On the face of it the 4-day working week sounds like a good thing, but the devil is in the detail. Recently in the UK the government has indicated they may strengthen workers' rights to request this – however, it’s the right to request 40 hours compressed into 4 10 hour days, rather than 5 8-hour days. Although it might sound attractive at first, I’m not sure this is sustainable in the longer term, particularly for those who have family. If you include travel time, it could be that you end up being away from home from 7am – 7pm. Which would leave you Friday to recover and could ultimately lead to burnout.
A better option could be the 100/80/100 4-day working week: 100% of pay, 80% of time, 100% of productivity. Initially pioneered by NZ firm Perpetual Guardian and taken up by hundreds of organisations around the world – although interestingly very few in NZ.
It’s based on the idea that during a typical 5-day week there are only limited periods when we are productive – some estimate that it’s only about 30% of time. So, if we support people to be more focused and productive at work, we reward them with having to work less than they currently do. Global results are quite staggering:
- 25% increase in revenue
- 32% reduction in staff turnover
- 66% reduction in burnout
- 94% of organisations wanted to continue
It doesn’t involve everyone simply working 4 8-hour days – some people might work 5 days but shorter hours, some 3 days but longer hours. Every year the “deal” is put to workers – if we can keep productivity at 100%, we will pay you for 40 hours but you only have to work 32. If productivity drops, we go back to the 40-hour week. Great idea as it puts the solutions back into the hands of the staff who work in their own interests rather than having management dictate.
What can people do if they’re interested?
- Don’t buy into the idea that “it won’t work for us” —everyone says that— if your business needs to provide services 5 (or more) days per week then hand this problem over to the staff to figure out.
- Be prepared to do quite a bit of work beforehand e.g., how do you define productivity in your business, are you tracking people’s rates of burnout or wellbeing and if not, how will you do this?
- Likely to need some training too e.g., how to effectively run a meeting so that people’s time isn’t wasted.
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Episode Transcript
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from Newstalks, a'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
If you're just turning on the radio before ten o'clock.
Our cook Niki Wicks gave us this amazing tamarillo and
walnut merangue slice recipe. It should be up on the
news talks he'd be website about now if you want
to make that at home. It's really kind of rich
and sweet. It has that tartness of the tamarillos offset
with some sweetness as gorgeous. Anyway, so many of you
have sent through some tamorillo tips, which are very much appreciated.
(00:35):
For those of us who have been having a bit
of a time with tamarillos over the last couple of weeks.
It turns out one of the best ways to eat
tamarillo's raw, if you don't want to waste any of
the flesh, and given there about three thousand dollars a
kilogram at the moment, this makes a lot of sense
is to cover them in boiling water for just a
couple of minutes and then give them a shock by
(00:56):
putting them under cold water. You know, so you do
the old hot water cold water thing and Apparently the
skin slides off and so you get way better yield
for your tamarillos. That's Peter's top tip anyway, Peter's top
tamorillo tip, so that three times fast. Thank you very
much for that, Peter, We appreciate it. Before midday on
news Talks, he'd be We're going to listen to some
of Sabrina Carpenter's latest album. She feels like the kind
(01:19):
of girl after Talerswift obviously the car. I think that's
fair that the girl of pop music at the moment.
So we'll play you some of her new album as
well as that. A brand new book from Lee Child.
