Imagine having a three-day weekend, every weekend. On top of that, picture a company that encourages employees to take a solid hour for lunch so much so that they shut the shop down and make employees leave to take time for themselves.
Sounds too good to be true, right?
Well, at Bock Auto in Amagansett, New York, that’s a reality. The shop is open from Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and shuts down from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. so that employees can enjoy a lunch break. For those reading this that are thinking that it can’t work because business would suffer, co-owner Meghan Bock says you would be surprised. Their customers have zero complaints and their sales have continued to increase year-over-year since they implemented a four-day workweek in 2022.
Backstory:
In 2015, Bock and her husband, Erick, took over a three-bay repair shop attached to a gas station and started Bock Auto. Bock knew nothing about vehicle repair when they started.
“The joke is that he married the girl that didn’t know she had to have a regular oil service,” Bock says.
She has since learned a lot about auto repair and running a business and the husband-and-wife team have found such happiness and success through their first shop that they’re currently looking for a spot for a second location in North Carolina.
Problem:
The shop that the Bocks took over ran a traditional Monday-Saturday business model. With three small kids at home and only one technician working for them, it was difficult to make that schedule work.
Solution:
The Bocks dropped Saturdays pretty quickly. Being in a resort town they noticed that the jobs that they were seeing on Saturday weren’t bringing in that much money and that shutting down that day wouldn’t hurt the business–but it would help them out a lot.
That worked great for a while and then, after the pandemic, they realized that they could make it work by dropping Fridays as well. When the doors opened back up, they had their techs on a rotating schedule so that each one would have three three-day weekends and one two-day weekend per month.
After a year of doing that, in October of 2022, they switched over to the hours they have now so the entire team gets a three-day weekend, every weekend. They now have a longer working day and they expect their technicians to turn a certain amount of hours, for example 13-14 for their A-techs, for it to work.
Aftermath:
The biggest concern was customers’ reactions, Bock says. But they were pleasantly surprised with how their regulars reacted. “We got little to no pushback from clients,” Bock says.
The team started out by saying they wouldn’t be open for the upcoming Friday to give their employees more time for themselves and the customers thought it was fantastic that Bock’s was giving their team more time for themselves and they’ve continued to feel that way.
From an employee standpoint, they love it. Bock says that her employees have expressed to her that they don’t know if they could ever go to work at a place that has a “normal” workweek. That benefit has also been a major attractor for future employees. Bock says they are currently looking for a client services representative and they’ve had a lot of interest and she believes the four-day workweek plays a big role. Being in a resort town, many people do part-time catering as a job and having a three-day weekend allows them to do this. She adds that having Friday off is great for getting personal errands done.
Bock says that their sales have continued to increase year-over-year and that the shorter workweek hasn’t impacted them negatively at all. The longer days have been a big benefit, she says. Opening earlier allows them to get to their clients earlier and being open an hour later has been a huge help with parts delivery.
Takeaway:
For shop owners that are considering adopting this model, Bock has this piece of advice:
“Do it and don’t look back.”
Bock believes that a four-day workweek could work anywhere, but it depends on the type of shop that you are. Their shop is relationship oriented and they’re all about building relationships with their customers and creating an enjoyable culture for their employees.
Because of the positive relationships that they’ve built, their customers understand that these hours are for the good of the team and they make it work because they support a business like this. For shops that are all about transactions, this won’t work.
