What is a bare minimum Monday

On a bare minimum Monday, employees do as little work as possible. This may include not answering emails or taking calls for the first two hours of the day. However, employees still take on any essential obligations they have. Bare minimum Mondays can include:

• Making time for personal tasks;
• Sleeping in;
• Going out for lunch;
• Only answering essential calls and emails.

Why have a bare minimum Monday?

The point of bare minimum Monday is to ease employees back into their responsibilities after the weekend. As many employees may feel anxiety about going back into work on Monday – colloquially known as the ‘Sunday scaries’ – this can help them see their return to work as stress-free, and therefore may encourage a more positive attitude about returning after the weekend.

A counter to ‘hustle culture’ concerns

Bare minimum Mondays are a counter to ‘hustle culture’, which involves sacrificing self-care for maximum productivity, as well as having several different jobs and projects at the same time. 

Hustle culture involves making the assumption that the more hours someone puts in, the more productive they are. However, it is possible for someone to ‘work smarter’ and achieve the same results in less time – they just take a more considered approach.

Bare minimum Mondays give employees time to take stock of the week ahead and perhaps better plan their workloads. Or, the extra time to think through slowly and carefully could help them find more efficient solutions to problems they might be facing.

For employees who are involved in knowledge industries and technology fields, the extra time to think and troubleshoot issues could be highly beneficial. For example, a software programmer stuck on some coding work can use their bare minimum Monday to go for a walk and think over the issue slowly.

A solution to ‘quiet quitting’

Bare minimum Monday may also be a solution to the issue of quiet quitting, which is when employees are only focused on the bare minimum of their role rather than becoming a top performer. If employees do not feel overwhelmed by their workloads, they may be more likely to feel a sense of wellbeing and connection with their workplace.

In this next section, we’ll look at some of the benefits of having a bare minimum Monday in place. Then, we’ll follow up by looking at some of the challenges of doing so.

What are the benefits of a bare minimum Monday

Bare minimum Mondays can help with absence leave because some employees may be tempted to take Mondays off feigning sickness. This is because of the anxiety they may have about returning to work. Our guide to absenteeism for employers found that absenteeism can cause:

• Higher workloads for other employees present that day;
• Additional costs for the business if they lose out on trade as well as additional administrative work;
• Workplace conflict and a negative company culture;
• Negative impact on general employee motivation.

However, if employees are allowed to ease back into their workloads, this may help them to avoid burnout.

Employees may put less pressure on themselves to achieve everything they set out to do that day. As this can alleviate anxiety, it means they may actually increase productivity anyway. Because of this, bare minimum Mondays may also help to prevent procrastination coping methods.

Bare minimum Mondays could be part of an employer’s rewards and incentives programme. They can reward top performing employees with these slow starts to the week as they’ve already demonstrated an ability to manage their workloads well. As our guide to rewards and incentives found, motivating and inspiring employees during a time when retention is difficult can be a productive move for businesses. 

Similarities to the four-day working week

While research on the benefits of bare minimum Mondays are limited, employers can look at some of the shown benefits four-day working weeks may have for inspiration. We discovered in our article on the benefits of a 4-day working week the following:

• 78% of employees with four-day working weeks are happier and less stressed;
• They can help prevent absenteeism ;
• They can reduce a business’s carbon footprint;
• They can attract talented jobseekers.

With bare minimum Mondays somewhere in between a four-day work week approach and a standard working week, businesses may reap some of the above benefits.

What are some of the challenges of a bare minimum Monday

Looking at some of the challenges employers may face if choosing to implement a bare minimum Monday is essential to ensure the concept is implemented successfully.

Can increase workloads later in the week

One of the main challenges of bare minimum Mondays is the fact that what’s not completed on Monday is up for employees to finish later in the week. This could mean that their workload isn’t spread out quite as well throughout the week and that they’re rushing to complete what they missed out on originally.

One way to counter this could be to ensure that employees still answer calls and respond to emails during certain times on Monday, while still encouraging them to sleep in or go out for lunch with their colleagues. As bare minimum Monday is a flexible concept, employers can approach them in any way they prefer.

It might not suit every industry

Like with four-day work weeks, bare minimum Mondays might not suit every industry. Customer-facing jobs may require staff to provide a friendly and efficient face that represents the business. Doing the bare minimum on Mondays may not reflect well on staff towards customers, therefore.

Employees taking a ‘bare minimum’ approach to the rest of the week

Another potential issue could be that employees are tempted to continue a ‘bare minimum’ approach throughout the week, not just on Mondays. Different employees may be driven by different incentives. Some employees may be more productive when they are able to hit the ground running when they come back to work.

Others may be more effective with a bare minimum approach. Whether the approach is right for your team or not will likely depend on the personalities of the people in your team and what drives them to achieve the best results.

Bare minimum Mondays are a useful way to ease employees back into work after the weekend. It may help to improve employee engagement in the long-term, reduce anxiety and give employees time to think through complex issues. However, the approach might not work for every team or industry. Employees may also be encouraged to take a bare minimum approach all week. Businesses might benefit from looking at implementing bare minimum Mondays on a case-by-case basis.