In this episode of the Big Careers, Small Children podcast, Verena Hefti MBE speaks with Nadia Bunyan MCIPD, Director of People and Impact at Global Witness, and Tatiana Pignon, Associate Director at Autonomy.
They discuss how to implement a 4-day working week in a way that supports both staff wellbeing and organisational performance. Nadia shares lessons from leading a successful 4-day week pilot at Global Witness, while Tatiana brings insights from supporting over 100 organisations through similar transitions.
Together, they explore:
✔️ What organisations get wrong when moving to a shorter week
✔️ How to build trust and ensure leadership models healthy behaviours
✔️ Why co-creating the model with staff matters
✔️ How a shorter week supports working parents
✔️ What to consider when navigating global teams, peak periods, and emergencies
✔️ The mindset shift needed to move away from presenteeism
✔️ Practical steps for organisations starting their 4-day week journey
Whether you're a senior leader or a working parent curious about flexible working, this episode offers practical advice and real-world experience to inspire change.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✔️ How to move to a 4-day week without compromising impact
✔️ Why wellbeing and performance can go hand-in-hand
✔️ The role of culture, leadership, and trust in making it work
✔️ How flexible working can support inclusion and equity
Show Notes:
- Learn more about Global Witness: globalwitness.org
- Learn more about Autonomy: autonomy.work
- Connect with Nadia Bunyan on LinkedIn
- Connect with Tatiana Pignon on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the Leaders Plus: Big Careers, Small Children podcast and explore additional resources at leadersplus.org.
- Follow Leaders Plus on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Bluesky.
- Connect with our CEO, Verena Hefti MBE on LinkedIn.
- Find out more about the work of Leaders Plus by signing up to our Newsletter.
Our multi-award-winning Leaders Plus Fellowships support parents committed to career growth while enjoying family life. Expertly designed to keep parents on the leadership path, our programme tackles gender pay gap issues and empowers parents to thrive. Learn more here: Leaders Plus Fellowship.
More BCSC episodes you might love:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Big CareersSmall Children Podcast. My name is
Verena Hefti. I believe thatno one should have to choose between
becoming a CEO and enjoyingtheir young children for much too
long. Amazing people like I'msure you listening right now have
found themselves stuck on thecareer ladder when they have children
(00:22):
and that leads to genderinequality in senior leadership because
because those people don'tprogress to senior leadership and
the same stale, often malemiddle class people leading our organizations.
We must change this togetherand I hope that many of you listening
right now will progress to themost senior leadership roles that
you like where you can makethe decisions that make our world
(00:43):
a better place. Outside of thepodcast, I am the CEO and founder
of the Social enterpriseLeaders Plus. We exist to help working
parents progress their careersto senior leadership in a way that
works for you and for yourfamilies. We have free events and
resources on leadersplus.orgwhere you can download helpful toolkits
(01:04):
such as on returning frommaternity leave, share parental leave,
securing a promotion, dealingwith workload challenges, or managing
as a dual career couple. Wealso have an award winning fellowship
community which is global forworking parents who have big dreams
for their careers but don'twant to sacrifice their family. You'll
join an absolutely wonderfulgroup of people, a very tight knit,
(01:29):
supportive group of parentswho have your back. Together. You'll
explore what your careeraspirations are and you'll get advice
from senior leaders who arealso working parents about how to
achieve those aspirations.You'll get new ideas to combine your
hopes for your careers withyour hope for your family and you
are supported by people whoare experiencing what you're experiencing
(01:50):
yourself. I'm really delightedthat a larger majority of our fellows
have made tangible changesfollowing the program, be that becoming
more senior in their roles,working shorter hours, having better
flexible working arrangement.They always impress me so much with
the courage that they instillin each other to do what is right
for them without apologizingfor having a family or apologizing
(02:14):
for wanting that top job.Details are on leadersplus.org Fellowship
hi. Today we are chattingabout the four day working week with
Nadia Bunyan who has led theimplementation at Global Witness
and Tatiana Pino who is anexpert in all things four day Working
(02:38):
week and has supported andobserved many many organizations
do it. They all chat aboutwhat has gone well, what mistakes
to avoid and unexpectedpositive consequences. It will be
really helpful for anyone whowants to understand more of the concept
or wants to start implementingit. This podcast has actually been
(03:00):
live streamed on LinkedIn. Soyou might hear us making reference
to it being a live podcast.And yeah, I hope you enjoy the conversation.
A very warm welcome,everybody, to this first ever live
podcast episode of the BigCareer Small Children podcast. And
I'm really thrilled that wemanaged to bring two previous guests
(03:21):
together who actually haveworked together to share their experience
of the four day working week.So let's start with you, Nadia, if
you can introduce yourself andshare what you do for work and how
you know Tatiana.
Oh, thanks. Hi, Verena. Andthanks for asking me back to do another
podcast. My. My name's NadiaBunyan. I'm the director of People
(03:43):
in Impact at Global Witness,which is a not for profit organization
working in climate todismantle the power of big polluters
and transfer power to thosewho have been most impacted by the
climate crisis. Tatiana and Imet, oh, it must be about 18 months
ago now, when Global Witnesswanted to explore the feasibility
(04:05):
of a shorter working week. Sowe've had lots of contact over the
last 18 months and it's greatthat we're here together in the same
room.
Wonderful. Welcome. AndTatiana, would you like to introduce
yourself and share what you dopractically for work and how you
even came across the four dayworking week?
Absolutely. Thanks very muchfor having me again and super excited
(04:26):
to be here with Nadia. As youmentioned, we've been working together.
So really exciting to talkabout that and looking forward to
the conversation. My name isTatiana Pignon. I'm an associate
director at the AutonomyInstitute. So we're a research institute
mainly and I lead within ourwork, the Workplace Transformation
Unit, which is essentially ourworkplace research and consultancy
work where we specialize onworking time reduction. So as part
(04:50):
of that work we conductresearch, feasibility studies, pilot
evaluations, prospectiveresearch. This is all on our website
for anyone who's interested.We also run collective pilots and
we also provide bespokesupport to organizations such as
Global Witness that areinterested in exploring a shorter
working week. So we've workedwith a lot of organizations of sizes,
(05:10):
industries that vary a lotacross sectors. And that's something
that for me is particularsource of pride because prior to
my work with Autonomy as well,I've had extensive experience in
a variety of workplaces. I'vebeen with Autonomy for about two
years now, but before thatI've worked in the French government,
in public sector, inconsultancy, in the private sector,
(05:30):
in a local civil societyorganization, in academia, research
and teaching. So I've seen alot of different approaches to work
culture and workingconditions, and in all of them, burnout
was a problem in some way oranother. It was really striking to
me how much effort had to gonot just into working itself but
into managing work in one'slife. And you know that's a trend
(05:53):
that's been going on for awhile. But working time reduction
is really one of the mosteffective ways to address that issue.
And it has not gone effectsbeyond the workplace itself, you
know, on our families, ourcareer communities, et cetera. So
it's really, it's a reallytransformative element that I'm very
proud to work on.
Yeah, to an extent it's a nobrainer if you don't work on a Friday,
that's when you do your weeklyshopping which then means you don't
(06:14):
always spend time and moneywith the corner shop which is too
expensive and only hasunhealthy biscuits in my. Well that's
my excuse for eating too manyunhealthy biscuits. Anyways Nadia,
when you introduced it atGlobal Fitness, I mean you're a global
organization as the name saysin the title, lots of different countries,
legal frameworks. Surely ifyou wanted an easy life you probably
(06:36):
didn't have to do that. Whydid you introduce the four day working
week? What were we trying toget from it at Global Witness?
I think for us and I think formany, not for profits, you know,
Global Witness is working on areally tough mission. We know that
there's a narrow window toprevent irreversible climate impact.
(06:58):
We're also working really hardto change, I suppose a super well
organized and resourcefulopposition that is the big polluters
who really want to maintainthe status quo. And this is hard
work and it has, you needresilience and there's setbacks and
this does have a negativeimpact on the wellbeing of our staff
(07:19):
who do report high levels ofstress. So we wanted to see if a
move to a shorter working weekcould improve the wellbeing of our
employees. We whilemaintaining the impact of our mission.
