Ryzon CEO Mario Konrad: “Muscles grow during breaks”
“It’s like in sports. Muscles grow during the breaks and not through overexertion,” says Konrad. He had this experience himself during his studies, when he no longer had to follow certain procedures like at school, but only had to pass the exam at the end of the semester and therefore only worked a few hours a day but was particularly concentrated. That’s why the following applies to the around 50 employees in the company: Results are more important than working hours. Part of the working time concept at Ryzon is that employees can set their own working hours. They are therefore free to work eight hours four days a week or to come five days a week but finish work earlier. “Then the employees stay motivated over a longer period of time,” says Konrad.
With the transition to the 32-hour week, Konrad temporarily had to deal with a lot of extra work as CEO. So he spent a lot of time thinking about how the company’s goals could be achieved during the shorter working hours as before. In some cases, adjustments had to be made here and the work processes also had to be redesigned – always with the goal in mind that all employees should be highly concentrated and work without distraction for at least three and a half hours a day.
Konrad: You don’t get your best ideas at your desk anyway
Because, according to Konrad in an interview with the Sportsmaniac podcast: Going from three highly productive hours a day in a 40-hour week to three and a half highly productive hours in a 32-hour week makes more sense than sending employees to endless hours of unproductive meetings . He has the impression that many companies see work performance and free time as opposites and would, so to speak, “buy” their employees’ lifetime. For him, on the other hand, individual freedom and work performance are closely linked – that’s why he decided to work a 32-hour week despite the additional effort he had to put up with himself at the beginning. Konrad’s approach also includes spending free time together. He told Gründerszene: “A lunch break sometimes lasts two and a half hours. That’s not a problem, because I haven’t had any really good ideas at my desk anyway.”
Three things would have helped him in particular when he switched to the 32-hour week. First of all, he defined the responsibilities of each individual employee very precisely and, if necessary, redefined or reduced them. Since then, everyone has been working towards firmly formulated goals in the company – how they achieve them is not specified. It was also important to redefine responsibilities: Who decides what? In this way, a lot of chaos and working time could be saved and now work much more efficiently. The redefinition of the company strategy also made a big difference. Since the introduction of the 32-hour week at Ryzon, this has been communicated to employees much more clearly than before, which provides orientation and clarity. That, explains Konrad at Sportsmaniac, is essential. Because after school and university, many are unsettled by so much freedom at work.
Konrad’s conclusion: the 32-hour week is worth it
He also assures that the focus on goals instead of working hours tempts very few to betray him as their employer or to secretly take more breaks. Rather, most employees are so motivated that they often work longer than agreed. The basis of trust is therefore worthwhile. At the same time, of course, Konrad is aware that there are always one or two people for whom his working time concept is not right in the long term and who may take advantage of the system. But the productivity of the majority of the employees has improved so much that this is not important.
Finally, Konrad admits to the Gründerszene: “We underestimated the effort behind it.” However, the new concept and the successes that have already been achieved at Ryzon are absolutely worth it.
Olga Rogler / Editor finanzen.net
Image sources: fotohunter / Shutterstock.com, kozirsky / Shutterstock.com