November 5, 2025 • 56 mins
Nearly 100 years ago, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that we’d be working 15-hour weeks by now due to gains in productivity and technology. Tim Ferriss claims that you can pretty much do it all in a 4-hour workweek! Neither of those seem plausible but our guest today takes a much more reasonable approach and says that 4-day work weeks are not only feasible but can lighten the load, allowing us to live more life – all while being more productive! Juliet Schor is an economist and professor of sociology at Boston College and is best known for her research on work, consumption, and economic inequality. Some of the topics discussed today include:
- How cultural attitudes towards work can hinder progress
- Four-day work week can improve productivity and employee satisfaction
- Companies are beginning to recognize the benefits of shorter work weeks
- People often prioritize work over personal life due to societal pressures
- Ways to advocate and push for a more reasonable work week
- Navigating a post-growth world requires reevaluating consumption habits
- No amount of money can compensate for more work among certain workers
- And plenty more!
Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:
- Be sure and check out Juliet’s book, Four Days A Week: The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-Being, and Working Smarter
- Knowing your ‘money gear’ is a crucial part of your personal finance journey. Start here.
- Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and today I'm
talking work less, Live More with Juliette Shore. So most
(00:26):
of us can agree that Americans are overworked and that
we tend to overspend to compensate. It's also true that
most of us we're not going to hit the Tim
Ferriss goal of working four hours a week still. John
Maynard kines the British economists. He predicted that we'd be
working fifteen hour weeks by now, but he was way off.
My guest today is here to parse the modern day
(00:48):
work details. She says that four day work weeks can
lighten the load, they can be realistic, and they can
allow us to live more life, which sounds nice. So
we're going to get into that. Juliette Shore is an economist.
She's a professor of sociology at Boston College, and she's
best known for her research on work consumption and economic inequality. Juliette,
(01:10):
thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
First question I ask everyone who comes on. It helps
us get to know you a little bit. What do
you like to sporge on? I like to sporge on
craft beer. It can be quite expensive at times. What
is that for you? The thing where you're like people
might say I'm crazy, but I'm happily going to spend
money in this way, even while I'm trying to be
smart with my money and think about my future.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Uh, I'm so embarrassed. Please don't discount all the other
things I have to say on the pod. My kids
think this is so ridiculous. But I like expensive hotels.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Oh, okay, so you're not staying at the motel six?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Definitely not?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And are you? Are you trying to save money when
you book expensive hotels? Are you just like it doesn't
even matter. I'm staying at the place I want to stay.
I'm not been shopping around.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
No, I definitely. Well.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I mean, there are a lot of really expensive ones
I won't go too. But I just I think it's
because my parents took me to them as a kid.
I just I just really like to stay in the
nicer places.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I do.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I do look for deals. I you know, I am.
I am, you know, a little bit frugal. I guess
that's not really a good word when you talk about
spending three or four hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I try to get value for money.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, so you know, this is reminding me of I
don't know if I've ever told this story on the podcast,
but when my wife and I were getting married, I
was booking a hotel in Memphis, Sore I got married,
and there was one hotel I really wanted us to
stay at, it the Peabody, because they have they lay
out this red carpet and the ducks come walking down
and it's like this really fun experience. But if I
(02:51):
booked directly at the Peabody, it was gonna be like
five hundred dollars a night, and I knew on Priceline
there were three hotels it could have been if I
was making a bid, and I knew I could like
pay half of that, but there was only a thirty
percent chance really that I was going to get this
hotel that I wanted to stay at, And I remember
my mom being like, stop being cheap and just pay up.
I did the price line bid, and I like ended
(03:12):
up lucking out and getting the Peabody Hotel. So I
got the best of both worlds. But man, it could
have gone south. It could have gone a different way.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I'm glad, and yes, we booked the plot.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
We booked the Plaza, which I'd never stayed at before.
That was amazing, Okay before before Trump owned it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Okay, all right, So I want to get to there's
You've been writing about some of these issues of work
and how Americans spend and consume and the relationship between
those two things, and alongside other other aspects of American
life and economics as well. But I feel like that
theme of work has been running through the output your
(03:55):
output for decades. Why why has that interest you into
you in particular so much?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Well?
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I got into it totally by chance. I was studying.
I was doing sort of labor economics, and I was
interested in what the factors that drove how hard people
would work and kind of the conflicts between employers trying
to get more work out of people and you know,
people not necessarily loving that kind of you know, having
(04:22):
the whip on their back as it were, and you know,
so that sort of conflicts in the labor market, and
that through a that got me looking at how working
hours affect what people do while they're on the job,
Like if they have longer working hours, are they more
(04:43):
tied into their jobs? Do they feel more pressure to
you know, work hard and do whatever the boss says,
Like the difference between having one forty hour a week
job where you're totally dependent on that job for your
income versus if you had two twenty hour week jobs,
were you more likely to tell your boss to, you know,
(05:04):
like the Dolly Parton thing, take this job and shove it.
So it was really I got into studying working hours
because I was interested in dynamics within the workplace.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Well tell me about that. Are people better off having
two twenty hour week jobs than one forty hourly job?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Well? No, but here's the thing. So my theory was
it explained why it is that if you want a
short hour job, if you want to work short hours,
you pay a huge penalty for it. Because if you
have a full time job, what I called a long
hour's job, you'll have benefits and you know, possibly a
(05:42):
career ladder.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And so forth.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
But in order to get a job where you don't
have to work those long hours, there are massive penalties.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
They're lower wages, there.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Are no benefits, there's you know, you don't have career
career pathways. And so I was really interested and sort
of how employers had structured the workplace to be you know,
full of long The good jobs were all really long
hour jobs.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I have a friend who was able to negotiate with
his employer to go down from forty hours a week
to thirty hours a week and reduce his salary by
a quarter, but he's able to keep his benefits. And
I was like that, you just struck gold there, and
I think a lot of people would kill for that,
But not many employers are willing to go there.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Right, And you know, it is getting a little more
flexible than I mean. I wrote my first book, The
Overworked American, came out in nineteen ninety two, and at
that time there was much much less kind of decent,
good part time work. But the companies I'm studying now
are giving people the thirty two hour weeks with no
reduction in pay. Yes, keep all your benefits.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And because one of the and people are doing as
much work as they were generally speaking, that's what we're
hearing from the companies because one of the things, you
know that a lot of people who go to those
shorter schedules and take the hit on the salary say
they're doing.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
As much work as they used to. Yeah, they're just
getting paid less.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
And that's why you see, you know, some of the
people who go to those salaries, they go back up
because they say it's not fair. You know, I was
doing the same amount. I want to get all the money.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So I want to dig in, specifically because your most
recent book is talks a lot about for four day
work weeks, and I want to dig into that a lot.
I want to set the table down. I want to
hear maybe what trends have been like over the past decades.
Like so for a long long time, work hours declined
(07:42):
in the United States, around the world, and much of
the world for since like the eighteen hundreds, right, we
were just seeing people working a lot less, having more
leisure time. But it seems like there was like something
that happened right around nineteen seventy that changed that.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yes, so beginning in eighteen seventy you begin to get
a long period of work time reduction. The US leads
the world in work time reduction. Night eighteen seventy, average
work week was three thousand hour work year. Three thousand
hours a year. That's sixty hours a week. Let me
just put a little pin in that for one second.
(08:20):
The thing that most people don't realize is in the
century before. So from seventeen seventy to eighteen seventy, working
hours went up a lot. So the early period of
the industrialization, which you know, the first factories came in
seventeen seventy ish.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Around that, you.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Get a long period where people are working longer and
longer hours, more and more days per year, and kind
of really getting squeezed. And it gets to the point.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Where those kids are working too, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Exactly the kids in the factories working sixteen hour days
and they're barely getting any money, and they're dying of
malnutrition and overwork. So you know, you get unions, you
get society, you know, do gooters, people start mobilizing to
do something about it. You get that long period of
worktime reduction. I began looking, but I noticed that it
(09:12):
seemed like things were stopping, that was stopping in the
United States, and I began looking at trends and hours
of work, and what you see is beginning around as
you say, right about nineteen seventy, we start an upward
creep of hours. And my first book on this went
to the end of the eighties, so twenty years, and
(09:36):
there there was about an average of one hundred and
sixty four hours of what I call the extra month
of work, so four forty hour weeks on average people
putting in paid work. And a lot of that was
women working more of the year and longer hours, you know,
going from sort of women as mothers, particularly part time
(09:59):
workers to full time workers. But then you know, hours
kept going up, and we've had about a three hundred
hours a year increase since I first started looking at
this data, and that puts us squarely in opposition to
all the other countries that we were moving with before. Germany, France,
(10:25):
the UK, you know, all these other countries continued on
that path.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Of warktime reduction.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
When I wrote The Overworked American, Japan was the workaholic
country among the wealthier countries. Americans now work, on average
more than Japanese do.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
What about the pandemic? How did that shift the balance
of power and the amount of time people spend working,
Because it's certainly, at least for a hot minute, employees
had more leverage than employers.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, it didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Last well, I think it lasted a little longer than
people think, and in some ways I think, I mean,
right now, it's a sort of questionable period in the
labor market. You have certain certain kinds of jobs where
they're just you know, tech is really suffering. But the
pandemic changed everything in the labor market in many ways,
(11:21):
and it's what kicked off this four day.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Week movement that I've been studying. But what happened was.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
People's sense of the economic concept that I developed with
my advisor. We call it the cost of job loss,
or basically the value of a job to a worker
compared to their next best alternative. And that's really key
and we use that to study all kinds of things.
(11:52):
It turns out it's really key in wages, it's key
and how much workers go on strike. I mean, you've
had a lot of strikes in the last couple of
years because that the value of the job changed, and
it's key to central bank policy and upon I mean,
I studied a whole range of things. So what happened
was that the value of the job really felt during
(12:14):
the pandemic. Why two things. One is everyone was so
stressed out and work was stressing people out and so
it had much more negatives with it. And number two,
the government was giving people money so people could afford
to quit their jobs because they had bank accounts that
were way higher than the typical thing for Americans. You
(12:38):
had that period, I mean, I think most of it
it's gone now, but that period where people had money
in their bank accounts versus the sixty percent or whatever
it is who were living paycheck to paycheck. So that
was that's what was really key in the Great Resignation.
