Working differently: what we learned from prioritising wellbeing and flexibility in the workplace

At ADD International, we are committed to disability justice, participation and equity – not only in our external work but in how we operate as an organisation.

This blog reflects our learning as an organisation trying to live its values more fully, and to challenge the idea that long hours and constant availability are the best measures of impact.

We are sharing this in the hope that it contributes to wider conversations across the sector about what more inclusive, sustainable and humane ways of working can look like in practice.

Modelling the change we want to see in the world

As part of ADD’s strategy, we wanted to model the change we want to see in the world internally. As organisations increasingly ask staff to return to the office, we wanted to do things differently by supporting disability justice and enabling staff to work effectively and take adequate rest.

Initially, we made small changes to improve wellbeing. We provided wellbeing training and introduced a wellbeing allowance for all staff, which they can spend on anything that will improve their wellbeing.

Then we started to think more boldly about bigger changes we could make. In2025 we trialled a “year of working well” which included four interventions:

• Four-day week: reduced and globally standardised hours for 100% pay. Flexible and hybrid working encouraged.
• Rest week: a week where the whole organisation shuts down and everyone takes holiday. The idea of this was that staff would return to work rested but not to full inboxes which is often the norm after taking holidays.
• Wellbeing leave entitlement of two days per year, which staff could use either proactively to do something to improve their wellbeing or reactively to rest and recharge. We also introduced minimum leave standards globally and standardised leave as far as global legislation permitted.
• Improvements to the performance review process to ensure it was fit for purpose to measure performance during these changes.

The benefits of a four-day week

An increasing number of organisations have trialled a four-day week globally over recent years, but it’s still far from the norm. Research on these trials has concluded that a four-day week reduces stress, burnout, turnover and absence, but does not reduce, and in some cases increases, output/revenue.

Significant numbers of our UK staff have historically worked part-time, but this was less the norm for staff outside the UK, so it was a big change for the majority of our workforce. While it was met with a lot of excitement, there was also some scepticism – can we really maintain productivity while reducing our working days?

We identified a number of criteria for success across the year and supported staff to think about how they could work “better” rather than more hours. For example, by deprioritising work that had less impact, reducing unnecessary meetings and making improvements to systems or processes.

Workplace accommodations

As an organisation that works with disabled people globally, and aims to have 50% of our staff made up of disabled people, we wanted to ensure we were best supporting our own staff who are disabled or have long-term health conditions. To do this we strengthened our workplace accommodations policy.

Rather than “reasonable accommodations” or “reasonable adjustments”, we use the term “workplace accommodations” to move away from the idea of what is considered reasonable or unreasonable. While we have legal duties to provide accommodations for disabled staff, our policy is available to all staff, recognising that people may need accommodations for different reasons, such as caring responsibilities.

The impacts of working differently

Across the various measures we used to review the year of working well, results were overwhelmingly positive: 100% of staff felt it had been positive for them and 97% felt it had improved their wellbeing.

Overall, the trial was a success. The rest week received less positive feedback, mainly from parents for whom this standardised leave week did not necessarily line up with school holidays for their children, which made school holiday care more difficult.

Performance issues did not increase. And we saw improvements in some HR measures, such as an increase in completion rates for annual reviews, a reduction in short-term sickness absence and an increase in holiday taken.

Some areas are still a work in progress, and we are continuing to support staff to make these changes, but we have now adopted the majority of changes on a permanent basis. The exception to this is the rest week, where we are instead trialling quarterly learning weeks. The idea is that staff can use the week for learning or focused work, and there will be no internal meetings or communications so staff can take holiday and not return to full inboxes.

While it felt like a bold step and there was a significant amount of work involved in making it a success, changing to a four-day week, alongside the other wellbeing benefits we’ve introduced, has more than paid off.

We are sharing this learning because we believe the development sector needs more honest, practical examples of what it looks like to work differently in practice.

What we have learned is that working well is not about doing less for its own sake. It is about creating conditions where people can focus, rest and contribute meaningfully without burnout.

This is still a journey for us. But it is one we are committed to continuing.