This CEO cut the working week, but not pay, at his factory – and says workers are now more productive and stick around for longer

• DiamondBack Covers reduced its 40-hour week to 35 without cutting pay for workers.
• The decision has meant greater efficiency, safety, and staff retention, said CEO Ben Eltz.
• He thinks that blue-collar workers and their employers can both benefit from a shorter working week.

In 2020, Pennsylvania-based manufacturing firm DiamondBack Covers reduced the number of hours its workers put in every week, but kept their pay the same. It's a decision that "almost pays for itself" through increased efficiency, safety, and staff retention, according to the CEO, Ben Eltz.

The idea of cutting workers' hours without cutting pay, sometimes called the "four-day week", is gaining traction, but it's a movement that's often associated primarily with desk jobs.

Eltz told Insider he thinks that blue-collar workers — and their employers — can also benefit from adjusting traditional working patterns. 

DiamondBack Covers, which makes heavy-duty covers for pickup trucks, employs about 115 workers at its factory in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. They work a 35-hour week but they get paid as if they had done 40.

Eltz told Insider that DiamondBack Covers pays its production employees an average hourly wage of about $20. That's higher than the national average of $17.42 for such workers, according to the most recent Bureau for Labor Statistics figures from May 2021.

Insider has viewed wages slips to verify the number of hours workers are paid per week by DiamondBack, and the hourly rate of pay.

Eltz said the company introduced the shorter schedule after the pandemic forced the factory to temporarily close in March 2020. "When we came back from that shutdown, we had a huge backlog," he said. 

DiamondBack wanted to take on more workers but didn't have the physical space to do so. Before the pandemic, employees had done eight-hour daytime shifts and the company initially considered a standard shift that would run late into the evening.

However, management were concerned about attracting workers for a night shift. Eltz didn't want DiamondBack to make "someone's life worse than it was before."

Instead, the company decided to implement two shorter shifts, and keep pay at the same level. The first shift runs from 5 a.m. to 11:15 a.m., while the second runs from 11:15 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Each worker does one longer ten-hour shift each week, where they overlap with the other team.

This means that DiamondBack has been able to hire more staff without asking anyone to "be here after dinnertime," said Eltz.

After a four-week trial, more than 80% of employees said they'd prefer to retain the 35-hour week — and managers observed increased efficiencies that "almost" made up for the shorter schedule.

DiamondBack has shed its workers' least-productive hours, which typically came at the end of an eight-hour shift. It's physical labor — so it's crucial that workers are "fresh" and "mentally awake," said Eltz. 

The extra efficiency doesn't cover the whole cost, but he said that's something DiamondBack is willing to offer as a "benefit" because it helped attract and retain staff. Fewer hours also improves safety, Eltz added.

Retaining staff saves money because new staff have to be trained — and it takes time for them to be as fast and efficient as longterm employees.

US manufacturers have high rates of staff turnover — averaging almost 40% in 2021, according to the Bureau for Labor Statistics. The figure for DiamondBack that year was just 10%, Eltz said. 

The shorter week also appears to help attracting new staff at a time when many factories have struggled to find workers. "We weren't immune," said Eltz, "but it seemed like things were much easier for us."