A lot of those were low wage workers, you know,
who don't typically have big bank accounts and who just
like they couldn't take it anymore, or just way too
(13:00):
much stress because there was the pandemic level stress and
then the stress in the workplace, and the two of
those together. American workers were already quite stressed out before
the pandemic. Pandemic just put a lot of people over
the edge.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, what would you say to someone who says, well,
look at the economy differences between a country like the
United States and a country like France, right, and hey, yeah,
they get plenty of time off at shorter work weeks,
but the economic dynamism dynamism of America is unmatched. So
(13:35):
there are pros and cons to this. Maybe workaholism or
lack thereof.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Okay, so there are a couple different things. I mean,
you mentioned dynamism, economic dynamism. It may be matched by
China at this point, but fair enough. I mean, I
think a lot of the European countries, you know, they
do tend to be a little bit less they tend
to be a little bit less dynamic, but their productivity
(14:01):
is really high. And so if you take Germany as
like the lowest hours of any of these countries, they
have tremendously high labor productivity, which is what allows them
to fund those hours, and people have really good standards
of living. In the US, we have economic dynamism, but
the vast majority of it is going of that wealth
(14:24):
is going to a very small number of people. And
you just have a lot of people are being i mean,
for one of a better word, exploited in the labor market.
You know, they're just hardly getting any money, they're being
treated poorly, etc. You just in Europe, workers have a
lot more protections, they have a lot more free time,
you know, shorter working hours, vacations, income security. You're much
(14:48):
much better off being an average person from an economic
point of view. In those countries, you may be less
likely to get rich. But think about it. I mean,
how many billionaires really are there that you know? Hardly
any of us are going to get that?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, you and I aren't there, Julian, I don't see
it coming in time soon down the pike either. If
given the choice, though, like just talking from a normal
American perspective, regular income earner, do you think people want
more free time or do you think people want more stuff?
And do you think that people are kind of making
(15:25):
an informed choice in that regard or that the cultural
tides have kind of overwhelmed us and we don't have
much of a choice to make. We're kind of forced
in like a square peg going into a round hole
if we try to take more time off.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So I addressed this in the Overworked American book.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Now that book came out in ninety two, but basically
what I argued there is, if you if you look
at people's you ask them about their preferences.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
What would you rather have more time? You know your
you can get a raise.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Or you can get more time off next year percent raise,
two percent, time off whatever. People will say they want
the time off at that time pretty strongly so, but
the companies weren't giving them the time off, they're giving
them more money, and if you ask them a year later,
they don't want to go back to what they were
a year before.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yep, they might say they want Well, that's because they
already bought the new car and they've got that hefty
car pay that they got to exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
So people get locked into whatever level of spending they have,
either through debt or just getting habituated to. You know,
I said at the beginning of the podcast, I like
nice hotels, but that's you know, I've crept up there
right like I never it used to be.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I would go to.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
A you know, like maybe one hundred dollars a night hotel,
and then at two hundred we get we acclimate as
we get nicer and nicer stuff, we just kind of get,
you know, used to it.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
And you know, whether.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
It's you mentioned a car or the size of your
house or any of those things. You know, our sort
of needs upscale over time with our incomes. And my book,
my book The Overspent American, had a lot about that.
Now I think today it's somewhat different. And also it
really differs across the labor market. So if you get
lower wage workers, they desperately need the money, so gonna
(17:12):
they're gonna take money over time. There are a lot
of higher wage earning people who are going to take
time over money, but they can't get it because they're
in their jobs. They just have to work those long
hours or they can't succeed in their jobs. And then
I think in the middle you sort of alluded to
the people in the middle. It kind of depends on
who they are and also how much debt they have
(17:34):
and what they're what their situation is.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
But you know, I've done.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Polling over the years asking people, and this is where
the four day week come in, because I think it's
different than asking which are like a three percent increase
in free time or a three percent increase in in
your income.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
It's kind of tough for us to visualize mentally, whereas
like do you want Fridays off exactly?
Speaker 3 (17:56):
The whole day off is huge. It is huge, and
it is a big increase in your income.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right, Your hourterly wage.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Goes up a lot, right, even if your total income doesn't.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Do you think just staying on kind of maybe some
of the high level stuff for just a second, do
you do you think that the world benefits from people
who work too much. I just think, like, I don't
want to work eighty hours a week. But like the
Elon Musk types, who you know, polarizing figure these days,
but who he sleeps on the office floor, gets right
back to it. There is something about the ability for
(18:33):
there's even you see this trend taking back up in
Silicon Valley of startups being like, we're working six days,
twelve hour days, and this is how we're going to
beat somebody else to the punch, launch our product first,
be the most successful, get the venture capital dollars, and like,
I don't want any part of that way of life.
(18:53):
But aren't you kind of sort of glad that some
of those people exist.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Well, there might be a few, but if you know
taking it, you say you want the high level, so
you take the big thing. I mean, Elon Musk was
making tons of mistakes. It's a big part of why
he had to be there at the factory, and his
people were hating on him, and you know, he kind
of had to be there because everything was, you know,
maybe falling apart. It was a nightmare, Okay, His sleeping
(19:17):
at the factory was a nightmare. In the same way
that his doge was a nightmare and so forth, Well,
let's leave him aside. What we have a lot of
startups in our research who are going to four day weeks.
And I'll give you an example of someone who contacted
us recently. He's the founder of an He's a company
(19:38):
which does agentic AI. So they're building an AI humans
in the loop decision making tool. It's a pretty cool project,
you know product. And he realized that he he scheduled.
He wanted to talk to me about the four day week.
And between the time we talked and when we had
(19:58):
our you know, we first commute, had our meeting, he said,
I just pulled the trigger.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
They're all on. I put everybody on a four day week. Now.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Why the work was too mentally taxing and use the
word emotionally exhausting. And this is one of the things
about really creative work. I mean, you do sometimes have
these people who go crazy and they just it's all
they can think about, and it's you know, it's a
sort of type. But I think for the bassmin I
(20:26):
think that's a really small number of people. For most
of us, our we make fewer mistakes, we're more creative,
we have better overall output, you know, production or you know,
what we do is better if we give our time,
our brain's time to rest. And you know, there's a
(20:47):
big literature on this now. One of the guys I
work with, Alex Pang on four day week stuff, wrote
a book called Rest, which is about a lot of
that literature and how if we're not resting our brains
and giving our self that like mental time where nothing's happened,
we're way less creative.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And I know, so I don't think.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
I think workaholic culture leads to a lot of problems.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
You know, in Japan they call it death by overwork.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I mean you have that too, yeah, yeah, And just
people that get so discouraged and despairing about how big
of a role work is playing in their lives that
sometimes they can't think of any way else to proceed
but to end their lives. And it's so it's so sad.
It's devastating to see that trend.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Like, I'm not advocating being a slacker. You know, I have,
I've like written six solo books. I have, you know,
probably six more that I've done with other people.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I have.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
You're not saying drinking lemonade all day.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, but I also understand that you have to have
a balance in life, first of all, if you want
to have a good life, but also if you want
to do good work. I mean, many writers will tell
you this, and I you know, when I write my books,
get up in the morning and do your work, and
you know, after about five or six hours, your brain
is fried.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
I think I love it. Let's I think that's a
great way to really kick off this conversation and start
talking about four day work weeks, how important they can be,
and how we might implement those, how to make them
kind of normal. We'll get to more on that with
Juliet Shore right after this. Okay, we're back. I want
(22:34):
to talk about four day work weeks with Professor Juliet Shore,
who has written so much about that intersection of work
and consumption. And I guess I do just want to
one more big level question. There's a conundrument. It seems
like between the reality that free markets and people choosing
to work as much as they want to if they
(22:54):
start a business, like truly, if I start a bakery
and I'm open two extra hours, like I might be
able to track more customers build up a business in
a way that somebody was saying, I'm not going to
work on Saturday is when most of my clients would
come in to buy, would be able to succeed, but
also that can impact negatively impact human flourishing. How do
(23:16):
you thread that needle? It does feel like there's a
needle that needs to be threaded right, and it's not
an easy one.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Well, that's a great point because one of the things
we see in the research we're doing, and just to
know I can go into more depth on it. But
basically what's been going on with my team, my research
team is since twenty twenty two, we've been tracking companies
around the world. We have there are about almost four
hundred companies now in our database or about to come
(23:46):
into our database who have instituted four day work weeks
with no reduction in pay. And these are thirty two
hour work weeks.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
These are not compressed but ten howadays exactly, they're eight hour.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Many of them do have clients. Some of them are
twenty four to seven operations, but many of them are
like nine to five and they are not gonna Many
do close on Monday, but many don't. And it depends
on the nature of their business. And so if you're
a bakery, you need to be open on Saturdays. Maybe
(24:22):
closing on Sundays is fine because your competitors all close
on Sunday, or maybe you don't, but.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
They figure out how to make it work.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
You know, they'll It's like there's so much shift work
in our economy anyway, and you know there's so many
companies that are not on nine to five Monday through Friday.
They've figured out how to stay open and still you know,
their employees can have a four day week. So it
a lot is how that it depends and the fact
(24:53):
that you stay open doesn't automatically get you more customers.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
And so one of the things.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
You know that you have to think about is what
is the relationship between your operating hours and your customers.
But a couple of the one of the industries where
we're seeing a lot of the four day week is
in sort of marketing and pr and one of the
things that some of the companies tell us is they're
able to sell more business to their existing customers when
(25:21):
they go to the four day week because they have
a lot more stability in their teams. Their people come
up with better ideas, they know the client's better, so
they're spending less of their time just out there trying
to find new customers.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So that's a kind of interesting wrinkle on it.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Why is the four day work week the solution? And
if that's a great solution, why not go down to three?
Why not even too? Like? Why why does the four
day work We kind of feel like this silver bullet
to you.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Well, in part it's because we're at five, so I
think five to three is too big. What we're seeing
is that five to four companies can manage it with
many of them will say without any loss in productivity.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
So what's going on actually additional eight hours that people
are cutting out of their work schedules. How are we
just as productive working so many fewer hours in a
week from a percentage standpoint?
Speaker 3 (26:18):
So the most common thing is that there are there's
a lot of wasted time in meetings. So many of
these we have mostly white collar companies in our database.
I mean we also have a small manufacturing or restaurant, healthcare,
and we have all kinds of things, but the vast
bulk are white collar, and so they have excessive meetings.
(26:40):
Why because the workweek was kind of stuck at five.
A lot of labor saving technology, all this digital technology
which makes many things faster to.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Do, came in. And then what did they do with
the extra time?