So that was our starting point really.
Thanks for sharing. AndTatiana, you looked at this from
a data researchy perspectiveand you researched a number of organizations
(07:44):
who'd implemented the four dayworking week. Was there anything
that stood out really stronglyin terms of the impact and the benefits
of it.
So the results in terms of theimpact on people's well being are
absolutely clear. So it'sextremely beneficial to people when
you introduce social toworking week provided and we'll get
back to that, I'm sure thatyou do it well. So with adequate
(08:06):
Planning to enable people tostill do their job well within the
hours that they have. But whatwe see is also a really positive
impact on organizationsthemselves. And I think so that was
very striking. For example, inthe one year round study we did on
the UK private sector pilot,which took place originally in 2022
and we published a follow upstudy last year that we've talked
(08:26):
about last year on this, onthis podcast where we had so 100%
actually of all the CEOs thatwe talked to for this study said
that the four day week had hada positive impact on their organization
as well, on their business aswell, not just on their people, which
was, you know, really a reallyclear result as well. So obviously
this is a fairly small sampleand there are some examples of less
(08:46):
successful cases, but they'reactually really rare. I think that's
something that we are alwaysstruck by is that yeah, in really
9 out of 10 cases it is a hugesuccess on all accounts. And that's
one of the things that alsowe've done in this case for Global
Witness. And then I'm lookingforward to hearing about maybe in
a couple of minutes. But we'reobviously now three months into the
(09:09):
trial and we're going to startthe evaluation period. That's something
that we really highlight inour work is kind of defining what
will be the way of evaluatingimpact particularly. And that includes
measures on well being,physical health, mental health, but
also organizationalperformance and kind of adaptability
as well. And those are thingsthat you can observe in the short
(09:29):
term, but also in the longterm. So yeah, in terms of the impact,
I think both in terms of HRmetrics, attractivity, retention,
in terms of people'ssatisfaction and well being at work,
in terms of their satisfactionwith their work life balance and
the feedback we're gettingabout how people feel in their personal
lives and in terms ofperformance itself from a more business
(09:50):
perspective, which obviouslydepends from the organization we're
talking about, all of thoseresults are generally extremely positive.
And now this organization isobviously a charity. But you mentioned
there was a positive impact inthat private sector study you did.
I imagine some people, I guessthey wouldn't listen because they
don't like the topic of thefirm they're working with you. But
some people will say to ourlisteners as well, actually, yes,
(10:13):
all well and good, you can sitback, relax and enjoy your yoga on
a Friday. But we have abusiness to run, we have clients
to satisfy, we have money tomake. In that more private sector
element, what would you say tothem? Tatiana, a couple of things.
One of them is I can expand alittle bit maybe on what that means
kind of the impact on theperformance and misconceptions we
(10:35):
sometimes have about what isdriving performance in an organization.
And I think that goes towards.There's two sides to this question,
really. One of them is whatdrives productivity and performance,
and the other one is whatactually undermines it. That is also
addressed through shorterworking hours in many ways, or shorter
working hours are a reallyeffective way of addressing some
of the causes ofunderperformance, for example, such
(10:57):
as absenteeism, lack ofmotivation, lack of engagement, and
burnout, which are reallyimportant drivers, actually, that
has negative impacts on the business.
Nadia, I'm interested. I thinkyou're about six months, nine months
in, is that right?
We're four months in now.
Oh, okay. Interesting. So whenyou started, what did you do to get
(11:20):
ready for this transition?
We actually spent a good 12months getting ready for the shorter
working week. And it was thebest investment of time that we've
ever made, I think, intogetting a project going. Autonomy
came, and they did somebenchmarking for us, and then they
(11:42):
really helped us think aboutthe staff engagement. And that's
what I've really enjoyed aboutdesigning the pilot. It was a real
collective collaborativeeffort of everyone in the organization
coming together and thinking,okay, how is this going to work for
me, our partners, and also theorganization? And there was real
(12:07):
enthusiasm and commitment togetting it right. I think also having
that long period of time todesign the pilot enabled us to go
through an entire year of anorganization cycle. So quite often
when you're designingsomething, you. You might just be
thinking about what's in themoment. But actually it really forced
(12:28):
us to think about, okay, thishappens at this time of year, this
happens at this time of theyear. How might we need to design
around that? And I think therewere unknowns that surface, the things
that we just couldn't answer.And we probably spent quite a bit
of time trying to figure outthe unknowns. And what if this happened?
(12:51):
How would we respond to it?Would it get in our way? And actually,
in the end, we were like,okay, no, we just need to start the
pilot now and we need to learnas we go. And that was a bit of a
sense of relief, actuallythinking, we're not going to have
everything figured out beforewe go in. But yeah, the bit I enjoyed
(13:11):
most was the collaborativecoming together to design a framework
which was right for GlobalWitness. It certainly wasn't sort
of autonomy coming in andgiving Us a framework that we then
had to squeeze in around our organization.
And if you're looking backnow, is there anything that you wish
you would have known aboutimplementing this at the start?
(13:35):
I think about not sweating thesmall stuff and realising that it
does take time and it, youknow, and time to do it well, because
it's a fundamental change tohow people work. So, you know, I've
spoken to a couple of peoplewho are sort of thinking about moving
(13:55):
to a four day week or reduceworking hours. And my advice is about
don't sweat the small stuff.If you can engage an organization
like Autonomy who can reallyhelp you all the way through it.
And actually the joy andexcitement it sparks in staff is
quite something.
What were the reactions whenyou first said that you were, I mean,
(14:18):
did you tell staff this wasgoing to happen or did you just say
we're thinking about it? Whatdo you think?
What we did was we bought inJoe Ryland from the four day working
week campaign and we wantedhim to talk to us all together about
the four day week and toenable staff to ask lots of questions
(14:40):
at that point so we could do abit of a sense check in terms of
how people were feeling aboutit and some very sort of rational,
straightforward questionsabout, you know, how will you make
it work for part time workers?What happens if an emergency happens
on a Friday?
I mean those are all greatquestions. I'm sorry if I'm being
very detail oriented but canyou answer that? What does happen
(15:02):
for part time workers?
Oh yeah. So what we did, sowe've moved from, you know, a standard
35 hour week to a 30 hourweek, worked over four days with
no loss to salary. So what wedid for our part time workers and
most of our part time workersare either doing compressed hours
(15:24):
or they're doing a four dayweek. We said, look, you've got two
options. You can maintain yourcurrent working pattern or you can
move to 30 hours and yoursalary will be uplifted. And most
people chose to move to the 30hours and have a salary.
(15:45):
Uplift does sound like a nicething to talk about. And I just remember
you telling me about COPcoming up and how busy that was and
how it was just, you know,very. You also had to do really practical
things, making sure peopledidn't get lost in Azerbaijan, I
think it was. And there's alot going on in those peak periods.
(16:06):
How do you deal with thosepeak periods? Have you had any of
those?
I mean again, I think staffhave been really, really good about
accepting that there may beFridays that they need to work, you
know, because we couldn't justsort of say, okay, we can't. We're
going to ignore that COP ishappening on this Friday. But staff
can take that time back. And Ithink just because, again, that's
(16:27):
something that was very clearbefore we went into the pilot. Everyone's
been more than happy becausethey know they're not always going
to be working every Friday.And typically they will have a Friday
off. The one thing that wespent a huge amount of time talking
about and we ended up decidingto just learn within the pilot was
(16:48):
emergency cover. And I thinkwhere we ended up is like, emergencies
don't just happen on a Friday.They can happen at midnight on a
Tuesday, they can happen overa Sunday. We will always need cover
for media. You know, our commstaff already are on call or have
a rota to be on call on aSaturday and Sunday. And I think
(17:11):
just reassuring staff thatthey could get that time back has
been the key. But also what wedid in the end, Verena, is like Because
we couldn't quite get toagreement for what emergency meant,
is that the senior leadershipteam said, you know what, for the
first month, we'll be theemergency cover. And that will give
us an idea of what's coming inand what's not coming in. And nothing
(17:34):
came in. And also, we arereally well equipped to deal with
emergencies. You know, it's nodifferent dealing with an emergency
on a Friday than it is todealing with one in the middle of
the night, another time of theweek. So that anxiety that staff
had hasn't really come tofruition, which is great.