Can't wait for that, friend of the show. Lee Child
has a new readout, so our book review is going
to give us all the details right now. It is
nine minutes past eleven and Google Sutherland from Umbrella Well
(01:41):
Being is with us this morning. Calder Doogle Cura.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Jack just funny about tamarillos. My wife eats sliced tamarillos
with salt on toast with salt.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Wow, Okay, I didn't know this is an option, so
so did she have any sweetness there or whatsoever? Or
just the just bread and tam.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Where you're just toast. It's like, let's that's like to
have a little bit of sugar.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, so do I.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Balance out of the tartness? Yeah? No, So it's I guess,
different strokes for different folks.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Man. That's very interesting. Okay, thank you do. Godie, I'm
I'm intrigued by that. I wonder if the saltiness and
the tartness gives you a different kind of Amarillo experience.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah. Yeah, I've never been brave enough to try it,
I've got to say. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Hey, So in the UK they've that they have been
talking more and more about workers getting increasing worker rights
to request four day weeks, right, yeah, and this is
one of those things that has been bubbling away for
a few years.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I know.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
The perpetual trust thing in New Zealand was was you
know that we're kind of a pioneering organization when it
comes to the four day working week. But on the
face of it, is it actually any good?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Well I I saw that article, I went, oh, that
sounds like a good thing, you know, four day working weeks,
and and then I read it and I went, oh,
I don't think that is a good thing, because actually
it was the right. What they're talking about in the
UK is the right or the ability to compress a
five day working week, so forty hours into four days,
(03:18):
so you work four ten hour days. And I read
that and I went, oh, I don't think that's a
great idea at all. I think that's a good pathway
to burn out really, And it was one of those
I think. So. I mean, you know, if you were
if you take into account travel time and that kind
of thing, if you're working a ten hour a day,
let's say that's eight till six. I think that's ten hours.
(03:41):
You know, you're probably leaving home at seven and getting
home at seven, so that's there's not much room left
in a normal day, and then you're going to have
Friday to kind of recover. And it's sort of like,
what's the point.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
That's very interesting? Yeah, see, I mean this is probably
going to come as a shock to you. I have
been accused of being a bit of a workaholic from
time to time. Yeah, that's just the kind of the
one of the arrows they have to be here, and yeah,
I reckon it sounds great. Interesting, Well if you said
(04:13):
to me, because I kind of do that anyway. But
maybe that's just me being a bit of a workerholic,
you know, like I kind of like what times I
start with Yesterday, I mean, yeah, I started works. I
probably got to work at eight yesterday and I finished
at seven forty five, so as yeah, I mean that
wasn't necessarily to day.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
But yeah, I mean, yeah, that's that's yeah interesting because yeah,
for me, that will be a bit of a nightmare.
But but I think I wonder if what you know
for you, maybe I wonder if it's one thing that's
you've got a lot of passion for your work, and
that's you know that old saying if you, if you,
if you, if you find a job you love, then
you'll never work a day in the life, day in
your life kind of thing, because you're always But I mean,
(04:52):
I think and if we're talking at four day working weeks,
and you mentioned the Picture Guardian earlier that I think
that's a much better way. And that's the one hundred
eighty one hundred rule where you get work one hundred no,
hang on, you get one hundred percent of the salary
eighty percent of the hours, So that's thirty two hours
a week and the company expects one hundred percent productivity.
(05:13):
So and every time that we almost every time, like
ninety percent of the time that an organization tries it,
it seems to work on almost every metric that they
use to measure it. Yeah, and I know, I know
some people that are doing that and everything. I've got
a friend who does it, and I said, oh, how's
it going every time I see him, and he goes, ah,
(05:33):
that's great, he said, I get this whole extra day
off to do life admin on a Friday or whatever
day he chooses. And yeah, it's just like, oh, now
that's a great I think that's a great thing that
you get all the still get all your pay, but
you only do four days in a week, which I
think sounds much better.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, that does sound good. I mean that's amazing if
you can do that. I think that one hundred percent
productivity thing is the is the vital bit, right, Like
if you're you know, there's kind of an expectation, there's
almost like a yeah, I mean the firm sort of
needs to be really you know, be really clear on that, right,
like if you are at we are expecting you to
(06:09):
be working.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, and look, and that's part of the rationale behind