Speaker 3 (26:54):
They just expanded meetings and email overload and you know
that sort of thing. So meetings are like the number
one thing that they look at. Number two they look
at distractions, and meetings are a distraction, but there are
many other kinds of distractions, and they create focus time,
and so people actually put their heads down and get
(27:16):
their work done much more efficiently than they did, you know,
pre four day week.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Because they don't have time to scroll anymore. They got
to get their stuff done. If they're going to work,
get it all done in four days exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
And you know, we hit others.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Well, there are lots of other things people do, Like
we have a brewery in our sample, and I talk
about these a lot of these cases in more depth
in the book. But in the brewery they did time
and motion studies for every one of their.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Steps.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Brewing has a lot of different steps, a lot of
cleaning the machinery and so forth. It turned out they
were allotting way more time for some of these things
than they needed. They learned to how to slot one
step into the kind of the time and another step
and you know, like bring certain things forward to make
them get done. You know, so they change the sequencing.
(28:10):
One manufacturing company changed who was doing what. They figured out, Okay,
this guy is really efficient at this task. Why don't
we just have him do that most of the time
and let other people.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
So some of them goes through more specialization all the forms.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
That they use and figure out like, okay, this form
takes so long to fill out, do we really need
all this information? Or they they sort of look at
everything they're doing. Another big thing is documentation. We have
a lot of tech firms that do customer service and
if you're not like really documenting everything your customer service
(28:46):
people are trying to they're reinventing the wheel on a lot.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Of these calls.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
But not all the companies do documentation because it's kind
of people don't like to do it. It's a lot
of upfront work so that they find all sorts of
ways to save time.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
And you've called it, well like a like a forcing function,
like when you implement the four day workweek, it it
kind of forces people to get it done. It's like,
you've got to figure it out now. And ultimately they're
happy to have had that forcing function because of what
it allows them in their private life.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Totally, yes, And the forcing function, it's so interesting. You know,
my training is in economics. In economics, the theory is
that the market is the forcing function and that firms
who don't get as efficient as possible drop out. But
in the real world, that's in the real world, that's
not actually how it works. And you know, if for
(29:39):
economists who just you know, don't just think about the
models but actually look at data, you see that in
every industry there's a big range of levels of productivity
and efficiency, even in the same making the same products.
And so, you know, I asked a lot of these
companies because this idea. But there's this you know, it's
(29:59):
you know, we call it like a free lunch like that.
There's efficiency gains to be had there that you're not
taking advantage of.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
And I say, well, why did you need a four
day week to do this? Because you could have changed
your meeting culture. Without a four day week, you could
have given people, you know, distray. People hate meetings.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
They wouldn't have minded that or you could have given them,
you know, focused time without a four day week.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
And there are two things.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
I mean, I think one is there is a little
bit of you are asking people to kind of, you know,
be a bit more intense about the work. And although
we find very small increases in the pace of work
and the intensity of work.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
But the other thing.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Is they were just like we just we were just
trying to survive, you know, we're like trying to keep
our heads above what. I remember asking one woman at
a tech firm, you know, I called it a functional company,
the one that you know didn't have any inefficiency, said
why why didn't you achieve that level of you know,
as a functional company?
Speaker 2 (31:03):
And she said, have you ever seen a functional company?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
No? I love that, And I think you're right. I mean,
I think it's a really important insight that most people
they're not going to take a hard look unless they're
forced to. And this is the perfect way to force
yourself to take a hard look at your processes. And
at the same time, what are the biggest benefits that
employees give for having a four day work week, Like
(31:30):
what did they experience when they have a three day weekend?
Every weekend? And work takes up less of their overall time.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
So a bunch of different ways to answer that question.
We have twenty different metrics that we well being metrics
that we collect and if you look at the things
that are driving the increases and well being, because some
of the metrics affect other well being, you know, measures
(32:00):
people are less tired, so fatigue is really key. Sleep
is really key. People sleep more and the fewer sleep problems,
and they exercise more.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
So that's the.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Sort of outside of work stuff that happens. And then
within work there's something else really interesting.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
We have their.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Self reports of their productivity, so we ask them rate
your current ability at work compared to your lifetime best,
like or how good a worker are you compared to
your lifetime best And that goes way up before the
trial starts to six months later and then twelve months later,
and people just feel so much more on top of
(32:40):
their work and that really improves their well being. And
that's something happening in work because they can recover. The
time off allows them to recover. They feel refreshed and
ready to go back to work. Many more eager to
get back to work. They don't feel like their work
week is impossible.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Mondays, don't, you know, in a negative way anymore.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Monday stone hit. You know, you don't have the Sunday scaries,
you don't have the hump day as it's called on
the Wednesday. It just I remember one woman I interviewed
because we also do like in depth interviews, and she said,
I used to be so anxious at the beginning of
the week that I wasn't going to be able to
get my work done. And she said, that's totally done.
Now It's like people just figure out how to power
(33:27):
through their workloads much better.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, So what do you think the tools are for
getting more companies to adopt a four day work week,
where you know, and for CEOs, for managers to sign
off on this, and for and what does it take,
like look like for employees to petition their boss? Is
(33:50):
this is this something that is a top down thing
or should individuals be coming to their manager and saying, listen,
I don't know if you're going to do this company wide,
but this is something that this is something I've heard
about and I'm interested in, and I think I can
get just as much done. Like, what is it like
from implementation perspective?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
One thing that's important that we're finding is these are companies.
Most of them are small and medium size, but you know,
we have some really big ones, but mostly small and medium.
They're doing it as a whole company, and that's really
good because it's if it's just a few individuals doing it,
they're going to get the stigma of being thought like
not as committed workers and so forth. So they're doing
(34:31):
it all together.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
It is.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
The companies in our research are pretty much it's all
top down. So it's like that guy I mentioned earlier,
like a CEO, a founder, a president, whatever, or maybe
ahead of HR who just thinks, I think this is
going to work for our company, let's try it, and
they all the whole model is like a six month trial,
so they're not like committing to something before they know
(34:55):
that it can work for them.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
So I wrote my book in part for people to
read it and either just ordinary employees who could then
take it take the information to their seniors, managers and
so forth, but also the you know, the CEOs, the founders,
the presidents, whatever. So there's a lot of data research
there to try and convince people. But you know, I
(35:20):
think the most effective convincers are the companies that have
done it.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
And I just you know, a.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Couple of days ago, I was in New York doing
a session with two different One is the CEO of
a marketing company and the other is the head of
nursing at a big hospital area actually at a cancer
center that's part of a hospital, big hospital, and they
gave the nurse nurse managers a four day week. I mean,
(35:52):
these are like really high pressure jobs. And I have
discussion of this case and also managers nurses that are
in our research too.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
And the other is marketing.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
And you know, just I think when people hear it
from the companies that have succeeded with it, it's that's the
most powerful way. So a lot of companies are out
there talking about their experiences.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah, and probably one of the biggest hurdles is like
a cultural attachment to work and maybe like an inherited
Puritan work ethic or something like that, where it seems
almost like and you mentioned this earlier, like I'm not lazy,
I'm writing books, like I'm not encouraging just chilling and
not doing something meaningful. But is that one of the
(36:42):
biggest pushbacks you get, Like what are we from employers
saying like, oh my gosh, this is gonna result in
widespread laziness. How can we how can we work less?
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah? Well, I mean there is that there is that group.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
I think they tend to be at some of the
bigger firms that were like, well, work more and so forth.
But I think a lot of management are understanding how
stressed out their workers are and how it's just not
good for them.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Now.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
One of the things that that led many of the
companies into our research what is resignations. So, like the
marketing company that I just mentioned, they just had a
slew of resignations. I mean they're Canadian. It was not
part of the US Great resignation, but Canada was experiencing
(37:32):
something similar.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
The very first.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Company that signed up for these in this research had
the same thing. They had a whole bunch of people
leave and they're like, we got to do something. And
so I think that most of in these most of
these companies, people understand how much stress and burn out
their employees are experiencing and that they can help them.
(37:57):
There's really high turnover in some kinds of jobs in
the US in these marketing firms. You know, there apparently
it's like a thirty percent turnover, and then you're spending
enormous amounts of money and time replacing people and then
training them, and then they leave.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
And that is one of the one of the most
underconsidered costs of running a company is employee turnover. And
so if you pay people poorly and treat them poorly,
they leave quickly, and then you have to find someone
else to replace them, and that training period can be
so long and costly, like you've just tripped over your
own feet.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
So true.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
So one of the marketing executives that I actually opened
the book with her and she's a really visionary person,
and she just said she ended up putting it into
her contracts with her clients that she would have a
like a one percent turnover. The clients couldn't believe it
because there's so much turnover in that business, and that
(38:54):
she would get a bonus if she made that turnover figure.
But she had a fifty person team and nobody left
that team.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Wow, after we got the four day week.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
One of the other hurdles that strikes me is just
that the desire that people have to inflate their lifestyles
to buy more things to buy, nicer things to stay
a nicer hotel, rooms, to have own, nicer cars, whatever
it is, bigger houses, It means working longer hours much
of the time. Like that is, It's like if I
(39:27):
work more, I can get paid more, and it means
I can live the lifestyle I want. Do you think
that our desire to keep up with the Joneses is
part of this working too much problem that we have
in this country?
Speaker 3 (39:41):
That's certainly there for some people, But for a lot
of people, their jobs dictate how many hours they work,
and a lot of people, you can put in more hours,
you won't necessarily get paid more.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
We have so many people on salary in this country.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
I mean, and if you're talking about someone who's they
want to fancy your car, they want a bigger house,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Chances there on a salary.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
So you might you might be working really hard to
try and get that promotion. That's possible, But that's a
kind of an iffy thing. I mean, what you know,
part of what we're looking at are companies that are
realizing the person who's there all the time isn't necessarily
the most efficient person, right, So what is that relationship
(40:24):
between how many hours.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Somebody works, on how good they are, and they're for
what they deserve.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
I mean, yes, companies want people who are committed, for sure,
they don't they're not going to promote slackers. But it's
you know, if you're the last As I remember a
famous reporter told me, journalism is notoriously long hour profession.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
She said, we have the last man's standing.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Culture here, like everybody was afraid to leave the newsroom.
And it's just it's dysfunctional. I mean, my colleagues who
I work with, and the really the consultants in this world,
they call it. You know what do they call it?
Productivity theater where people just pretend to be productive?