Fantastic. And Tatiana, wejust talked about the preparation
(17:56):
for all of this. Is there anyadvice that you've given to Nadia
and her team that you'rereally glad they implemented it?
That's a good question. Also,to come back on what Nadia was just
saying, just to say, I thinkthat's such an important point, which
is people often think, youknow, the for the week is going to
make everything moredifficult. And oftentimes it's actually
the things that you're alreadyhaving to manage in your job and
(18:19):
in your work, you willactually get an opportunity to be
more intentional about howthat happens. But oftentimes you're
already equipped for thatbecause it's part of the core work
that you do. So it's justabout reimagining that. And I think,
yeah, Global Witness has beenreally exemplary also on two things.
On kind of that idea of beingflexible about it and learning as
we go, which is so important.And I know it's something that we've
(18:41):
talked about with Nadia beforein terms of preparation is so important,
but then there's a time atwhich you have to start and see how
it goes. And there's only somuch you can learn before you actually
get in. Right. So being wellprepared is all about getting to
that place where you feelconfident starting. But you do have
to at some point get itlaunched and be willing to tweak
and adapt. And that's whyhaving a trial period, I think is
(19:04):
really important because itgives you that kind of buffer time
where you can adjust, you cantweak, you can learn from your staff,
from your stakeholdersexternally as well, and you can then
make any adjustments that areneeded. And when you decide, if you
do decide to make it apermanent condition of work at some
point, then you're veryconfident that this is going to be
sustainable for you from allaspects. And the other thing that
(19:24):
I think Global Witness reallydid particularly well and that is
so important is role modeling.So Nadia just mentioned that the
leadership team was taking onthat kind of emergency out of hours
cover for the beginning of theperiod. And that's so important in
what we've seen those fewunsuccessful examples. In many cases
there is skepticism at thetop. And that goes a long way to
(19:46):
actually making the policy notthat efficient across the organization
because it does requirechange. And in any organization there
is an element of hierarchy.And obviously what leadership is
initiating will have no kindeffect at all levels. So if you want
everyone to be engaged and bewilling to make this a success, you
really have to role model atevery level, but particularly kind
(20:07):
of at the top. And I thinkwhat the Global Witness leadership
team has done from thatperspective is really inspiring.
Well, thanks, Tatiana.
There's some nice feedback foryou, Nadia. So I get the point about
it being really important toengage senior leadership. And obviously
Nadia's leading on people onIMTAC is the senior leadership, but
then above that are thetrustees. And in some organizations
(20:29):
even the members, oftentrustees, are older, perhaps have
been brought up in a worldwhere everyone was working full time.
Have you seen any absolutegold nuggets of how organizations
have engaged trustees,Tatiana? Or directors for that matter,
board of directors.
So that's something thatdefinitely needs to happen at some
(20:51):
point. There are verydifferent ways in which people do
it. So some organizationsdecide to go, I was going to say
public, not necessarilypublic, but be really transparent
from the start, even at the,you know, what we Sometimes call
the business case period. Butwhen you're kind of just exploring
it in this initial exploratoryphase, already engaging their trustees,
their members, their keystakeholders, their boards in those
(21:14):
initial discussions and kindof. Yeah, exploring that with them
from the start. Others, insome cases, when they can actually
try to develop a more robustbusiness case first and do a lot
of the work in terms ofidentifying what will be feasible
and coming up with strongevidence, actually, and an evidence
base to make that case, andthat can also be really successful.
(21:36):
So there's a lot that depends,of course, on kind of what the working
culture is and what thoserelationships are, and also a little
bit on availability and kindof willingness to engage. Of course,
because these are discussionsthat can take a lot of time and raise
a lot of questions. So ofcourse, that's a factor as well.
So, yes, there are differentways to go about it. That's true,
actually, in terms of goingpublic as well. Organizations take
different approaches orengaging with clients. For those
(21:58):
who have clients, for example,members, do you say that you're reducing
working hours and then seekfeedback, or do you not say and then
see if there's any change? Ifpeople are not prompted to know,
you know, that there was aparticular element that changed.
What did you do, Nadia? Wereyou really open? I mean, I presume
you're also dependent onfunders, on really important stakeholders.
(22:19):
Did you promote that you wereshifting or you shifted quietly and
let them see?
No, we were quite upfront withour donors and our partners. And
actually the reaction we'vehad from donors is that they want
to talk to us about a shorterworking week. So that's been really,
really positive. Onreflection, I think it would have
been good for us to engage ourboard earlier, rather that we'd got
(22:43):
quite far before we startedtalking to our board about it. So,
yeah, doing it differently, wewould have done earlier engagement.
When would you advise you should?
Right at the start.
Right to start. So even whenyou're thinking about it.
Yeah, because I think now aswell, I mean, maybe when we started
talking about the possibilityof moving to a shorter working week,
(23:07):
there wasn't as manyorganizations that were doing it
or were interested in doingit, but now it would be much easier
because there are otherpeople's experiences, you know, people
like Global Witness, that wecan say, oh, this organization's
doing it and they've made itwork. Whereas I don't think we had
had as much of that. Andtherefore, I think that's why we
(23:31):
should have started talking toour our board earlier and we could
have designed it together abit more. And I know some organizations
have. I mean, we engaged ourunion very early. And I know lots
of organizations that aredoing that. They're sort of know,
doing the business case withtheir union, which is really, really
positive for thatrelationship. I think you don't always
(23:54):
get the opportunity for unionsand the organization to be working
on something that's. That'swhen you're not in conflict. So it's
great, it's brilliant.
(28:10):
I can see that the enthusiasmshines through, which is fantastic.
And you alluded to workingcultures. Tatiana and Nadia, you've
implemented it acrosslocations. I think you've got stuff
in mainland China, you've gotstuff in. In Brussels, I think in
Latin America as well. I can'tquite remember. But it is. It is
global. If someone's listeningto this and is thinking of implementing
(28:31):
it in a global organization,is there anything you've learned
they should know?
Yeah, no, you're right.Varina. We've got. We've got DC office,
we've got a Brussels office,we've got China and we've got Brazil
and then we've got otherpeople based in, you know, there's
one person in other placesaround the world. The majority of
our staff are in London. Muchas I don't like to think of COVID
(28:54):
in a positive way, Covid andthe overnight shift to remote working
actually really helped morethan we probably would have thought
in terms of how we managethis. I think some of the challenges
that we are working throughand we thought about our access to
(29:16):
space where all staff cometogether. And Tatiana, I know this
isn't like. We've probably hadto introduce a few more meetings,
which we're trying to stripout meetings, but we've had to put
more in just to make sure thatcertain parts of the organization
aren't getting lost and we'remaking better use of technology.
(29:38):
So, yeah, I mean, all staffevents, it's becoming the typical
that you hit transcribe thismeeting now so people can see what's
happened in a meeting. Andthen what I also really liked about
the designing the pilot isteams, you know, teams are made up
of, you know, there's someteams which have got people from
(30:00):
all over the world. There'sothers which have just got people
based in London and they'redeveloping a plan which is going
to work for them as well. And,you know, they have to examine and
ask themselves about how theywork and is how they were currently
working the most inclusive waypossible. And it's really forced
people to take a bit of stepback and reflect on that.
(30:23):
Just to add to that, that'ssuch an important point as well.
What you mentioned in terms ofintroducing more meetings in some
cases, that's kind ofcounterintuitive in some ways. But
we see this in a lot oforganizations where actually so particularly
when there's remote workingand teams are in different places,
but even when that's not thecase, we're actually more teamwork,
more collaborative time that'sintentionally designed and spaces
(30:43):
made for that can be reallysupportive and actually help save
time in a lot of tasks in alot of ways. So that's something
that is a really importantpoint that I'm really glad you mentioned.
