Getting Business Ready for the 4-Day Working Week

In the opinion of many companies, the 4-day work week could solve burnout and provide a much-needed boost to their talent attraction. But is it achievable?

“I’ve been studying work since the 1980s and I’ve never seen anything like what’s happening today,” begins Juliet Schor. “In the US, more than half of all employees report feeling stressed a lot of the day. Job quits are at record levels, running at four million a month. People are burning out.”

This week’s presentation marks the fifth TED Talk to focus on the 4-day work week since the organisational psychologist Craig Errey first offered it as a solution in a lecture on work/life imbalance. It’s easy to see why the concept has plenty of traction within the international thinktank, setting up shop in the lecture halls and theatres of the world; reducing to a 4-day work week with no reduction in salary piques the attention and offers a solution to overworked employees everywhere.

It stimulates conversation too. Another of TED’s guest speakers, Andrew Barnes discovered the fervour for such a solution when he became one of the first to initiate the concept at his New Zealand company: “This started off as a local interest story, and then it went global. 37 countries, over 3,000 media articles, 10,000 social media posts… You know you've made it when you are appearing on drivetime Colombian radio.”

Is a 4-Day Work Week Feasible?

Many would assume that, from a financial perspective, there are very few companies that could make such a concept viable. Yet, as an economist and author of a book on creating a high-satisfaction economy, Juliet Schor has no qualms that the 4-day work week is the way forward.

She uses the example of Healthwise, a US company for health education. “In June, their employees were quitting in droves. By August, they'd implemented a four-day week. Six months later, CEO Adam Husney reports that people are dramatically happier and have never been more productive. Resignations and sick days are down, revenue has grown and customer satisfaction scores are outstanding.”

Taking Back Time From the Work Day

The trick is in finding the areas of the day during which productivity founders, and reducing them to a minimum. “In return for the gift of a day off, people are willing to squeeze all their productivity into four days. So while they may be spending less time at work, they're not necessarily doing less work. The secret sauce is work reorganization, cutting out the least productive activities. Meetings are a prime target. Most companies reduce their frequency and length and the number of attendees.”

It's a familiar retread for those who have listened or watched previous TED Talks on the subject. Pernille Garde Abildgaard, CEO of the company TAKE BACK TIME, argued that “it's a waste of time to check your emails more than two or three times a day,” and that we all need to stop having meetings with too many people present in the room with no agenda and no follow up. “Why do you think all meetings have to last 30 or 60 minutes? I tell you why, it's because the Outlook default for planning a meeting is 30 or 60 minutes. If you change the Outlook default to 20 minutes and 40 minutes, you already have more time to pursue your passions.

“Be aware of what time of day your brain is at its best. Most of our brain works best in between 8:00 and 12:00 noon, so use these golden hours wisely. Don't spend the golden hours in meetings and checking emails and try to concentrate on only one task at a time. It is not rocket science, but it indeed works.”

Decluttering the Workplace

In by far the wittiest TED Talk of the four, Andrew Barnes had a more hyperbolic approach to expressing the banes of productivity. “You get down to some work… and then somebody taps you on the shoulder and says, ‘Can you help me with this.’ I love this. If somebody keeps disturbing you at work it's like the equivalent of a 10 point drop in your IQ, or you operating under the influence of marijuana.” It’s not scientific, but it displays a definite consensus as to why that fifth day exists and should not exist.

Each of the presentations make clear why the 4-day work week is needed, not least because it could be the centrepiece of a company’s Employee Value Proposition – reducing stress, improving work/life balance and reducing the office carbon footprint. Abildgaard made reference to the digital marketing agency IIH Nordic, who implemented the 4-day week precisely to eradicate the “difficulties in recruiting and maintaining the brightest minds.”

How to Implement a 4-Day Working Week

There is less of a consensus amongst the speakers about whether the onus is on businesses or from a higher administration. Craig Errey made a brief mention of the desperate need for legislation to aid implementation, whereas Abildgaard went in a different direction: “Unfortunately, we can’t count on the politicians and the governments on this issue because they are too keen to talk about increasing the workforce, and on paper a reduction of our weekly working days means the opposite.”

Schor strung a more positive note with various case studies on the ways in which governments have got involved over the past few years. “For now, we're starting company by company. But as momentum builds and it becomes universal, we'll have made the transition from scarcity-thinking to appreciating the true wealth that we possess. Our ingenuity, our compassion and our humanity.” Progress has been made by the Icelandic government, firstly in the city of Reykjavík and then with more widespread adoption across the country, and by the Swedish government in the city of Gothenburg. While government uptake remains a stumbling block, there are reasons to be positive.

If there are to be more TED Talks on the subject in the future, there will need to be more of a focus on how governments can be encouraged and best collaborate with businesses to make that leap. But it’s clear that the calls for a 4-day work week are only going to grow louder.