it is actually that we're not all that productive in
our days when we're at work. So if we can
increase the productivity of the time that we are at work,
the reward or the payoff for the workers is that
you get a day off and the company still gets
(06:31):
and almost every when you look at the research, almost
every organization that does it, their productivity often increases. And
it's just that it seems to me a sort of
the best of both worlds that the business gets what
they want and probably more of it, and people get
what they want, and it's like, wow, it was kind
of like, yeah, I'd like to do that. But you
do have to do quite a bit of background to
(06:53):
actually figure out what productivity is at your place, because
most of us aren't sort of in a factory producing
widgets that you can sort of easily count. So you know,
for example, for your job, I'm not sure how you
measure productivity.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
No job probably would wouln't fit it.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, but well, you see everybody says that everybody goes,
oh no, no, I wouldn't work for us because we have
to do A B and C. And actually, I think
that's a bit of a myth. I think that that
if you sit down and nut it out, and it
might take up you know, six months to a year
to figure it out, but I think most businesses can
probably do it. It doesn't mean that everybody has to
work a four day week. Some people work a five
(07:29):
day week, but they you know, they have shorter days,
so shorter a fewer hours every day. So I think
it's an easy thing to do. People go on and
I wouldn't work for us. Wouldn't work for us for
the reasons. But don't get fooled by that method.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, okay, do you know, the more I've thought about it,
just for speaking, I actually think I'm not into the
I'm not into the four times ten hours because, like
you say, it's the it's the transition time from going
into work into not being at work at home, and
but you're basically your entire days gone, and like you
get no time with family and stuff. So yeah, I
(08:05):
think maybe that isn't gonna work.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
But you probably do it from time to time, right,
but just not all day every day. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
If yeah, doing it like one or two days, you know,
every fortnight or something, might be, it might be might
be survivable. But if you're doing it the whole time.
Then yeah, I think it would just really grueling. But
I think you're heading on a really important point. And
this is one thing that I love in organizations, and
I'm fortunate to have it in my job, and I
get it. Not everyone is lucky enough to work in
a job or an industry where this is possible. I reckon.
(08:34):
There is so much to be said for workplaces that
measure success by outcomes rather than inputs, and so so
rather than saying to employees, you know, you are going
to be doing these hours, and they constantly measure everything
by outputs, so like, this is what we expect to
be achieved, and if it is achieved, then you know,
(08:54):
and you're leaving it quarter past four or good, it
doesn't matter, and we're gonna we're gonna encourage your culture
whereby you don't feel guilty for that. No one's judging
you so long as the work is done to meet
you on that, and that's.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Great, you know, absolutely, And that sort of one hundred
eighty one hundred four day working week. That one thing
I love about that, which is connected with what you
were saying, is they basically give the solution to the
people who are doing the work and saying, hey, look,
this is what we want to achieve and let's figure
(09:28):
it out together. So it isn't management saying Okay, this
is what you've got to do and this is how
to do it. It says you guys, figure it out. You're
clever people, you know the job, let's figure it out together.
And almost universally it comes off that people feel better
and enjoy work and keep producing. Probably even more so,
I love the sort of democratization of it where everybody
gets to say and how it can work.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, right, So what do you reckon people and organizations
should do if they're interested in trying this?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, I mean, I think you do have to do
quite a bit of setting up. And we've worked with
organizations who have done it before, and often there can
be like at least a six month maybe twelve months
league in time, and I might be exaggerating that lightly,
but you do have to sit down and figure stuff out.
So you know, how do we measure productivity? How you know,
how can how would if we have to provide coverage
(10:17):
five days a week, how would that work? There's also
things to nut out about how do we make our
time at work? More efficient, and there's often lots of
work that goes into having efficient meetings, Like many of
us get stuck in sort of these endless meetings which
which seem to have no huge purpose, and there are
so I think the main thing is do your research,
(10:37):
you know, go online. There's lots of examples that you
can look at and and start having some conversations about it,
being aware that it's going to take a little bit
of time to set up.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah, that's great advice. Thank you so much. Google. I
love how doggle gets us thinking, you know, it gets
us thinking about these sorts of things. Dogle somethland there
from Umbrell Well Being.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
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