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, which is crazy. Yeah, And if you care about
your business, like you care about uncovering that so that
your workers are happier and that you're actually productive and
not just like feigning productivity, it makes me think of
just at a job, there's also this like underlying message
that we get from any of our employers that we
had this. We used to have these meetings once a
(41:31):
month and people would get hundred dollars for doing things
that were above and beyond, and it always involved coming
in at five am because something was on fire, and like, hey,
Joe skipped his kid's soccer game on Saturday to do work.
And I was like, man, I hope I never win
this hundred bucks, Like not because I don't care about
my job, not because I don't care about putting out
(41:51):
good work, but because I'm not abandoning my soccer game
to try to come in and put out a fire,
Like I'm just not. I don't want to do that.
And I think there are those tout all messages too,
that get sent from a lot of employers where like
this is this is your life. You know that, right.
The other part of your life is fine, but this
job is actually your life. And I think that's kind
of insidious too, works its way in.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
We had a case before I was doing these trials,
studying these companies, I did a lot of work on
gig laborers and like you know, uber drivers and stuff.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
And we.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Remember a case of a delivery driver that we interviewed
and he was I think he was on a scooter
or something. He was hit by a car. He was
badly injured, and instead of going to the hospital, he
finished the delivery. Oh you know, he should have just
gone right to the hospital, and the company put it
out on their Facebook page and they gave him one
(42:45):
hundred dollars and it was like wow, like it wasn't
this great and it was so horrible because this poor
guy needed to get to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, that's a great example. We got a few more
questions I want to get to with you, Julia, including
kind of how you navigate consumption and ways that we
can consume more intelligently. Get to a few more questions
with you right after this. All right, we're back still
(43:16):
talking with Juliette. Sure. We're talking about working less and
living more. And Juliet you wrote a book called True Wealth,
and in that book you at least partially talk about
like new consumer habits around like sharing that can lead
to less buying and more swapping. I think you called
it connected consumption, and I really like that term. Do
(43:36):
you think is that one of those things too that
can help people own less, work less, and live more
of the life They want to think even think about
like self driving cars and I'm like, does this mean
I don't have to own a car someday? That maybe
this technological progress And sometimes it's not even technological progress.
It's just a website that connects people. That means that
we don't have to buy the stuff ourselves, can save
(43:57):
more of our money, and then maybe it means we
don't have to work as much much as we thought.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean I co founded an organization many
years ago with a woman named Vicky Robin, who you
may know from the Financial independence movement, I mean, one
of the founders of that financial With Joe Domingu's they
wrote that book Your Money or Your Life, and that
(44:22):
really was all about saying, you need to think about
the relationship between what you spend and how much you
have to work, and so whenever you buy something, think
about the number of hours that you have to work
to earn the money to buy. That so very much
in mind, and so when I wrote True Wealth, it
was about like a vision for how people can dealing
(44:42):
from long hour jobs that they would prefer not to
be in and have lower spending requirements so they could
afford to have more freedom in terms of their work life.
So maybe it's about shifting to a more satisfying job
that pays less and how you can still have a
satisfying and good consumer life.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
You know that you're not going to have to be,
you know, living in poverty in order to have a
good life.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
So many different things, I mean, less new, more long
lived products, more swapping. At the time I wrote that
the Internet, like the sites were really just coming up
where you could like get free things or swap or
buy use things. I mean, there's so much that you
(45:30):
can get now at a vastly reduced price. I have
students who've studied these buy nothing sites. I mean these
are huge sites where people just give away all kinds
of you know, really nice and valuable things that they
know longer want.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
So there is and then what.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Was you know, kind of a trend at the time
that book I wrote after the crash, the two thousand
and eight crash, So you know, people growing their own
vegetables or learning how to make and do things for themselves,
which for many people is also really satisfying hobbies and
so forth, but also can reduce your need to spend income.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
So I think there are lots of.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Ways that people can do that, but one of the
key things about them is you need time, because if
you have a really long hour job, you end up
not having the time to garden or to do this
or that diy or to search, you know, search for
that less expensive but just as good alternative that might
(46:38):
take you, you know, an hour or two on the internet.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Reading reviews and this and that.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
Like when you don't have time, you just buy something
and you're you know, you'll pay more because you don't
have the time to figure.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Out how to be less.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
So you talk in that book is one of the
things that fascinating me too. You talk about navigating the
post growth world that we live in, and you talk
about it come from a macro in from a micro
economic lens. I'm curious to hear what you mean by
living in a post growth era and then like, what's
the impact that that creates and how should individuals react
(47:13):
if we're living in a time of like decelerating growth,
which is going to impact standard of living? Sorry, that's
a big question.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Yeah, no, but it's a really important one.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Let's put aside population growth, okay, because that, yeah, your
economy you know, usually will need to grow if you
have more people, but just for any given amount and
sort of what about the idea that you just have
the same amount of money over the next ten years
or something.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I think for most of us.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
That's kind of like we are expecting that we're going
to get more money over time, but let's say we
don't pretend there's no inflation, so we're just kind of
leveled out at a certain.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Amount of money.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
I think what, you know, what we have to figure
out in that cas is like if you want to
buy new things, you've got to then divest from other
you know, like if you're spending all your income, but
yet you get a new desire, like, well, what are
you going to spend less on if you're just if
you're flatlined. And one thing that I think really helps,
(48:23):
I mean that I've seen as I've grown older, is
the desire to acquire new things tends to be a
lot stronger when you're younger, and when you get older,
for one thing, you have more desire to divest. And
it's also I mean maybe because you've done it. I mean,
(48:43):
I just don't have the same desire to consume that
I used to. You know, I wrote The Overspent American.
My husband said, oh, you wrote a book about yourself.
I mean, that wasn't exactly true, but it was true
that at the time I wrote that I was much
more interested in consuming than I am today. I went
to shops more I did, you know, like now I
(49:05):
hardly ever go I just don't. I don't shop nearly
as much as I used to. I used to shop
a lot, and I do think I mean, there's the
whole question of, you know what, what's missing in your
life if you're like spending so much time at the mall.
There is something there's something to be said for that perspective.
But I think post growth can work, but it's sort
(49:29):
of it's not about you know, doing with less and
less and less. I don't think that's viable for people.
I think you get to a certain level and we're
you know, just like it's enough and you just live
with enough. Of course, you're going to change what you're consuming.
You're not always going to want to consume the same thing.
(49:50):
But the idea that every year we have to consume more,
I just think that's a you know, that's a problem
in a world where the ecological footprint and our carbon
footprint is destroying the planet.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
We got we gotta deal with that.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Yeah, what would you say? Last question? Like, what would
you say to people out there listening who say I
like the mantra, I want to work less. I want
to live more life. I want more time for hobbies.
I don't even want fancier stuff.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I just do.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
I would love to have time to garden, and I
don't feel like I have it right now. And a
big part of the reason is because work accludes too
much of my overall, like life efforts.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
Yeah, how should they proceed? Well, I think they You know,
first thing is, there is this movement for a four
day week. It's gaining traction, it's gaining credibility because you
have all these experiences of companies who've done it successfully,
and you have lots of you know, data and research.
Now I'd say, first thing, see if you can work
that out in your own company, and if you can't,
(50:52):
see if you can find a four day week company.
Because these people who work in them, they've like dined
and gone to Honestly, they are you know, it's like
it's not just life is better, it's transformative.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
It's life changing.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
We've got like fifteen percent of people say I would
never go back to a five day a week job
for any amount of money. We ask them how much
money they would have, more money they'd have to earn
to go back to a five day week job, and
you've got that. I think it's fourteen percent over thousands
of workers who are saying no amount of money will
ever get me back.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Wow, not even like double the pay. It's like I'm
not doing it, not doing it, Julian, this has been
such a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining me.
Where can how do money listeners find out more about
you and your new book Four Days a Week?
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Well, just google me or the book.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
I'm most active on LinkedIn, which is the place that
has I would say the most vibrant conversation about working
hours in the four day week, but the books available everywhere.
Harper Business twenty twenty five. Four Days a Week.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Thank you. I love talking
to personal finance creators on this podcast, but I also
really like talking to economists as well, and somebody like
Professor Juliet Shore, who has just put in many decades
of not only like personal experience into something like the
(52:22):
four day work week, but just so much data into
how she has seen companies implement it, the impact it's
had on the company itself, on individual employees at that company,
the way that those companies are able to retain those employees.
Like I just I really do think that this is
(52:44):
the future for a lot of companies, and I like
that idea, Like I really hope it succeeds, And I
hope that if you're out there listening right now, maybe
you're even able to advocate for this, if you work
at a small enough company and you're able to, like
ben the ear of your boss and say, hey, listen
to this episode, what do you think of this? Instead
(53:04):
of getting like super preaching and demanding it, maybe you
can just kind of subtly influence the culture where you're
working in order to benefit you and everyone else around you.
And the truth is, we didn't refer to this, but
Parkinson's law is at work here. And Parkinson's law is
essentially where work expands to fill the time we have available.
(53:28):
And we as humans, if we are scheduled to work
forty hours a week, we'll find a way we'll get
our work done in forty. If it goes down to
thirty two, we will find a way to get it
done in thirty two. And Matt and I found this
out from personal experience, like when we have guests. I
don't know, this was maybe three years ago that we
went from working five days a week down to four
(53:52):
and taking Fridays off, and just the mental clarity and
specifically by big takeaway what Juliet mentioned was people were
less high, they got more sleep, and they got more exercised,
and they also said they were better at work, they
enjoyed their work more. And I think all of those
things were true about Matt and I when we went
to working four hard days at this podcast instead of
(54:15):
expanding it to five. And so I hope, I hope
not everyone has that ability, that unilateral ability. I totally
get that. But if you run your own business, you
do your own thing. I think sometimes we assume if
I put in more hours, like the output is going
to be significantly better, and I just I'm not saying
(54:36):
that's completely untrue, but I think you need to reconsider
whether it is one hundred percent true and whether or
not you can accomplish similar feats in less time. And
also like this really leads to bigger questions of what
life is about and what ultimately matters. And gardening is
(54:56):
not an economically productive activity. You know, running not an
economically productive activity. There are so many hobbies that you
can engage in like coffee with a friend on a
leisurely two hour coffee with a friend is not an
economically productive activity, but those things greatly matter to our
ability to enjoy this one life that we're on earth
(55:18):
here to enjoy. So I encourage you to wrestle with
some of these things, and maybe even next time you're
applying for jobs, look specifically for employers who say, actually, yeah,
this is something we prioritize, four hour or four day
work weeks, this is this is something that we have adopted,
and then maybe those become more appealing places to work
(55:40):
as well, and hopefully this becomes like a tidal wave
of sorts where other businesses are like, gosh, just to
keep pace and to keep attracting good talent, we have
to go down to a four hour work week, or
those people aren't even gonna entertain working working here. So
thank you, as always for listening. I appreciate your time
and attention. See you back here on Friday with a
(56:01):
fresh Friday flight. Until then, best friend out,
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and today I'm
talking work less, Live More with Juliette Shore. So most
(00:26):
of us can agree that Americans are overworked and that
we tend to overspend to compensate. It's also true that
most of us we're not going to hit the Tim
Ferriss goal of working four hours a week still. John
Maynard kines the British economists. He predicted that we'd be
working fifteen hour weeks by now, but he was way off.
