One reason for being the first to introduce a 6-hour workday—which we don’t really like to talk too loudly about—is that it naturally makes recruitment easier for us. I’m going to tell you today, but please don’t spread it around.
Some people claim that a Toyota dealer in southern Sweden introduced six-hour workdays before we did, but they did so in connection with switching to shift work—and surely it’s standard for shift workers to have shorter workdays? That was certainly the case at the paper mill where I worked in my youth. Regardless, since we hardly compete with car companies in any way, it doesn’t affect our business. In other words, we have a unique position in the market where we operate.
Recently, another company within internet marketing has actually begun following in our footsteps, which was probably predictable when we started. We gain a fairly significant competitive advantage, even though many believe shorter workdays would hurt us.
One of the most limiting factors in search engine optimization (and search engine advertising, for that matter) is qualified personnel. There are far too few to hire for a market that has now reached the size our industry has. In Sweden today, I would argue there are somewhere between 10 and 40 people I could consider hiring for a senior role in SEO. A skilled SEO specialist is hard to secure, and they always have the option of simply staying home and working on their own projects—making a living is almost never a problem for someone who knows what they’re doing.
Take Simon Nyström, for example, who previously worked with me at another company. He simply chose to stop because there were no financial incentives to work for someone else. Markus Jalmerot is another good example of the same thing—after being one of the more influential agency experts in Sweden, he now works from London on a number of his own projects (correct me if I’m wrong). It’s not particularly difficult for a skilled SEO specialist to make money, which means you can’t attract professionals with money alone.
I wouldn’t claim that it’s only our workdays that explain this—we stand out in more ways than that—but we’ve managed to recruit two of the sharpest minds in the Swedish SEO industry during our time in operation. Both Aaron Axelsson and Marcus Westberg were well known long before they joined Brath, and it goes without saying that they’ve received numerous offers to switch agencies. I don’t doubt for a second that this is still the case.
More free time is, of course, attractive—not that they never work overtime, but the baseline workload is at least lower. Naturally, as mentioned, there are other reasons to choose to work at Brath, but shorter working hours are a competitive advantage for us. It’s not the only thing one can compete on, but we offer our employees something no one else does. Doesn’t it sound like we have a slightly easier time hiring from the 10–40 people I consider to be of sufficient caliber?
We have an advantage in recruitment, and that in itself is an enormous head start over our competitors. It means that we will—at least in theory—have slightly more skilled specialists, slightly smarter staff, and ultimately, slightly better search engine optimization.
By the way, it’s perfectly fine if you want to share this article. The more people who become aware of shorter workdays, the better.