And in terms of also justfeedback on kind of implementing
this on a global scale, Ithink one of the questions that comes
up which is less cultural iskind of the conditions. So contractual
(31:03):
conditions, that's always aconcern, which is just what are you
starting from? In some casesyou have different contractual conditions.
In some cases it can beglobalized and unified. So that's
the main element. But then asNadia mentioned, it's really that
element of co design, which isreally the driving force really of
our approach to designingshort working week is kind of engaging
(31:24):
people at all levels,including the teams themselves, to
design what is going to workfor them. And that's also a great
way to make people own it andkind of have a stake in the implementation
of the transition and in thesuccess of it as well. But it's the
key condition to make surethat the way it will be implemented,
people believe in it and theythink it's going to actually support
them. So that's really, really key.
(31:46):
Interesting. And I mean, I'mquite surprised in how it sounds
like it makes you moreintentional. Like you actually think
about how we interact now. AndTatiana, how do you even start with
being intentional about theway an organization interacts internally?
When you start working withclients and you've done all the should
we do the working week? How dowe measure it? How do you then start
(32:09):
the process of figuring it outhow people need to interact?
Part of it is actually justasking the question. So when you
are asking could we do ashorter working week, those are the
questions that you ask, right?So how efficient do you think you
are at the moment at your teamlevel, in your own personal work,
at the organizational level,what are the elements that you think
(32:31):
could be improved? Are thereany opportunities? And you know,
we have quite a big catalogNow I think of best practice or areas
of potential change thatdifferent organizations have implemented.
So we can have some input onthat and kind of just some prompts
to help people think about,you know, time management. Obviously
meeting culture is a big one,but also the way work is organized,
distributed roles andresponsibilities, like kind of how
(32:53):
clear or not, how to find ornot they are. And there's no right
or wrong way to do it. Becausea lot of that has to do with the
working culture and how peopleprefer to work. In some organizations
it has to be very clear, very,you know, like strict rules that
people can refer to. In otherorganizations, it's much more flexible
and that works really well forpeople. And it's more cultural. And
(33:13):
so that really depends. It'snot better or worse, it's just what
works for you. But yeah, sothere's a number of different things.
A big one is kind of strategyand prioritization as well, which
we've touched on a little bitalready. So when we ask essentially
those feasibility assessmentsthat we often do at the beginning
of a journey towards shorterworking hours, that already starts
(33:34):
the conversation, that startsthe thinking. I think in people's
minds, one of the big elementsfor us is to do this in a collective
manner. So create spaces. Andso we always have qualitative engagements
as well. So we havequantitative ways of gathering ideas
and feedback, including onorganizational efficiency and working
culture through surveys andthings like that. But we also always
(33:55):
want to have actualconversations and workshops with
people. And that can be donein cross team environments, that
can be done at the team level,again, depending what's most suitable
for an organization. But it'sreally important that this is something
that people work oncollaboratively. It's much more efficient
because people have ideas thatthen obviously build into one another
(34:16):
and kind of help broaden thethinking. People have examples as
well. And that's also where wecan help because we have examples
from other organizations thatwe can bring in, but people have
examples from otherworkplaces, from how it works in
their team, et cetera, thatalso demonstrate. So it's like evidencing
the fact that it is possibleto do things maybe a little differently
than you've done them so far,or to think about different ways
(34:37):
of approaching it. And it'sreally through those conversations,
I think in terms of where youwould start, that's definitely where
you start. And then there isan element of workshopping. And we
did this at Global Witness inparticular. It was great because
it was an all staff day. So wegot to meet everyone in person as
well, which was really lovely.But yeah, it's that element of then
how do you turn thosesuggestions and ideas and that brainstorming
(34:59):
phase, how do you turn thatinto an actual plan? You decide what
you're going to be committingto and you turn those into tangible
actions that you then decideto implement.
And just looking at the actualreality of how all this planned out
now, you're now four monthsin. I know you set out with this
to improve the well being, I'msure, hopefully having some positive
(35:20):
impact on other staffmeasures. Have you had any sense
yet of impact or evenanecdotal things that have changed
or it's too early to evaluate?
No, I don't think it's tooearly at all, Verena. I think anecdotally,
the conversations that I'vehad with people and the emails that
(35:41):
I've received, everyone isreally enjoying it. And in terms
of a sense of, you know,because I've been with the organization
quite a long time, so I havequite a good sense of how it functions.
Productivity is not impactedat all. We've had no feedback from
donors and we've managed somehigh activity work really well. We're
(36:07):
keeping an eye on time off inlieu accrued and you know, so we're
looking at that monthly andwe're looking at sickness monthly
and there's nothing there thatcan't be talked, you know. Oh, that's
why we've got this figure.Yeah. Time off in loo hasn't suddenly
shot off through the roof. So,so far so good. And Tatiana, you're
(36:29):
coming in very soon, aren'tyou, to do the midpoint review?
Absolutely. Starting next week.
Yeah. Oh, next week.Brilliant. We're really hoping to
see because our staff reportedquite high level stress when we did
the sort of, the feasibility.I would love to see a small reduction
in that and I'd love to see anincrease in the score around managing
(36:54):
that professional andpersonal. But what we are going to
do is we're going to start tocapture stories of what people are
doing on their Fridays. I haveto say I've spent most of my time
at the dentist, but.
You know, better times will come.
That's important.
Yeah, exactly. But you know,again, it's not a massive time out
(37:19):
of my day. I can make theappointment for the middle of the
day. I'm not stressing aboutit, but yeah, I think last appointment
tomorrow.
Wonderful. That's something tolook forward to. And Tatiana, from
what you've seen, sorry to doThis a live evaluation of Global
Witnesses approach. But what,from what you've seen so far, what
are the things that GlobalWitness have done really well that
(37:40):
you wish other organizationswere implementing the four day working
week, or perhaps just limitedto one thing, like one thing that
they have done really wellthat you wish other organizations
who are implementing the fourday workweek would also do?
The main thing that I alwayssay that Global Witness did do really
well, I think is reallyengaging everyone and getting the
(38:01):
appropriate amount of feedbackand input in order to design what
they would need in the mostappropriate way. And I think that
was really, really well donein terms of targeting particular
groups of people, targetingparticular teams that we knew there
would be specific issues within terms of having specific constraints,
having to react toemergencies, et cetera. But also
(38:23):
thinking about, for example,we did a workshop specifically for
people who had caringresponsibilities, because that was
also a question in terms ofhow you implement the shorter working
week, what the model was goingto look like and what kind of impact
that can have on how your lifeoutside of work is organized as well.
So how flexible it would be,et cetera. And I think in terms of
that openness and thatflexibility in the approach to it,
(38:46):
yeah, Global Witness did thatreally particularly well, I would
say.
Looking at the implementationnow, is there anything else that
you haven't shared yet that ifsomeone is starting to process Nadia,
or of thinking about this fourday working week, that they really,
really should do differentlyor perhaps even mistakes? If you're
willing to share, you don'thave to, but anything that you would
(39:07):
tell a friend who is justabout to start this whole process,
I mean.
I think I sort of referencedit, but just stay with it. You know,
it's like when you're gettingto the nine months, oh my God, we're
still designing the pilot.Just stay with it. It's really worth
that design phase beforeimplementation. And I think, you
know, the lessons learned arearound making sure you're engaging
(39:30):
all of your stakeholders andnot making assumptions that everyone
will be as excited about theshorter working week as you are in
hindsight.
What do you think would havegone wrong practically if you didn't
do all this huge design work?Because I know myself, I would want
to just jump into doing it tomorrow.
I think we would havecontinued to work in the way that
(39:50):
we were working and thenbecome a bit unstuck, you know, because
all of us, and probablyparticularly at Global Witness, we
have too many meetings. Ifyou're working an extra half an hour
or 45 minutes, you don'treally think about that. But actually
to sort of be sat down andconfronted with, okay, we're going
(40:12):
from, you're working an extrahour a day, you're working extra
hour and a quarter a day, andyou're suddenly overnight going to
go to. To 30 hours. What needsto change is really important. And
I have to say, as anindividual, that's been my massive
learning is that I, you know,as well as adjusting my own rhythms
(40:34):
of how I work, I also needothers to adjust how they work with
me as well. So I think that'swhy the length of the pilot was really
needed. And it just got peopleready for it. So it was almost like,
you know, we all went home oneFriday, came back on the Monday,
and there was, you know, apartfrom saying happy, shorter working
(40:55):
week, everyone, it was likenothing had changed.