My guest today is here to parse the modern day
(00:48):
work details. She says that four day work weeks can
lighten the load, they can be realistic, and they can
allow us to live more life, which sounds nice. So
we're going to get into that. Juliette Shore is an economist.
She's a professor of sociology at Boston College, and she's
best known for her research on work consumption and economic inequality. Juliette,
(01:10):
thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
First question I ask everyone who comes on. It helps
us get to know you a little bit. What do
you like to sporge on? I like to sporge on
craft beer. It can be quite expensive at times. What
is that for you? The thing where you're like people
might say I'm crazy, but I'm happily going to spend
money in this way, even while I'm trying to be
smart with my money and think about my future.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Uh, I'm so embarrassed. Please don't discount all the other
things I have to say on the pod. My kids
think this is so ridiculous. But I like expensive hotels.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Oh, okay, so you're not staying at the motel six?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Definitely not?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And are you? Are you trying to save money when
you book expensive hotels? Are you just like it doesn't
even matter. I'm staying at the place I want to stay.
I'm not been shopping around.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
No, I definitely. Well.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I mean, there are a lot of really expensive ones
I won't go too. But I just I think it's
because my parents took me to them as a kid.
I just I just really like to stay in the
nicer places.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I do.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I do look for deals. I you know, I am.
I am, you know, a little bit frugal. I guess
that's not really a good word when you talk about
spending three or four hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I try to get value for money.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, so you know, this is reminding me of I
don't know if I've ever told this story on the podcast,
but when my wife and I were getting married, I
was booking a hotel in Memphis, Sore I got married,
and there was one hotel I really wanted us to
stay at, it the Peabody, because they have they lay
out this red carpet and the ducks come walking down
and it's like this really fun experience. But if I
(02:51):
booked directly at the Peabody, it was gonna be like
five hundred dollars a night, and I knew on Priceline
there were three hotels it could have been if I
was making a bid, and I knew I could like
pay half of that, but there was only a thirty
percent chance really that I was going to get this
hotel that I wanted to stay at, And I remember
my mom being like, stop being cheap and just pay up.
I did the price line bid, and I like ended
(03:12):
up lucking out and getting the Peabody Hotel. So I
got the best of both worlds. But man, it could
have gone south. It could have gone a different way.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I'm glad, and yes, we booked the plot.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
We booked the Plaza, which I'd never stayed at before.
That was amazing, Okay before before Trump owned it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Okay, all right, So I want to get to there's
You've been writing about some of these issues of work
and how Americans spend and consume and the relationship between
those two things, and alongside other other aspects of American
life and economics as well. But I feel like that
theme of work has been running through the output your
(03:55):
output for decades. Why why has that interest you into
you in particular so much?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Well?
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I got into it totally by chance. I was studying.
I was doing sort of labor economics, and I was
interested in what the factors that drove how hard people
would work and kind of the conflicts between employers trying
to get more work out of people and you know,
people not necessarily loving that kind of you know, having
(04:22):
the whip on their back as it were, and you know,
so that sort of conflicts in the labor market, and
that through a that got me looking at how working
hours affect what people do while they're on the job,
Like if they have longer working hours, are they more
(04:43):
tied into their jobs? Do they feel more pressure to
you know, work hard and do whatever the boss says,
Like the difference between having one forty hour a week
job where you're totally dependent on that job for your
income versus if you had two twenty hour week jobs,
were you more likely to tell your boss to, you know,
(05:04):
like the Dolly Parton thing, take this job and shove it.
So it was really I got into studying working hours
because I was interested in dynamics within the workplace.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Well tell me about that. Are people better off having
two twenty hour week jobs than one forty hourly job?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Well? No, but here's the thing. So my theory was
it explained why it is that if you want a
short hour job, if you want to work short hours,
you pay a huge penalty for it. Because if you
have a full time job, what I called a long
hour's job, you'll have benefits and you know, possibly a
(05:42):
career ladder.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And so forth.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
But in order to get a job where you don't
have to work those long hours, there are massive penalties.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
They're lower wages, there.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Are no benefits, there's you know, you don't have career
career pathways. And so I was really interested and sort
of how employers had structured the workplace to be you know,
full of long The good jobs were all really long
hour jobs.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I have a friend who was able to negotiate with
his employer to go down from forty hours a week
to thirty hours a week and reduce his salary by
a quarter, but he's able to keep his benefits. And
I was like that, you just struck gold there, and
I think a lot of people would kill for that,
But not many employers are willing to go there.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Right, And you know, it is getting a little more
flexible than I mean. I wrote my first book, The
Overworked American, came out in nineteen ninety two, and at
that time there was much much less kind of decent,
good part time work. But the companies I'm studying now
are giving people the thirty two hour weeks with no
reduction in pay. Yes, keep all your benefits.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And because one of the and people are doing as
much work as they were generally speaking, that's what we're
hearing from the companies because one of the things, you
know that a lot of people who go to those
shorter schedules and take the hit on the salary say
they're doing.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
As much work as they used to. Yeah, they're just
getting paid less.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
And that's why you see, you know, some of the
people who go to those salaries, they go back up
because they say it's not fair. You know, I was
doing the same amount. I want to get all the money.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So I want to dig in, specifically because your most
recent book is talks a lot about for four day
work weeks, and I want to dig into that a lot.
I want to set the table down. I want to
hear maybe what trends have been like over the past decades.
Like so for a long long time, work hours declined
(07:42):
in the United States, around the world, and much of
the world for since like the eighteen hundreds, right, we
were just seeing people working a lot less, having more
leisure time. But it seems like there was like something
that happened right around nineteen seventy that changed that.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yes, so beginning in eighteen seventy you begin to get
a long period of work time reduction. The US leads
the world in work time reduction. Night eighteen seventy, average
work week was three thousand hour work year. Three thousand
hours a year. That's sixty hours a week. Let me
just put a little pin in that for one second.
(08:20):
The thing that most people don't realize is in the
century before. So from seventeen seventy to eighteen seventy, working
hours went up a lot. So the early period of
the industrialization, which you know, the first factories came in
seventeen seventy ish.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Around that, you.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Get a long period where people are working longer and
longer hours, more and more days per year, and kind
of really getting squeezed. And it gets to the point.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Where those kids are working too, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Exactly the kids in the factories working sixteen hour days
and they're barely getting any money, and they're dying of
malnutrition and overwork. So you know, you get unions, you
get society, you know, do gooters, people start mobilizing to
do something about it. You get that long period of
worktime reduction. I began looking, but I noticed that it
(09:12):
seemed like things were stopping, that was stopping in the
United States, and I began looking at trends and hours
of work, and what you see is beginning around as
you say, right about nineteen seventy, we start an upward
creep of hours. And my first book on this went
to the end of the eighties, so twenty years, and
(09:36):
there there was about an average of one hundred and
sixty four hours of what I call the extra month
of work, so four forty hour weeks on average people
putting in paid work. And a lot of that was
women working more of the year and longer hours, you know,
going from sort of women as mothers, particularly part time
(09:59):
workers to full time workers. But then you know, hours
kept going up, and we've had about a three hundred
hours a year increase since I first started looking at
this data, and that puts us squarely in opposition to
all the other countries that we were moving with before. Germany, France,
(10:25):
the UK, you know, all these other countries continued on
that path.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Of warktime reduction.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
When I wrote The Overworked American, Japan was the workaholic
country among the wealthier countries. Americans now work, on average
more than Japanese do.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
What about the pandemic? How did that shift the balance
of power and the amount of time people spend working,
Because it's certainly, at least for a hot minute, employees
had more leverage than employers.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, it didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Last well, I think it lasted a little longer than
people think, and in some ways I think, I mean,
right now, it's a sort of questionable period in the
labor market. You have certain certain kinds of jobs where
they're just you know, tech is really suffering. But the
pandemic changed everything in the labor market in many ways,
(11:21):
and it's what kicked off this four day.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Week movement that I've been studying. But what happened was.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
People's sense of the economic concept that I developed with
my advisor. We call it the cost of job loss,
or basically the value of a job to a worker
compared to their next best alternative. And that's really key
and we use that to study all kinds of things.
(11:52):
It turns out it's really key in wages, it's key
and how much workers go on strike. I mean, you've
had a lot of strikes in the last couple of
years because that the value of the job changed, and
it's key to central bank policy and upon I mean,
I studied a whole range of things. So what happened
was that the value of the job really felt during
(12:14):
the pandemic. Why two things. One is everyone was so
stressed out and work was stressing people out and so
it had much more negatives with it. And number two,
the government was giving people money so people could afford
to quit their jobs because they had bank accounts that
were way higher than the typical thing for Americans. You
(12:38):
had that period, I mean, I think most of it
it's gone now, but that period where people had money
in their bank accounts versus the sixty percent or whatever
it is who were living paycheck to paycheck. So that
was that's what was really key in the Great Resignation.
A lot of those were low wage workers, you know,
who don't typically have big bank accounts and who just
like they couldn't take it anymore, or just way too
(13:00):
much stress because there was the pandemic level stress and
then the stress in the workplace, and the two of
those together. American workers were already quite stressed out before
the pandemic. Pandemic just put a lot of people over
the edge.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, what would you say to someone who says, well,
look at the economy differences between a country like the
United States and a country like France, right, and hey, yeah,
they get plenty of time off at shorter work weeks,
but the economic dynamism dynamism of America is unmatched. So
(13:35):
there are pros and cons to this. Maybe workaholism or
lack thereof.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Okay, so there are a couple different things. I mean,
you mentioned dynamism, economic dynamism. It may be matched by
China at this point, but fair enough. I mean, I
think a lot of the European countries, you know, they
do tend to be a little bit less they tend
to be a little bit less dynamic, but their productivity
(14:01):
is really high. And so if you take Germany as
like the lowest hours of any of these countries, they
have tremendously high labor productivity, which is what allows them
to fund those hours, and people have really good standards
of living. In the US, we have economic dynamism, but
the vast majority of it is going of that wealth
(14:24):
is going to a very small number of people. And
you just have a lot of people are being i mean,
for one of a better word, exploited in the labor market.
