The Agile Communications Agency: Building Success on a 4-Day Week

The Action

The Agile Communications Agency has been effectively operating a 4 Day Week since it was established in 2018. Founder Rachel Foster has been working a 4 Day Week for 15 years, since she became a mum.

When she set up Agile, she wanted to manage a national-facing career as a Chartered PR practitioner alongside raising her two daughters as a single parent. When it came to expanding her team and becoming an employer, she created her first role as a 4 Day Week – Charla Symons joined as Agency Manager in spring 2023. The core team is complimented by a collective of businesses and freelancers covering a spectrum of digital, marketing, design and creative work.

In 2024, Rachel heard about accreditation through the 4 Day Week Foundation whilst at an event with Whyfield – another 4 Day Week accredited employer in Cornwall. She applied and achieved Gold standard accreditation for offering a 30-hour week for a full-time equivalent salary.

In 2025, The Agile Communications Agency became a certified B Corp. Establishing a 4 Day Week structure for employees contributed to the Workers section of the B Corp assessment.

The Impact

Rachel says:

“It’s hard to measure impact because we’ve built Agile as a 4 Day Week business from day one. But we know it enables us to focus on delivering value for our clients whilst maintaining a sustainable pace of work for ourselves.

“4 Day Week employers tend to talk about the benefits of mental wellbeing and work/life balance for their people, but we believe for this structure to work, we need to focus on this business model as a tool for productivity, profitability and sustainability.”

The 4 Day Week Foundation report there are more than 250 organisations adopting this model. During 2023, the Foundation ran the world’s biggest pilot programme with 61 organisations participating to pilot a 4 Day Week. Of these, 92% have continued with the 4 Day Week.

The results are compelling:

• Over the six-month trial period, stress and burnout for employees both significantly declined with 71% of employees reporting lower levels of burnout
• Companies’ revenue stayed broadly the same, rising by 1.4% on average. When compared to a similar period from previous years, organisations reported revenue increases of 35% on average – which indicates healthy growth during this period of working time reduction.
• There was a substantial decline (57%) in the likelihood that an employee would quit, dramatically improving job retention.
• There was a 65% reduction in the number of sick days

The Advice for other businesses

Rachel says:

“Keep an open mind! It’s really common for those of us in the 4 Day Week movement to hear “that will never work for our organisation because”…

But with more than 250 examples of employers, from micro SMEs to large local authorities, there is likely to be an organisation with a similar structure that has already made this work.

Start gathering data: What is important to measure in your business? Revenue and profit? Staff sick days? Team retention? Before exploring a pilot for 4 Day Week, look at where your business is at now.

Create an open dialogue: The 4 Day Week Foundation recommends engaging with your staff as the first step in exploring this structure.

Tips and tricks to reduce working time:

• Reduce and cut down unnecessary meetings.
• Time-block to create focused time. Be disciplined around check and responding to emails and messages.
• Restructure job descriptions and appraisals to focus on outcomes and impact rather than tasks.
• Be ruthless with the tasks and activities you engage in your organisation – do these contribute to your goals and KPIs?