Interesting. So you changebehaviors before you change the working
days.
Yeah, that's a really good wayof looking at it, actually. Verena,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna writethat one down.
Did you want to jump in, Tatiana?
Yeah, I would echo that. Andthat goes towards what you were saying,
Verena, earlier, about reallybeing intentional about it. I think
(41:15):
for me as well, having workedfive day week jobs, if not more sometimes
before, when I joined thetunemy and started working a four
day week, that was obviouslytransformational in many ways for
me. But I think for me aswell, the main thing was changing
the approach to working time.And that's where really that constraint
that you're putting on it,which is you have less time available
(41:37):
for this, and you're gettingso much more time available for a
lot of other things that arealso extremely productive in many
other ways as well. But thefact that you have less time available
for this, actually there is anelement, and that was one of the
big focuses at Global Witness.And as Nadia just said around, are
you just going to do anythingthat needs to get done as it comes
along, or are you going tohave an intentional and kind of more
(42:00):
strategic approach at what youneed to do? And how are you going
to organize yourself to getthat done within the time you have?
And obviously that's a bit. Ithink probably a lot of people can
relate to that feeling of youjust do things as they come along
and it kind of never ends in away. There's no point at which your
boss will say, actually, youdon't have to do that. You know what?
(42:20):
You should go, right? So it'salso about changing and modeling
that behavior at all. Levelsand changing your relationship to
that is a really big changeactually, even in terms of your mindset.
Right. So that's probably themost important thing. And I think,
yeah, as Nadia said, it's acollective element to it because
you need to haveaccountability on it. If some people
around you are not doing it orare not enabling you to do it, it
(42:44):
will be very difficult tostick with it. So there needs to
be kind of collectiveaccountability around it. And that's
where probably that's one ofthe most beneficial things of the
design and preparationprocess, is that once you get to
it, it has had time to sink inand you can just then get on with
it. That being said, designphases can be shorter. Just to reassure
as well.
(43:04):
Lovely. What do the two of youthink now about how work could look
like in the future acrosssociety? Has this work with the short
working week changed yourthinking about the future of work?
Always, I'm always thinkingabout the future of work, as I'm
sure Tatiana is as well. Onething that has really emerged for
(43:26):
me is, is that we probablyneed to think a little bit more about
the design of roles. I know wewere talking about this earlier in
the week, weren't we, Verena?And you know, I think over the next
12 months to three years,senior leadership team line managers
will increasingly be askingfor tools and skills to design a
(43:50):
role in a way which focuses onoutcomes rather than a list of tasks.
I also think that those sortof processes, people, processes in
organizations that have becomea bit of an industry, like an annual
appraisal, don't sit with ashorter working week because you
(44:11):
know, again, it's an exampleof where you need to find different
ways of doing things because ashorter working week does not allow
the entire organization toslow down around one process. So
one thing that we're pilotingis a continuous learning framework
so that people are having moreregular, quicker check ins with their
line managers. There's aquarterly thing on, you know, on
(44:33):
your wellbeing, what you'vedone over the last quarter and what
you're going to do over thenext quarter and that's it. And I,
I don't see how organizationscan't move to a shorter working week
without adjusting some ofthese processes that have been around
when we all used to work fivedays a week.
That's so interesting. That'sone of the things that I was going
(44:54):
to mention as well. I think interms of kind of defining what we
think success is, performance,you know, whatever you want to call
it. But generally what we aretrying to achieve and just more generally
having a more holisticapproach to this is something that
a lot of organizations say,not many actually walk the walk,
but some do, which is great.But in terms of that definition of
(45:15):
performance for us as asociety, for us as human beings,
but for organizations as well,absolutely has to include measures
of health and well being andsustainability. Generally speaking,
it makes absolutely no senseto think that anything can be successful
if it's destroying its ownconditions of existence. Right. Whether
that's the planet, the people.But it's very often the case and
(45:39):
I'm not saying anythingparticularly new here, but it's so
striking and that's somethingthat can be modeled that company
level and we see that happenthrough shorter working week processes.
And the other thing I wouldsay is a more general reflection,
I think. But just in terms ofthe place of work in general in society
and in life and what we defineas such, the question as well, of
(46:00):
again I was mentioning when wehear feedback about people who are
benefiting from shorterworking hours, sometimes we hear
in some media, for example,example, that there's a little bit
of backlash on the idea insome cases. And people say this is
for lazy people who just don'twant to work that hard. What we are
hearing is actually peopledoing a lot of things outside of
(46:21):
work that again can be definedas incredibly productive in many
cases. You could say add moresocial value than what they are doing
in their jobs, depending whattheir job is. But the huge amount
of care labor that people aredoing outside of work, and this is
a thing that we ask about whenwe engage with organizations in terms
of whether people feel thattheir current working hours enable
them to take care of theirfamilies or their loved ones. And
(46:43):
we've got about 40% generallyon average of people who say no to
that, 43amongst women, whichis quite a high number and a significant
concern when you think aboutit, because it's so important for
us to be able to do that rightas a society. So I think there's
also really a big questionaround what kind of activities qualify
as work, kind of activitiesare worthy of social recognition,
(47:05):
financial compensationpotentially, and how those different
spheres of activity interact.And this is absolutely not to say
that we should stop workingand just do that, but the kind of
balance between the differentrealms of human activity really I
think is a big question andsomething that we hear a lot about
in our conversations withpeople as well and definitely since
the pandemic. Share yourthoughts, Nadia. I'm not seeing that
(47:27):
as a very positive elementoverall at all, but definitely led
to some reprioritization insome cases of those different spheres
of life.
Wonderful. We're comingtowards the end of our podcast, so
if you want to share one thingthat someone who's listening to this
now and perhaps is in aleadership role who wants to start
(47:47):
the process of exploring thefour day working week, one thing
they can do this week thattakes less than five minutes.
I would say take time off,even if it's very little time. Because
again, it's that intentionalapproach to protecting time and working
with the time that you have.So whatever you think is feasible,
whether it's half an hour,whether it's half a day, depending,
(48:11):
but just take that time foryourself and think about what you'd
like to do with your time.
Thank you so much, Tatiana.How about you, Nadia? Do you have
something to share?
I was going to say somethingsimilar, but I think to sort of build
a little bit on what Tatianais saying is that, yeah, I mean,
start to just be a bit moremindful of how you work. If you want
(48:33):
to start having theconversations in your organization
or you might need to develop abusiness case, start thinking about
what you can change nowwithout the shorter working week
and become a bit of anadvocate for it before maybe mentioning
it.
If I can just add this veryquickly. But I think something that
you shared many times, Verena,that I'm also really convinced about,
(48:56):
maybe talk to a working parentand see how they organize our time.
Because people who haveconstraints outside of work find
ways of doing that. We seethat amongst part time workers, for
example, they're often muchmore intentional and efficient with
how they use their time. Sothat can be one way to do that as
well.
That's an excellent practicaltip and very on message, Tatiana.
Thank you. Tatiana. Where canpeople find out about autonomy and
(49:19):
about you? Where should they head?
To their website. So ourwebsite, sorry. So www.autonomy.work.
everything's on there.
Lovely, Nadia. If people wantto find out more about you, stalk
you online, stalk GlobalWitness, make a massive, very big
donation to Global Witness tochange the world and stop the climate
(49:39):
crisis. Where should they head?
Www.globalwitness.org and ifanyone has heard anything that I've
said today that they want tochat more about, they can Find me
on LinkedIn.
Lovely. Thank you so muchboth. It's been a pleasure to chat
you.
Oh, thank you, Verena, forinviting us.
Thank you so much.
(50:01):
I really appreciate youlistening. Thank you so much. And
I always love to hear from ourlisteners. If you want to connect
with me on LinkedIn, just goto Verena Hefti and I'd be delighted
to hear your feedback and yoursuggestions or just have you say
hi link. Likewise, if you dofeel passionately about gender equality
(50:21):
and you want to support afemale led podcast, then please do
leave a review and share itwith a friend. Just because at the
moment, podcasting is still avery, very male dominated environment.