You know, they're just hardly getting any money, they're being
treated poorly, etc. You just in Europe, workers have a
lot more protections, they have a lot more free time,
you know, shorter working hours, vacations, income security. You're much
(14:48):
much better off being an average person from an economic
point of view. In those countries, you may be less
likely to get rich. But think about it. I mean,
how many billionaires really are there that you know? Hardly
any of us are going to get that?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, you and I aren't there, Julian, I don't see
it coming in time soon down the pike either. If
given the choice, though, like just talking from a normal
American perspective, regular income earner, do you think people want
more free time or do you think people want more stuff?
And do you think that people are kind of making
(15:25):
an informed choice in that regard or that the cultural
tides have kind of overwhelmed us and we don't have
much of a choice to make. We're kind of forced
in like a square peg going into a round hole
if we try to take more time off.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So I addressed this in the Overworked American book.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Now that book came out in ninety two, but basically
what I argued there is, if you if you look
at people's you ask them about their preferences.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
What would you rather have more time? You know your
you can get a raise.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Or you can get more time off next year percent raise,
two percent, time off whatever. People will say they want
the time off at that time pretty strongly so, but
the companies weren't giving them the time off, they're giving
them more money, and if you ask them a year later,
they don't want to go back to what they were
a year before.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yep, they might say they want Well, that's because they
already bought the new car and they've got that hefty
car pay that they got to exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
So people get locked into whatever level of spending they have,
either through debt or just getting habituated to. You know,
I said at the beginning of the podcast, I like
nice hotels, but that's you know, I've crept up there
right like I never it used to be.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I would go to.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
A you know, like maybe one hundred dollars a night hotel,
and then at two hundred we get we acclimate as
we get nicer and nicer stuff, we just kind of get,
you know, used to it.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
And you know, whether.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
It's you mentioned a car or the size of your
house or any of those things. You know, our sort
of needs upscale over time with our incomes. And my book,
my book The Overspent American, had a lot about that.
Now I think today it's somewhat different. And also it
really differs across the labor market. So if you get
lower wage workers, they desperately need the money, so gonna
(17:12):
they're gonna take money over time. There are a lot
of higher wage earning people who are going to take
time over money, but they can't get it because they're
in their jobs. They just have to work those long
hours or they can't succeed in their jobs. And then
I think in the middle you sort of alluded to
the people in the middle. It kind of depends on
who they are and also how much debt they have
(17:34):
and what they're what their situation is.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
But you know, I've done.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Polling over the years asking people, and this is where
the four day week come in, because I think it's
different than asking which are like a three percent increase
in free time or a three percent increase in in
your income.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
It's kind of tough for us to visualize mentally, whereas
like do you want Fridays off exactly?
Speaker 3 (17:56):
The whole day off is huge. It is huge, and
it is a big increase in your income.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right, Your hourterly wage.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Goes up a lot, right, even if your total income doesn't.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Do you think just staying on kind of maybe some
of the high level stuff for just a second, do
you do you think that the world benefits from people
who work too much. I just think, like, I don't
want to work eighty hours a week. But like the
Elon Musk types, who you know, polarizing figure these days,
but who he sleeps on the office floor, gets right
back to it. There is something about the ability for
(18:33):
there's even you see this trend taking back up in
Silicon Valley of startups being like, we're working six days,
twelve hour days, and this is how we're going to
beat somebody else to the punch, launch our product first,
be the most successful, get the venture capital dollars, and like,
I don't want any part of that way of life.
(18:53):
But aren't you kind of sort of glad that some
of those people exist.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Well, there might be a few, but if you know
taking it, you say you want the high level, so
you take the big thing. I mean, Elon Musk was
making tons of mistakes. It's a big part of why
he had to be there at the factory, and his
people were hating on him, and you know, he kind
of had to be there because everything was, you know,
maybe falling apart. It was a nightmare, Okay, His sleeping
(19:17):
at the factory was a nightmare. In the same way
that his doge was a nightmare and so forth, Well,
let's leave him aside. What we have a lot of
startups in our research who are going to four day weeks.
And I'll give you an example of someone who contacted
us recently. He's the founder of an He's a company
(19:38):
which does agentic AI. So they're building an AI humans
in the loop decision making tool. It's a pretty cool project,
you know product. And he realized that he he scheduled.
He wanted to talk to me about the four day week.
And between the time we talked and when we had
(19:58):
our you know, we first commute, had our meeting, he said,
I just pulled the trigger.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
They're all on. I put everybody on a four day week. Now.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Why the work was too mentally taxing and use the
word emotionally exhausting. And this is one of the things
about really creative work. I mean, you do sometimes have
these people who go crazy and they just it's all
they can think about, and it's you know, it's a
sort of type. But I think for the bassmin I
(20:26):
think that's a really small number of people. For most
of us, our we make fewer mistakes, we're more creative,
we have better overall output, you know, production or you know,
what we do is better if we give our time,
our brain's time to rest. And you know, there's a
(20:47):
big literature on this now. One of the guys I
work with, Alex Pang on four day week stuff, wrote
a book called Rest, which is about a lot of
that literature and how if we're not resting our brains
and giving our self that like mental time where nothing's happened,
we're way less creative.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And I know, so I don't think.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
I think workaholic culture leads to a lot of problems.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
You know, in Japan they call it death by overwork.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I mean you have that too, yeah, yeah, And just
people that get so discouraged and despairing about how big
of a role work is playing in their lives that
sometimes they can't think of any way else to proceed
but to end their lives. And it's so it's so sad.
It's devastating to see that trend.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Like, I'm not advocating being a slacker. You know, I have,
I've like written six solo books. I have, you know,
probably six more that I've done with other people.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I have.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
You're not saying drinking lemonade all day.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, but I also understand that you have to have
a balance in life, first of all, if you want
to have a good life, but also if you want
to do good work. I mean, many writers will tell
you this, and I you know, when I write my books,
get up in the morning and do your work, and
you know, after about five or six hours, your brain
is fried.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
I think I love it. Let's I think that's a
great way to really kick off this conversation and start
talking about four day work weeks, how important they can be,
and how we might implement those, how to make them
kind of normal. We'll get to more on that with
Juliet Shore right after this. Okay, we're back. I want
(22:34):
to talk about four day work weeks with Professor Juliet Shore,
who has written so much about that intersection of work
and consumption. And I guess I do just want to
one more big level question. There's a conundrument. It seems
like between the reality that free markets and people choosing
to work as much as they want to if they
(22:54):
start a business, like truly, if I start a bakery
and I'm open two extra hours, like I might be
able to track more customers build up a business in
a way that somebody was saying, I'm not going to
work on Saturday is when most of my clients would
come in to buy, would be able to succeed, but
also that can impact negatively impact human flourishing. How do
(23:16):
you thread that needle? It does feel like there's a
needle that needs to be threaded right, and it's not
an easy one.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Well, that's a great point because one of the things
we see in the research we're doing, and just to
know I can go into more depth on it. But
basically what's been going on with my team, my research
team is since twenty twenty two, we've been tracking companies
around the world. We have there are about almost four
hundred companies now in our database or about to come
(23:46):
into our database who have instituted four day work weeks
with no reduction in pay. And these are thirty two
hour work weeks.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
These are not compressed but ten howadays exactly, they're eight hour.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Many of them do have clients. Some of them are
twenty four to seven operations, but many of them are
like nine to five and they are not gonna Many
do close on Monday, but many don't. And it depends
on the nature of their business. And so if you're
a bakery, you need to be open on Saturdays. Maybe
(24:22):
closing on Sundays is fine because your competitors all close
on Sunday, or maybe you don't, but.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
They figure out how to make it work.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
You know, they'll It's like there's so much shift work
in our economy anyway, and you know there's so many
companies that are not on nine to five Monday through Friday.
They've figured out how to stay open and still you know,
their employees can have a four day week. So it
a lot is how that it depends and the fact
(24:53):
that you stay open doesn't automatically get you more customers.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
And so one of the things.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
You know that you have to think about is what
is the relationship between your operating hours and your customers.
But a couple of the one of the industries where
we're seeing a lot of the four day week is
in sort of marketing and pr and one of the
things that some of the companies tell us is they're
able to sell more business to their existing customers when
(25:21):
they go to the four day week because they have
a lot more stability in their teams. Their people come
up with better ideas, they know the client's better, so
they're spending less of their time just out there trying
to find new customers.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So that's a kind of interesting wrinkle on it.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Why is the four day work week the solution? And
if that's a great solution, why not go down to three?
Why not even too? Like? Why why does the four
day work We kind of feel like this silver bullet
to you.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Well, in part it's because we're at five, so I
think five to three is too big. What we're seeing
is that five to four companies can manage it with
many of them will say without any loss in productivity.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
So what's going on actually additional eight hours that people
are cutting out of their work schedules. How are we
just as productive working so many fewer hours in a
week from a percentage standpoint?
Speaker 3 (26:18):
So the most common thing is that there are there's
a lot of wasted time in meetings. So many of
these we have mostly white collar companies in our database.
I mean we also have a small manufacturing or restaurant, healthcare,
and we have all kinds of things, but the vast
bulk are white collar, and so they have excessive meetings.
(26:40):
Why because the workweek was kind of stuck at five.
A lot of labor saving technology, all this digital technology
which makes many things faster to.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Do, came in. And then what did they do with
the extra time?
Speaker 3 (26:54):
They just expanded meetings and email overload and you know
that sort of thing. So meetings are like the number
one thing that they look at. Number two they look
at distractions, and meetings are a distraction, but there are
many other kinds of distractions, and they create focus time,
and so people actually put their heads down and get
(27:16):
their work done much more efficiently than they did, you know,
pre four day week.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Because they don't have time to scroll anymore. They got
to get their stuff done. If they're going to work,
get it all done in four days exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
And you know, we hit others.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Well, there are lots of other things people do, Like
we have a brewery in our sample, and I talk
about these a lot of these cases in more depth
in the book. But in the brewery they did time
and motion studies for every one of their.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Steps.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Brewing has a lot of different steps, a lot of
cleaning the machinery and so forth. It turned out they
were allotting way more time for some of these things
than they needed. They learned to how to slot one
step into the kind of the time and another step
and you know, like bring certain things forward to make
them get done. You know, so they change the sequencing.
