California company employs 5-hour workday

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (FOX 13) - The 9-to-5 rat race feels so much longer these days.

A few years ago, Stephan Aarstol tested a 5-hour workday at his California company Tower Stand Up Paddleboards.

"The idea was to get more out of my existing team and teach them to work faster and then after the experiment was over we'd go back to regular hours and everybody would be working at twice the speed," said Aarstol.

So he made a plan.

"I said ok for three months we're going to work from 8am-1pm straight through no lunch and I'm going to give you basically your life back," said Aarstol.

It was smooth sailing.

"When we started the 5-hour workday, we had $5 million in revenue, the next year we had $7.5 million," said Aarstol.

But not everybody could stay on board.

"Some people I've had to fire, some have left on their own accord," said Aarstol.

Many embraced the shorter work day.

"They start to see the company as providing them this sort of extraordinary lifestyle as opposed to this 60, 70 hour a week trudge that they do," said Aarstol.