Most of the top chartingpodcasts are led by men. I really
love all the people who'vejoined from the podcast our fellowship
(50:43):
program and if you want to dothe same then please head over to
leadersclass.org/Fellowship inorder to get access to a community
of support to help you combineambitious career with young children
together with people who haveyour back. See you next week.
Welcome to the Big CareersSmall Children Podcast. My name is
Verena Hefti. I believe thatno one should have to choose between
becoming a CEO and enjoyingtheir young children for much too
long. Amazing people like I'msure you listening right now have
found themselves stuck on thecareer ladder when they have children
(00:22):
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because those people don'tprogress to senior leadership and
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We must change this togetherand I hope that many of you listening
right now will progress to themost senior leadership roles that
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(00:43):
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(01:50):
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(02:14):
for wanting that top job.Details are on leadersplus.org Fellowship
hi. Today we are chattingabout the four day working week with
Nadia Bunyan who has led theimplementation at Global Witness
and Tatiana Pino who is anexpert in all things four day Working
(02:38):
week and has supported andobserved many many organizations
do it. They all chat aboutwhat has gone well, what mistakes
to avoid and unexpectedpositive consequences. It will be
really helpful for anyone whowants to understand more of the concept
or wants to start implementingit. This podcast has actually been
(03:00):
live streamed on LinkedIn. Soyou might hear us making reference
to it being a live podcast.And yeah, I hope you enjoy the conversation.
A very warm welcome,everybody, to this first ever live
podcast episode of the BigCareer Small Children podcast. And
I'm really thrilled that wemanaged to bring two previous guests
(03:21):
together who actually haveworked together to share their experience
of the four day working week.So let's start with you, Nadia, if
you can introduce yourself andshare what you do for work and how
you know Tatiana.
Oh, thanks. Hi, Verena. Andthanks for asking me back to do another
podcast. My. My name's NadiaBunyan. I'm the director of People
(03:43):
in Impact at Global Witness,which is a not for profit organization
working in climate todismantle the power of big polluters
and transfer power to thosewho have been most impacted by the
climate crisis. Tatiana and Imet, oh, it must be about 18 months
ago now, when Global Witnesswanted to explore the feasibility
(04:05):
of a shorter working week. Sowe've had lots of contact over the
last 18 months and it's greatthat we're here together in the same
room.
Wonderful. Welcome. AndTatiana, would you like to introduce
yourself and share what you dopractically for work and how you
even came across the four dayworking week?
Absolutely. Thanks very muchfor having me again and super excited
(04:26):
to be here with Nadia. As youmentioned, we've been working together.
So really exciting to talkabout that and looking forward to
the conversation. My name isTatiana Pignon. I'm an associate
director at the AutonomyInstitute. So we're a research institute
mainly and I lead within ourwork, the Workplace Transformation
Unit, which is essentially ourworkplace research and consultancy
work where we specialize onworking time reduction. So as part
(04:50):
of that work we conductresearch, feasibility studies, pilot
evaluations, prospectiveresearch. This is all on our website
for anyone who's interested.We also run collective pilots and
we also provide bespokesupport to organizations such as
Global Witness that areinterested in exploring a shorter
working week. So we've workedwith a lot of organizations of sizes,
(05:10):
industries that vary a lotacross sectors. And that's something
that for me is particularsource of pride because prior to
my work with Autonomy as well,I've had extensive experience in
a variety of workplaces. I'vebeen with Autonomy for about two
years now, but before thatI've worked in the French government,
in public sector, inconsultancy, in the private sector,
(05:30):
in a local civil societyorganization, in academia, research
and teaching. So I've seen alot of different approaches to work
culture and workingconditions, and in all of them, burnout
was a problem in some way oranother. It was really striking to
me how much effort had to gonot just into working itself but
into managing work in one'slife. And you know that's a trend
(05:53):
that's been going on for awhile. But working time reduction
is really one of the mosteffective ways to address that issue.
And it has not gone effectsbeyond the workplace itself, you
know, on our families, ourcareer communities, et cetera. So
it's really, it's a reallytransformative element that I'm very
proud to work on.
Yeah, to an extent it's a nobrainer if you don't work on a Friday,
that's when you do your weeklyshopping which then means you don't
(06:14):
always spend time and moneywith the corner shop which is too
expensive and only hasunhealthy biscuits in my. Well that's
my excuse for eating too manyunhealthy biscuits. Anyways Nadia,
when you introduced it atGlobal Fitness, I mean you're a global
organization as the name saysin the title, lots of different countries,
legal frameworks. Surely ifyou wanted an easy life you probably
(06:36):
didn't have to do that. Whydid you introduce the four day working
week? What were we trying toget from it at Global Witness?
I think for us and I think formany, not for profits, you know,
Global Witness is working on areally tough mission. We know that
there's a narrow window toprevent irreversible climate impact.
(06:58):
We're also working really hardto change, I suppose a super well
organized and resourcefulopposition that is the big polluters
who really want to maintainthe status quo. And this is hard
work and it has, you needresilience and there's setbacks and
this does have a negativeimpact on the wellbeing of our staff
(07:19):
who do report high levels ofstress. So we wanted to see if a
move to a shorter working weekcould improve the wellbeing of our
employees. We whilemaintaining the impact of our mission.
So that was our starting point really.
Thanks for sharing. AndTatiana, you looked at this from
a data researchy perspectiveand you researched a number of organizations
(07:44):
who'd implemented the four dayworking week. Was there anything
that stood out really stronglyin terms of the impact and the benefits
of it.
So the results in terms of theimpact on people's well being are
absolutely clear. So it'sextremely beneficial to people when
you introduce social toworking week provided and we'll get
back to that, I'm sure thatyou do it well. So with adequate
(08:06):
Planning to enable people tostill do their job well within the
hours that they have. But whatwe see is also a really positive
impact on organizationsthemselves. And I think so that was
very striking. For example, inthe one year round study we did on
the UK private sector pilot,which took place originally in 2022
and we published a follow upstudy last year that we've talked
(08:26):
about last year on this, onthis podcast where we had so 100%
actually of all the CEOs thatwe talked to for this study said
that the four day week had hada positive impact on their organization
as well, on their business aswell, not just on their people, which
was, you know, really a reallyclear result as well. So obviously
this is a fairly small sampleand there are some examples of less
(08:46):
successful cases, but they'reactually really rare. I think that's
something that we are alwaysstruck by is that yeah, in really
9 out of 10 cases it is a hugesuccess on all accounts. And that's
one of the things that alsowe've done in this case for Global
Witness. And then I'm lookingforward to hearing about maybe in
a couple of minutes. But we'reobviously now three months into the
(09:09):
trial and we're going to startthe evaluation period. That's something
that we really highlight inour work is kind of defining what
will be the way of evaluatingimpact particularly. And that includes
measures on well being,physical health, mental health, but
also organizationalperformance and kind of adaptability
as well. And those are thingsthat you can observe in the short
(09:29):
term, but also in the longterm. So yeah, in terms of the impact,
I think both in terms of HRmetrics, attractivity, retention,
in terms of people'ssatisfaction and well being at work,
in terms of their satisfactionwith their work life balance and
the feedback we're gettingabout how people feel in their personal
lives and in terms ofperformance itself from a more business
(09:50):
perspective, which obviouslydepends from the organization we're
talking about, all of thoseresults are generally extremely positive.
And now this organization isobviously a charity. But you mentioned
there was a positive impact inthat private sector study you did.
I imagine some people, I guessthey wouldn't listen because they
don't like the topic of thefirm they're working with you. But
some people will say to ourlisteners as well, actually, yes,
(10:13):
all well and good, you can sitback, relax and enjoy your yoga on
a Friday. But we have abusiness to run, we have clients
to satisfy, we have money tomake. In that more private sector
element, what would you say tothem? Tatiana, a couple of things.
One of them is I can expand alittle bit maybe on what that means
kind of the impact on theperformance and misconceptions we
(10:35):
sometimes have about what isdriving performance in an organization.