(28:10):
One manufacturing company changed who was doing what. They figured out, Okay,
this guy is really efficient at this task. Why don't
we just have him do that most of the time
and let other people.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
So some of them goes through more specialization all the forms.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
That they use and figure out like, okay, this form
takes so long to fill out, do we really need
all this information? Or they they sort of look at
everything they're doing. Another big thing is documentation. We have
a lot of tech firms that do customer service and
if you're not like really documenting everything your customer service
(28:46):
people are trying to they're reinventing the wheel on a lot.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Of these calls.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
But not all the companies do documentation because it's kind
of people don't like to do it. It's a lot
of upfront work so that they find all sorts of
ways to save time.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
And you've called it, well like a like a forcing function,
like when you implement the four day workweek, it it
kind of forces people to get it done. It's like,
you've got to figure it out now. And ultimately they're
happy to have had that forcing function because of what
it allows them in their private life.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Totally, yes, And the forcing function, it's so interesting. You know,
my training is in economics. In economics, the theory is
that the market is the forcing function and that firms
who don't get as efficient as possible drop out. But
in the real world, that's in the real world, that's
not actually how it works. And you know, if for
(29:39):
economists who just you know, don't just think about the
models but actually look at data, you see that in
every industry there's a big range of levels of productivity
and efficiency, even in the same making the same products.
And so, you know, I asked a lot of these
companies because this idea. But there's this you know, it's
(29:59):
you know, we call it like a free lunch like that.
There's efficiency gains to be had there that you're not
taking advantage of.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
And I say, well, why did you need a four
day week to do this? Because you could have changed
your meeting culture. Without a four day week, you could
have given people, you know, distray. People hate meetings.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
They wouldn't have minded that or you could have given them,
you know, focused time without a four day week.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
And there are two things.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
I mean, I think one is there is a little
bit of you are asking people to kind of, you know,
be a bit more intense about the work. And although
we find very small increases in the pace of work
and the intensity of work.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
But the other thing.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Is they were just like we just we were just
trying to survive, you know, we're like trying to keep
our heads above what. I remember asking one woman at
a tech firm, you know, I called it a functional company,
the one that you know didn't have any inefficiency, said
why why didn't you achieve that level of you know,
as a functional company?
Speaker 2 (31:03):
And she said, have you ever seen a functional company?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
No? I love that, And I think you're right. I mean,
I think it's a really important insight that most people
they're not going to take a hard look unless they're
forced to. And this is the perfect way to force
yourself to take a hard look at your processes. And
at the same time, what are the biggest benefits that
employees give for having a four day work week, Like
(31:30):
what did they experience when they have a three day weekend?
Every weekend? And work takes up less of their overall time.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
So a bunch of different ways to answer that question.
We have twenty different metrics that we well being metrics
that we collect and if you look at the things
that are driving the increases and well being, because some
of the metrics affect other well being, you know, measures
(32:00):
people are less tired, so fatigue is really key. Sleep
is really key. People sleep more and the fewer sleep problems,
and they exercise more.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
So that's the.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Sort of outside of work stuff that happens. And then
within work there's something else really interesting.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
We have their.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Self reports of their productivity, so we ask them rate
your current ability at work compared to your lifetime best,
like or how good a worker are you compared to
your lifetime best And that goes way up before the
trial starts to six months later and then twelve months later,
and people just feel so much more on top of
(32:40):
their work and that really improves their well being. And
that's something happening in work because they can recover. The
time off allows them to recover. They feel refreshed and
ready to go back to work. Many more eager to
get back to work. They don't feel like their work
week is impossible.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Mondays, don't, you know, in a negative way anymore.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Monday stone hit. You know, you don't have the Sunday scaries,
you don't have the hump day as it's called on
the Wednesday. It just I remember one woman I interviewed
because we also do like in depth interviews, and she said,
I used to be so anxious at the beginning of
the week that I wasn't going to be able to
get my work done. And she said, that's totally done.
Now It's like people just figure out how to power
(33:27):
through their workloads much better.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, So what do you think the tools are for
getting more companies to adopt a four day work week,
where you know, and for CEOs, for managers to sign
off on this, and for and what does it take,
like look like for employees to petition their boss? Is
(33:50):
this is this something that is a top down thing
or should individuals be coming to their manager and saying, listen,
I don't know if you're going to do this company wide,
but this is something that this is something I've heard
about and I'm interested in, and I think I can
get just as much done. Like, what is it like
from implementation perspective?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
One thing that's important that we're finding is these are companies.
Most of them are small and medium size, but you know,
we have some really big ones, but mostly small and medium.
They're doing it as a whole company, and that's really
good because it's if it's just a few individuals doing it,
they're going to get the stigma of being thought like
not as committed workers and so forth. So they're doing
(34:31):
it all together.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
It is.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
The companies in our research are pretty much it's all
top down. So it's like that guy I mentioned earlier,
like a CEO, a founder, a president, whatever, or maybe
ahead of HR who just thinks, I think this is
going to work for our company, let's try it, and
they all the whole model is like a six month trial,
so they're not like committing to something before they know
(34:55):
that it can work for them.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
So I wrote my book in part for people to
read it and either just ordinary employees who could then
take it take the information to their seniors, managers and
so forth, but also the you know, the CEOs, the founders,
the presidents, whatever. So there's a lot of data research
there to try and convince people. But you know, I
(35:20):
think the most effective convincers are the companies that have
done it.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
And I just you know, a.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Couple of days ago, I was in New York doing
a session with two different One is the CEO of
a marketing company and the other is the head of
nursing at a big hospital area actually at a cancer
center that's part of a hospital, big hospital, and they
gave the nurse nurse managers a four day week. I mean,
(35:52):
these are like really high pressure jobs. And I have
discussion of this case and also managers nurses that are
in our research too.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
And the other is marketing.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
And you know, just I think when people hear it
from the companies that have succeeded with it, it's that's the
most powerful way. So a lot of companies are out
there talking about their experiences.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah, and probably one of the biggest hurdles is like
a cultural attachment to work and maybe like an inherited
Puritan work ethic or something like that, where it seems
almost like and you mentioned this earlier, like I'm not lazy,
I'm writing books, like I'm not encouraging just chilling and
not doing something meaningful. But is that one of the
(36:42):
biggest pushbacks you get, Like what are we from employers
saying like, oh my gosh, this is gonna result in
widespread laziness. How can we how can we work less?
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah? Well, I mean there is that there is that group.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
I think they tend to be at some of the
bigger firms that were like, well, work more and so forth.
But I think a lot of management are understanding how
stressed out their workers are and how it's just not
good for them.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Now.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
One of the things that that led many of the
companies into our research what is resignations. So, like the
marketing company that I just mentioned, they just had a
slew of resignations. I mean they're Canadian. It was not
part of the US Great resignation, but Canada was experiencing
(37:32):
something similar.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
The very first.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Company that signed up for these in this research had
the same thing. They had a whole bunch of people
leave and they're like, we got to do something. And
so I think that most of in these most of
these companies, people understand how much stress and burn out
their employees are experiencing and that they can help them.
(37:57):
There's really high turnover in some kinds of jobs in
the US in these marketing firms. You know, there apparently
it's like a thirty percent turnover, and then you're spending
enormous amounts of money and time replacing people and then
training them, and then they leave.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
And that is one of the one of the most
underconsidered costs of running a company is employee turnover. And
so if you pay people poorly and treat them poorly,
they leave quickly, and then you have to find someone
else to replace them, and that training period can be
so long and costly, like you've just tripped over your
own feet.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
So true.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
So one of the marketing executives that I actually opened
the book with her and she's a really visionary person,
and she just said she ended up putting it into
her contracts with her clients that she would have a
like a one percent turnover. The clients couldn't believe it
because there's so much turnover in that business, and that
(38:54):
she would get a bonus if she made that turnover figure.
But she had a fifty person team and nobody left
that team.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Wow, after we got the four day week.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
One of the other hurdles that strikes me is just
that the desire that people have to inflate their lifestyles
to buy more things to buy, nicer things to stay
a nicer hotel, rooms, to have own, nicer cars, whatever
it is, bigger houses, It means working longer hours much
of the time. Like that is, It's like if I
(39:27):
work more, I can get paid more, and it means
I can live the lifestyle I want. Do you think
that our desire to keep up with the Joneses is
part of this working too much problem that we have
in this country?
Speaker 3 (39:41):
That's certainly there for some people, But for a lot
of people, their jobs dictate how many hours they work,
and a lot of people, you can put in more hours,
you won't necessarily get paid more.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
We have so many people on salary in this country.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
I mean, and if you're talking about someone who's they
want to fancy your car, they want a bigger house,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Chances there on a salary.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
So you might you might be working really hard to
try and get that promotion. That's possible, But that's a
kind of an iffy thing. I mean, what you know,
part of what we're looking at are companies that are
realizing the person who's there all the time isn't necessarily
the most efficient person, right, So what is that relationship
(40:24):
between how many hours.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Somebody works, on how good they are, and they're for
what they deserve.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
I mean, yes, companies want people who are committed, for sure,
they don't they're not going to promote slackers. But it's
you know, if you're the last As I remember a
famous reporter told me, journalism is notoriously long hour profession.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
She said, we have the last man's standing.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Culture here, like everybody was afraid to leave the newsroom.
And it's just it's dysfunctional. I mean, my colleagues who
I work with, and the really the consultants in this world,
they call it. You know what do they call it?
Productivity theater where people just pretend to be productive?
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, which is crazy. Yeah, And if you care about
your business, like you care about uncovering that so that
your workers are happier and that you're actually productive and
not just like feigning productivity, it makes me think of
just at a job, there's also this like underlying message
that we get from any of our employers that we
had this. We used to have these meetings once a
(41:31):
month and people would get hundred dollars for doing things
that were above and beyond, and it always involved coming
in at five am because something was on fire, and like, hey,
Joe skipped his kid's soccer game on Saturday to do work.
