The four-day workweek is lately in the news. Its promise is greater economic benefits for businesses and governments, and increased productivity for organization’s human resources. How should we think about this from a personal and business productivity perspective? Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art share their thoughts on the four-day workweek.
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In this Cast | Four-Day Workweek's Impact on Productivity
Ray Sidney-Smith
Augusto Pinaud
Art Gelwicks
Francis Wade
Show Notes | Four-Day Workweek's Impact on Productivity
Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.
The Day After Tomorrow: an Autonomy study on the 4 day week in the private sector
Related: The Five-Hour Workday: Live Differently, Unlock Productivity, and Find Happiness by Stephan Aarstol
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Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith.
Augusto Pinaud 0:22I'm Augusto Pinaud.
Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade.
Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of productivity cast. Today, we are going to be covering something that I think is quite kind of interesting, it will give us an opportunity to really think through something that we have just kind of taken for granted, it kind of sits in the background. And that is the workweek, how we structure our lives is so built on the routine around this structure of really the eight hour work day. And the concept that we work, a regular set of hours throughout our work week and our weekends being structured to be this space where we rest between work. And the reality is, is that much of it is a bit of a farce. We spend so much of our time thinking inside and outside of work when we're on so to speak. And yet at the same time, we don't really recognize the fact that we are always working in a way, whether that be being applied to life work or work work. There's kind of both of those pieces going on. And I'm really curious from the ProductivityCast team hear our thoughts around this. And what piqued this was that autonomy, which is a consultancy, based out of the UK, they put out a recent study that discusses the profitability of UK businesses, if they were to implement this four day working week concept. So that came to prominence in my own mind, we've talked about this on in on ProductivityCast In the past, and now the study came out. And in essence, it covered some really interesting and I think compelling arguments for the case of having a four day workweek. And so what I thought we would do is cover kind of the big ticket items that the study identified, and then talk about how we all view the four day workweek in the context of the US and other jurisdictions how they would really apply this, and whether it would work for individual productivity, and then what you all could do, say, to get started to test whether or not a four day workweek would really work for you. And so the report was called the day after tomorrow, and the name being named because of the COVID 19 pandemic. And of course, the fact that a lot of businesses have been in some form of shutdown and reopening and shutdown and reopening, and the impacts of how the four day workweek could benefit companies post pandemic. But anyway, it's called the day after tomorrow. The subtitle is stress tests, affordability and the roadmap to the four day workweek. This was published in December 2020. And I'll put a link to this study in the show notes. So you can have that autonomy, who's the author of the study, they're an independent think tank based in the UK and they provide necessary analyses, proposals and solutions with which to confront the changing reality of work today. And so that's really their whole goal is to help us flourish in the face of all of this change the in the summary of findings, I'm just going to note these I think these are useful, and then we'll get into the particulars. The summary of findings notes, we It says we provide a conservative worst case scenario for the impacts on profitability of a suddenly implemented four day workweek in the private sector. They also find that a four day workweek, with no loss of pay would be affordable for most firms once the initial phase of the COVID-19 crisis has passed. On the other hand, some firms in some industries would experience cashflow problems if changes were implemented too quickly. A four day workweek, with no loss of pay will most likely be implemented in the public sector before the private sector. And then public sector organizations could influence private sector businesses through procurement policy and other indirect routes. The process of changing expectations and behavioral norms could be sped up by the creation of a more of more bank holidays and the reintroduction of pro union legislation. Even if a four day work week in the private sector took longer than expected a four day work week in the public sector could support the UK long term recovery out of this particular pandemic. This particular crisis
Augusto Pinaud 4:26Well I think the first question is where is work happening and on what on how we define work you know it's work they actually meet the people is actually doing the report at what level we're talking I'm all for to certain roles to be a four day work week. You know, we if we think when we came with the idea of this or when they came with a CDL, five days 40 hours a week with the in implement on technology, efficiency, non technology. What we have gone is exactly the opposite way people must people in work in a lot more than those 40 hours a lot more than those five days. Even if you're talking public sectors, unless you are the person in the window, most likely you are working more than that. So I'm all all formed the question that I will have is, and and this is an American question, as an American culture is, are we ready to leave our addiction to work? Because the problem, when you look into the United States, specifically, there is some kind of an addiction to work, there is a badge of honor to say, Oh, I work 80 hours a week. You know, that doesn't happen in other cultures, you know, I make fun of some customers from Spain, and I make fun of them. Because, you know, we may be in the middle of a meeting, but it's time for a siesta. And that meeting need to stop, we hope to come back. And I remember when I begin working with them how difficult that concept was, for me thinking on the American way to work, you know, and how much they respect that hour. And that is a stop. And we continue after this yesterday, that was fine. When you go to other cultures, it is the same they have those rhythm that I have not found in, in the American working culture, you know, what I have found is let's see who can push harder. Let's see who can stay longer. Let's see who can work more, and is the exception to the rule. The companies who tend to work on those 40 hours a week.
Art Gelwicks 6:34Let me lay out some facts here because I actually did a little homework on this. Starting off the 40 Hour Workweek, I need to be clear about something we talked about the four day workweek, or a 32 hour workweek, because many cases, the four day work week is actually 14 hour days perceived. So you're not decreasing the number of hours, you're just compressing them into a shorter period of time during the week. That's a mixed bag. It's been documented as being a mixed bag, because anything more than eight hours has been shown to be not increasing productivity that goes back to the Henry Ford piece. But what's important to understand is where the 40 hour week came from, and it started well before Ford 1866, the National Labor Union asked for the eight hour work day It wasn't passed, but it started to increase public support. President Grant in 1869 was the first one to mandate eight hour work days for federal employees. And in 1886, the Illinois legislature mandated eight hour work days, this actually caused employer resistance resulting in worker strikes, including a bombing that killed 12 people, if you look up the Haymarket Riot of May 1, it's related to this whole thing. It goes from 1886, all the way up to 1926. Before we get Henry Ford included in this mix of popularizing the 40 Hour Workweek, and that's him saying, well, working more than eight hours, doesn't really benefit based on what he's seen. The Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, required overtime for all employees working more than 44 hours a week, but was then amended two years later to be 40 hours a week. And in 1940, the 40 hour workweek becomes law.
