Simon Della Barca with his 50th donation backpack. Photo / Judith Lacy
Simon Della Barca with his 50th donation backpack. Photo / Judith Lacy
Four days a week Simon Della Barca sells icecream. On the fifth day of the working week he is often giving away liquid gold.
Della Barca is an area sales manager for Unilever New Zealand and lives in Palmerston North.
Unilever has extended its four-day work week trial. Staff retain100 per cent of their salaries while committing to 100 per cent delivery for the business.
Della Barca often uses his fifth day to donate plasma, which can be done every two weeks and takes up to 90 minutes.
Plasma is the gold-coloured liquid part of blood that carries blood cells, water, proteins and clotting factors around the body. It can be used to create up to 13 blood products.
Simon Della Barca's left arm is connected to the apheresis machine that separates his plasma from red blood cells and platelets. Photo / Judith Lacy
As the bag of liquid gold grows, we talk icecream. Della Barca is a fan of new product Cookie Time icecream sandwiches.
Cookie Time began in 1983 in Christchurch and Della Barca says he has probably been consuming the “New Zealand icon” for that long. He enjoys the flavour and texture.
He had a mobile coffee kart in the 1990s that sold the cookies. “You always eat what you sell, it saves you money.”
He is loving the four-day working week.
“The massive advantage for me is that if work is flat out from product launches and other assigned tasks, I generally have Mondays off, so I know I have three days to chill.”
When he heard Unilever was trialling the shorter working week, he was excited as it was something he tried to implement when he was a chef.
Della Barca encourages other companies to embrace a shorter working week. “You may feel time poor for a while, but for me it just meant working smarter and I always know that at the end of my week I’ve got a long weekend.”
He says the gift of the fifth is fantastic. “I’ve been around long enough to know that when you get something like this, it’s nice to pay it forward.”
The shorter working week hasn’t affected business growth because employees want to keep it and do the best they can.
“My role involves a lot of travel, so I had to sharpen my organisational skills to ensure every minute counted.”
As it says on his T-shirt he is 1962 vintage. He has a target of 12,500 steps a day and is a keen mountain biker and fisher.
Della Barca tries to have dinner by 6pm so his body has 14 hours to process the food - breakfast is at 8am.
His pro tip for blood and plasma donors is to hydrate well before donating.