And I was like, man, I hope I never win
this hundred bucks, Like not because I don't care about
my job, not because I don't care about putting out
(41:51):
good work, but because I'm not abandoning my soccer game
to try to come in and put out a fire,
Like I'm just not. I don't want to do that.
And I think there are those tout all messages too,
that get sent from a lot of employers where like
this is this is your life. You know that, right.
The other part of your life is fine, but this
job is actually your life. And I think that's kind
of insidious too, works its way in.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
We had a case before I was doing these trials,
studying these companies, I did a lot of work on
gig laborers and like you know, uber drivers and stuff.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
And we.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Remember a case of a delivery driver that we interviewed
and he was I think he was on a scooter
or something. He was hit by a car. He was
badly injured, and instead of going to the hospital, he
finished the delivery. Oh you know, he should have just
gone right to the hospital, and the company put it
out on their Facebook page and they gave him one
(42:45):
hundred dollars and it was like wow, like it wasn't
this great and it was so horrible because this poor
guy needed to get to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, that's a great example. We got a few more
questions I want to get to with you, Julia, including
kind of how you navigate consumption and ways that we
can consume more intelligently. Get to a few more questions
with you right after this. All right, we're back still
(43:16):
talking with Juliette. Sure. We're talking about working less and
living more. And Juliet you wrote a book called True Wealth,
and in that book you at least partially talk about
like new consumer habits around like sharing that can lead
to less buying and more swapping. I think you called
it connected consumption, and I really like that term. Do
(43:36):
you think is that one of those things too that
can help people own less, work less, and live more
of the life They want to think even think about
like self driving cars and I'm like, does this mean
I don't have to own a car someday? That maybe
this technological progress And sometimes it's not even technological progress.
It's just a website that connects people. That means that
we don't have to buy the stuff ourselves, can save
(43:57):
more of our money, and then maybe it means we
don't have to work as much much as we thought.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean I co founded an organization many
years ago with a woman named Vicky Robin, who you
may know from the Financial independence movement, I mean, one
of the founders of that financial With Joe Domingu's they
wrote that book Your Money or Your Life, and that
(44:22):
really was all about saying, you need to think about
the relationship between what you spend and how much you
have to work, and so whenever you buy something, think
about the number of hours that you have to work
to earn the money to buy. That so very much
in mind, and so when I wrote True Wealth, it
was about like a vision for how people can dealing
(44:42):
from long hour jobs that they would prefer not to
be in and have lower spending requirements so they could
afford to have more freedom in terms of their work life.
So maybe it's about shifting to a more satisfying job
that pays less and how you can still have a
satisfying and good consumer life.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
You know that you're not going to have to be,
you know, living in poverty in order to have a
good life.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
So many different things, I mean, less new, more long
lived products, more swapping. At the time I wrote that
the Internet, like the sites were really just coming up
where you could like get free things or swap or
buy use things. I mean, there's so much that you
(45:30):
can get now at a vastly reduced price. I have
students who've studied these buy nothing sites. I mean these
are huge sites where people just give away all kinds
of you know, really nice and valuable things that they
know longer want.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
So there is and then what.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Was you know, kind of a trend at the time
that book I wrote after the crash, the two thousand
and eight crash, So you know, people growing their own
vegetables or learning how to make and do things for themselves,
which for many people is also really satisfying hobbies and
so forth, but also can reduce your need to spend income.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
So I think there are lots of.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Ways that people can do that, but one of the
key things about them is you need time, because if
you have a really long hour job, you end up
not having the time to garden or to do this
or that diy or to search, you know, search for
that less expensive but just as good alternative that might
(46:38):
take you, you know, an hour or two on the internet.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Reading reviews and this and that.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
Like when you don't have time, you just buy something
and you're you know, you'll pay more because you don't
have the time to figure.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Out how to be less.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
So you talk in that book is one of the
things that fascinating me too. You talk about navigating the
post growth world that we live in, and you talk
about it come from a macro in from a micro
economic lens. I'm curious to hear what you mean by
living in a post growth era and then like, what's
the impact that that creates and how should individuals react
(47:13):
if we're living in a time of like decelerating growth,
which is going to impact standard of living? Sorry, that's
a big question.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Yeah, no, but it's a really important one.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Let's put aside population growth, okay, because that, yeah, your
economy you know, usually will need to grow if you
have more people, but just for any given amount and
sort of what about the idea that you just have
the same amount of money over the next ten years
or something.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I think for most of us.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
That's kind of like we are expecting that we're going
to get more money over time, but let's say we
don't pretend there's no inflation, so we're just kind of
leveled out at a certain.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Amount of money.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
I think what, you know, what we have to figure
out in that cas is like if you want to
buy new things, you've got to then divest from other
you know, like if you're spending all your income, but
yet you get a new desire, like, well, what are
you going to spend less on if you're just if
you're flatlined. And one thing that I think really helps,
(48:23):
I mean that I've seen as I've grown older, is
the desire to acquire new things tends to be a
lot stronger when you're younger, and when you get older,
for one thing, you have more desire to divest. And
it's also I mean maybe because you've done it. I mean,
(48:43):
I just don't have the same desire to consume that
I used to. You know, I wrote The Overspent American.
My husband said, oh, you wrote a book about yourself.
I mean, that wasn't exactly true, but it was true
that at the time I wrote that I was much
more interested in consuming than I am today. I went
to shops more I did, you know, like now I
(49:05):
hardly ever go I just don't. I don't shop nearly
as much as I used to. I used to shop
a lot, and I do think I mean, there's the
whole question of, you know what, what's missing in your
life if you're like spending so much time at the mall.
There is something there's something to be said for that perspective.
But I think post growth can work, but it's sort
(49:29):
of it's not about you know, doing with less and
less and less. I don't think that's viable for people.
I think you get to a certain level and we're
you know, just like it's enough and you just live
with enough. Of course, you're going to change what you're consuming.
You're not always going to want to consume the same thing.
(49:50):
But the idea that every year we have to consume more,
I just think that's a you know, that's a problem
in a world where the ecological footprint and our carbon
footprint is destroying the planet.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
We got we gotta deal with that.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Yeah, what would you say? Last question? Like, what would
you say to people out there listening who say I
like the mantra, I want to work less. I want
to live more life. I want more time for hobbies.
I don't even want fancier stuff.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I just do.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
I would love to have time to garden, and I
don't feel like I have it right now. And a
big part of the reason is because work accludes too
much of my overall, like life efforts.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
Yeah, how should they proceed? Well, I think they You know,
first thing is, there is this movement for a four
day week. It's gaining traction, it's gaining credibility because you
have all these experiences of companies who've done it successfully,
and you have lots of you know, data and research.
Now I'd say, first thing, see if you can work
that out in your own company, and if you can't,
(50:52):
see if you can find a four day week company.
Because these people who work in them, they've like dined
and gone to Honestly, they are you know, it's like
it's not just life is better, it's transformative.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
It's life changing.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
We've got like fifteen percent of people say I would
never go back to a five day a week job
for any amount of money. We ask them how much
money they would have, more money they'd have to earn
to go back to a five day week job, and
you've got that. I think it's fourteen percent over thousands
of workers who are saying no amount of money will
ever get me back.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Wow, not even like double the pay. It's like I'm
not doing it, not doing it, Julian, this has been
such a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining me.
Where can how do money listeners find out more about
you and your new book Four Days a Week?
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Well, just google me or the book.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
I'm most active on LinkedIn, which is the place that
has I would say the most vibrant conversation about working
hours in the four day week, but the books available everywhere.
Harper Business twenty twenty five. Four Days a Week.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Thank you. I love talking
to personal finance creators on this podcast, but I also
really like talking to economists as well, and somebody like
Professor Juliet Shore, who has just put in many decades
of not only like personal experience into something like the
(52:22):
four day work week, but just so much data into
how she has seen companies implement it, the impact it's
had on the company itself, on individual employees at that company,
the way that those companies are able to retain those employees.
Like I just I really do think that this is
(52:44):
the future for a lot of companies, and I like
that idea, Like I really hope it succeeds, And I
hope that if you're out there listening right now, maybe
you're even able to advocate for this, if you work
at a small enough company and you're able to, like
ben the ear of your boss and say, hey, listen
to this episode, what do you think of this? Instead
(53:04):
of getting like super preaching and demanding it, maybe you
can just kind of subtly influence the culture where you're
working in order to benefit you and everyone else around you.
And the truth is, we didn't refer to this, but
Parkinson's law is at work here. And Parkinson's law is
essentially where work expands to fill the time we have available.
(53:28):
And we as humans, if we are scheduled to work
forty hours a week, we'll find a way we'll get
our work done in forty. If it goes down to
thirty two, we will find a way to get it
done in thirty two. And Matt and I found this
out from personal experience, like when we have guests. I
don't know, this was maybe three years ago that we
went from working five days a week down to four
(53:52):
and taking Fridays off, and just the mental clarity and
specifically by big takeaway what Juliet mentioned was people were
less high, they got more sleep, and they got more exercised,
and they also said they were better at work, they
enjoyed their work more. And I think all of those
things were true about Matt and I when we went
to working four hard days at this podcast instead of
(54:15):
expanding it to five. And so I hope, I hope
not everyone has that ability, that unilateral ability. I totally
get that. But if you run your own business, you
do your own thing. I think sometimes we assume if
I put in more hours, like the output is going
to be significantly better, and I just I'm not saying
(54:36):
that's completely untrue, but I think you need to reconsider
whether it is one hundred percent true and whether or
not you can accomplish similar feats in less time. And
also like this really leads to bigger questions of what
life is about and what ultimately matters. And gardening is
(54:56):
not an economically productive activity. You know, running not an
economically productive activity. There are so many hobbies that you
can engage in like coffee with a friend on a
leisurely two hour coffee with a friend is not an
economically productive activity, but those things greatly matter to our
ability to enjoy this one life that we're on earth
(55:18):
here to enjoy. So I encourage you to wrestle with
some of these things, and maybe even next time you're
applying for jobs, look specifically for employers who say, actually, yeah,
this is something we prioritize, four hour or four day
work weeks, this is this is something that we have adopted,
and then maybe those become more appealing places to work
(55:40):
as well, and hopefully this becomes like a tidal wave
of sorts where other businesses are like, gosh, just to
keep pace and to keep attracting good talent, we have
to go down to a four hour work week, or
those people aren't even gonna entertain working working here. So
thank you, as always for listening. I appreciate your time
and attention. See you back here on Friday with a
(56:01):
fresh Friday flight. Until then, best friend out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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