And I think that goes towards.There's two sides to this question,
really. One of them is whatdrives productivity and performance,
and the other one is whatactually undermines it. That is also
addressed through shorterworking hours in many ways, or shorter
working hours are a reallyeffective way of addressing some
of the causes ofunderperformance, for example, such
(10:57):
as absenteeism, lack ofmotivation, lack of engagement, and
burnout, which are reallyimportant drivers, actually, that
has negative impacts on the business.
Nadia, I'm interested. I thinkyou're about six months, nine months
in, is that right?
We're four months in now.
Oh, okay. Interesting. So whenyou started, what did you do to get
(11:20):
ready for this transition?
We actually spent a good 12months getting ready for the shorter
working week. And it was thebest investment of time that we've
ever made, I think, intogetting a project going. Autonomy
came, and they did somebenchmarking for us, and then they
(11:42):
really helped us think aboutthe staff engagement. And that's
what I've really enjoyed aboutdesigning the pilot. It was a real
collective collaborativeeffort of everyone in the organization
coming together and thinking,okay, how is this going to work for
me, our partners, and also theorganization? And there was real
(12:07):
enthusiasm and commitment togetting it right. I think also having
that long period of time todesign the pilot enabled us to go
through an entire year of anorganization cycle. So quite often
when you're designingsomething, you. You might just be
thinking about what's in themoment. But actually it really forced
(12:28):
us to think about, okay, thishappens at this time of year, this
happens at this time of theyear. How might we need to design
around that? And I think therewere unknowns that surface, the things
that we just couldn't answer.And we probably spent quite a bit
of time trying to figure outthe unknowns. And what if this happened?
(12:51):
How would we respond to it?Would it get in our way? And actually,
in the end, we were like,okay, no, we just need to start the
pilot now and we need to learnas we go. And that was a bit of a
sense of relief, actuallythinking, we're not going to have
everything figured out beforewe go in. But yeah, the bit I enjoyed
(13:11):
most was the collaborativecoming together to design a framework
which was right for GlobalWitness. It certainly wasn't sort
of autonomy coming in andgiving Us a framework that we then
had to squeeze in around our organization.
And if you're looking backnow, is there anything that you wish
you would have known aboutimplementing this at the start?
(13:35):
I think about not sweating thesmall stuff and realising that it
does take time and it, youknow, and time to do it well, because
it's a fundamental change tohow people work. So, you know, I've
spoken to a couple of peoplewho are sort of thinking about moving
(13:55):
to a four day week or reduceworking hours. And my advice is about
don't sweat the small stuff.If you can engage an organization
like Autonomy who can reallyhelp you all the way through it.
And actually the joy andexcitement it sparks in staff is
quite something.
What were the reactions whenyou first said that you were, I mean,
(14:18):
did you tell staff this wasgoing to happen or did you just say
we're thinking about it? Whatdo you think?
What we did was we bought inJoe Ryland from the four day working
week campaign and we wantedhim to talk to us all together about
the four day week and toenable staff to ask lots of questions
(14:40):
at that point so we could do abit of a sense check in terms of
how people were feeling aboutit and some very sort of rational,
straightforward questionsabout, you know, how will you make
it work for part time workers?What happens if an emergency happens
on a Friday?
I mean those are all greatquestions. I'm sorry if I'm being
very detail oriented but canyou answer that? What does happen
(15:02):
for part time workers?
Oh yeah. So what we did, sowe've moved from, you know, a standard
35 hour week to a 30 hourweek, worked over four days with
no loss to salary. So what wedid for our part time workers and
most of our part time workersare either doing compressed hours
(15:24):
or they're doing a four dayweek. We said, look, you've got two
options. You can maintain yourcurrent working pattern or you can
move to 30 hours and yoursalary will be uplifted. And most
people chose to move to the 30hours and have a salary.
(15:45):
Uplift does sound like a nicething to talk about. And I just remember
you telling me about COPcoming up and how busy that was and
how it was just, you know,very. You also had to do really practical
things, making sure peopledidn't get lost in Azerbaijan, I
think it was. And there's alot going on in those peak periods.
(16:06):
How do you deal with thosepeak periods? Have you had any of
those?
I mean again, I think staffhave been really, really good about
accepting that there may beFridays that they need to work, you
know, because we couldn't justsort of say, okay, we can't. We're
going to ignore that COP ishappening on this Friday. But staff
can take that time back. And Ithink just because, again, that's
(16:27):
something that was very clearbefore we went into the pilot. Everyone's
been more than happy becausethey know they're not always going
to be working every Friday.And typically they will have a Friday
off. The one thing that wespent a huge amount of time talking
about and we ended up decidingto just learn within the pilot was
(16:48):
emergency cover. And I thinkwhere we ended up is like, emergencies
don't just happen on a Friday.They can happen at midnight on a
Tuesday, they can happen overa Sunday. We will always need cover
for media. You know, our commstaff already are on call or have
a rota to be on call on aSaturday and Sunday. And I think
(17:11):
just reassuring staff thatthey could get that time back has
been the key. But also what wedid in the end, Verena, is like Because
we couldn't quite get toagreement for what emergency meant,
is that the senior leadershipteam said, you know what, for the
first month, we'll be theemergency cover. And that will give
us an idea of what's coming inand what's not coming in. And nothing
(17:34):
came in. And also, we arereally well equipped to deal with
emergencies. You know, it's nodifferent dealing with an emergency
on a Friday than it is todealing with one in the middle of
the night, another time of theweek. So that anxiety that staff
had hasn't really come tofruition, which is great.
Fantastic. And Tatiana, wejust talked about the preparation
(17:56):
for all of this. Is there anyadvice that you've given to Nadia
and her team that you'rereally glad they implemented it?
That's a good question. Also,to come back on what Nadia was just
saying, just to say, I thinkthat's such an important point, which
is people often think, youknow, the for the week is going to
make everything moredifficult. And oftentimes it's actually
the things that you're alreadyhaving to manage in your job and
(18:19):
in your work, you willactually get an opportunity to be
more intentional about howthat happens. But oftentimes you're
already equipped for thatbecause it's part of the core work
that you do. So it's justabout reimagining that. And I think,
yeah, Global Witness has beenreally exemplary also on two things.
On kind of that idea of beingflexible about it and learning as
we go, which is so important.And I know it's something that we've
(18:41):
talked about with Nadia beforein terms of preparation is so important,
but then there's a time atwhich you have to start and see how
it goes. And there's only somuch you can learn before you actually
get in. Right. So being wellprepared is all about getting to
that place where you feelconfident starting. But you do have
to at some point get itlaunched and be willing to tweak
and adapt. And that's whyhaving a trial period, I think is
(19:04):
really important because itgives you that kind of buffer time
where you can adjust, you cantweak, you can learn from your staff,
from your stakeholdersexternally as well, and you can then
make any adjustments that areneeded. And when you decide, if you
do decide to make it apermanent condition of work at some
point, then you're veryconfident that this is going to be
sustainable for you from allaspects. And the other thing that
(19:24):
I think Global Witness reallydid particularly well and that is
so important is role modeling.So Nadia just mentioned that the
leadership team was taking onthat kind of emergency out of hours
cover for the beginning of theperiod. And that's so important in
what we've seen those fewunsuccessful examples. In many cases
there is skepticism at thetop. And that goes a long way to
(19:46):
actually making the policy notthat efficient across the organization
because it does requirechange. And in any organization there
is an element of hierarchy.And obviously what leadership is
initiating will have no kindeffect at all levels. So if you want
everyone to be engaged and bewilling to make this a success, you
really have to role model atevery level, but particularly kind
(20:07):
of at the top. And I thinkwhat the Global Witness leadership
team has done from thatperspective is really inspiring.
Well, thanks, Tatiana.
There's some nice feedback foryou, Nadia. So I get the point about
it being really important toengage senior leadership. And obviously
Nadia's leading on people onIMTAC is the senior leadership, but
then above that are thetrustees. And in some organizations
(20:29):
even the members, oftentrustees, are older, perhaps have
been brought up in a worldwhere everyone was working full time.
