SaaS-based procurement intelligence and analytics provider. In this conversation, Subbu sits down to discuss how Anand and his leadership team have instated a people-friendly work environment at Beroe. In particular, the discussion focuses on Beroe's successful experiment with implementing a 4-day workweek for all of its employees, which has been in force since 2017.Key points0:50 - About Beroe and it's organizational history + operating context 8:30 - How Anand Narayanan took on the mantle of HR Head at Beroe12:30 - Confronting the reality of high employee stress 16:00 - The pivot from effort-based to productivity-based output18:00 - Strategies to arrest attrition 25:00 - The genesis of the 4-day workweek idea26:30 - Ideating with different flexi-work models keeping in mind peak-productivity29:30 - Debating the pros and cons with the management team31:00 - The announcement and conditions of the 4-day workweek experiment35:15 - Praise from the ultimate stakeholders: customers37:00 - Recruiting and working with a core group of change evangelists39:45 - Cultural reaction to the change43:35 - Results of the experiment - impact on productivity, customer feedback, employee engagement, culture48:00 - Being ready when Covid hit in 202049:00 - How meetings are managed at Beroe57:00 - Feedback on Glassdoor and actions from the management team1:00:00 - Is the 4-day week the future of work?1:06:30 - The facets of culture that enabled a 4-day week at Beroe