Have you seen any absolutegold nuggets of how organizations
have engaged trustees,Tatiana? Or directors for that matter,
board of directors.
So that's something thatdefinitely needs to happen at some
(20:51):
point. There are verydifferent ways in which people do
it. So some organizationsdecide to go, I was going to say
public, not necessarilypublic, but be really transparent
from the start, even at the,you know, what we Sometimes call
the business case period. Butwhen you're kind of just exploring
it in this initial exploratoryphase, already engaging their trustees,
their members, their keystakeholders, their boards in those
(21:14):
initial discussions and kindof. Yeah, exploring that with them
from the start. Others, insome cases, when they can actually
try to develop a more robustbusiness case first and do a lot
of the work in terms ofidentifying what will be feasible
and coming up with strongevidence, actually, and an evidence
base to make that case, andthat can also be really successful.
(21:36):
So there's a lot that depends,of course, on kind of what the working
culture is and what thoserelationships are, and also a little
bit on availability and kindof willingness to engage. Of course,
because these are discussionsthat can take a lot of time and raise
a lot of questions. So ofcourse, that's a factor as well.
So, yes, there are differentways to go about it. That's true,
actually, in terms of goingpublic as well. Organizations take
different approaches orengaging with clients. For those
(21:58):
who have clients, for example,members, do you say that you're reducing
working hours and then seekfeedback, or do you not say and then
see if there's any change? Ifpeople are not prompted to know,
you know, that there was aparticular element that changed.
What did you do, Nadia? Wereyou really open? I mean, I presume
you're also dependent onfunders, on really important stakeholders.
(22:19):
Did you promote that you wereshifting or you shifted quietly and
let them see?
No, we were quite upfront withour donors and our partners. And
actually the reaction we'vehad from donors is that they want
to talk to us about a shorterworking week. So that's been really,
really positive. Onreflection, I think it would have
been good for us to engage ourboard earlier, rather that we'd got
(22:43):
quite far before we startedtalking to our board about it. So,
yeah, doing it differently, wewould have done earlier engagement.
When would you advise you should?
Right at the start.
Right to start. So even whenyou're thinking about it.
Yeah, because I think now aswell, I mean, maybe when we started
talking about the possibilityof moving to a shorter working week,
(23:07):
there wasn't as manyorganizations that were doing it
or were interested in doingit, but now it would be much easier
because there are otherpeople's experiences, you know, people
like Global Witness, that wecan say, oh, this organization's
doing it and they've made itwork. Whereas I don't think we had
had as much of that. Andtherefore, I think that's why we
(23:31):
should have started talking toour our board earlier and we could
have designed it together abit more. And I know some organizations
have. I mean, we engaged ourunion very early. And I know lots
of organizations that aredoing that. They're sort of know,
doing the business case withtheir union, which is really, really
positive for thatrelationship. I think you don't always
(23:54):
get the opportunity for unionsand the organization to be working
on something that's. That'swhen you're not in conflict. So it's
great, it's brilliant.
(28:10):
I can see that the enthusiasmshines through, which is fantastic.
And you alluded to workingcultures. Tatiana and Nadia, you've
implemented it acrosslocations. I think you've got stuff
in mainland China, you've gotstuff in. In Brussels, I think in
Latin America as well. I can'tquite remember. But it is. It is
global. If someone's listeningto this and is thinking of implementing
(28:31):
it in a global organization,is there anything you've learned
they should know?
Yeah, no, you're right.Varina. We've got. We've got DC office,
we've got a Brussels office,we've got China and we've got Brazil
and then we've got otherpeople based in, you know, there's
one person in other placesaround the world. The majority of
our staff are in London. Muchas I don't like to think of COVID
(28:54):
in a positive way, Covid andthe overnight shift to remote working
actually really helped morethan we probably would have thought
in terms of how we managethis. I think some of the challenges
that we are working throughand we thought about our access to
(29:16):
space where all staff cometogether. And Tatiana, I know this
isn't like. We've probably hadto introduce a few more meetings,
which we're trying to stripout meetings, but we've had to put
more in just to make sure thatcertain parts of the organization
aren't getting lost and we'remaking better use of technology.
(29:38):
So, yeah, I mean, all staffevents, it's becoming the typical
that you hit transcribe thismeeting now so people can see what's
happened in a meeting. Andthen what I also really liked about
the designing the pilot isteams, you know, teams are made up
of, you know, there's someteams which have got people from
(30:00):
all over the world. There'sothers which have just got people
based in London and they'redeveloping a plan which is going
to work for them as well. And,you know, they have to examine and
ask themselves about how theywork and is how they were currently
working the most inclusive waypossible. And it's really forced
people to take a bit of stepback and reflect on that.
(30:23):
Just to add to that, that'ssuch an important point as well.
What you mentioned in terms ofintroducing more meetings in some
cases, that's kind ofcounterintuitive in some ways. But
we see this in a lot oforganizations where actually so particularly
when there's remote workingand teams are in different places,
but even when that's not thecase, we're actually more teamwork,
more collaborative time that'sintentionally designed and spaces
(30:43):
made for that can be reallysupportive and actually help save
time in a lot of tasks in alot of ways. So that's something
that is a really importantpoint that I'm really glad you mentioned.
And in terms of also justfeedback on kind of implementing
this on a global scale, Ithink one of the questions that comes
up which is less cultural iskind of the conditions. So contractual
(31:03):
conditions, that's always aconcern, which is just what are you
starting from? In some casesyou have different contractual conditions.
In some cases it can beglobalized and unified. So that's
the main element. But then asNadia mentioned, it's really that
element of co design, which isreally the driving force really of
our approach to designingshort working week is kind of engaging
(31:24):
people at all levels,including the teams themselves, to
design what is going to workfor them. And that's also a great
way to make people own it andkind of have a stake in the implementation
of the transition and in thesuccess of it as well. But it's the
key condition to make surethat the way it will be implemented,
people believe in it and theythink it's going to actually support
them. So that's really, really key.
(31:46):
Interesting. And I mean, I'mquite surprised in how it sounds
like it makes you moreintentional. Like you actually think
about how we interact now. AndTatiana, how do you even start with
being intentional about theway an organization interacts internally?
When you start working withclients and you've done all the should
we do the working week? How dowe measure it? How do you then start
(32:09):
the process of figuring it outhow people need to interact?
Part of it is actually justasking the question. So when you
are asking could we do ashorter working week, those are the
questions that you ask, right?So how efficient do you think you
are at the moment at your teamlevel, in your own personal work,
at the organizational level,what are the elements that you think
(32:31):
could be improved? Are thereany opportunities? And you know,
we have quite a big catalogNow I think of best practice or areas
of potential change thatdifferent organizations have implemented.
So we can have some input onthat and kind of just some prompts
to help people think about,you know, time management. Obviously
meeting culture is a big one,but also the way work is organized,
distributed roles andresponsibilities, like kind of how
(32:53):
clear or not, how to find ornot they are. And there's no right
or wrong way to do it. Becausea lot of that has to do with the
working culture and how peopleprefer to work. In some organizations
it has to be very clear, very,you know, like strict rules that
people can refer to. In otherorganizations, it's much more flexible
and that works really well forpeople. And it's more cultural. And
(33:13):
so that really depends. It'snot better or worse, it's just what
works for you. But yeah, sothere's a number of different things.
A big one is kind of strategyand prioritization as well, which
we've touched on a little bitalready. So when we ask essentially
those feasibility assessmentsthat we often do at the beginning
of a journey towards shorterworking hours, that already starts
(33:34):
the conversation, that startsthe thinking. I think in people's
minds, one of the big elementsfor us is to do this in a collective
manner. So create spaces. Andso we always have qualitative engagements
as well. So we havequantitative ways of gathering ideas
and feedback, including onorganizational efficiency and working
culture through surveys andthings like that. But we also always
(33:55):
want to have actualconversations and workshops with
people. And that can be donein cross team environments, that
can be done at the team level,again, depending what's most suitable
for an organization. But it'sreally important that this is something
that people work oncollaboratively. It's much more efficient
because people have ideas thatthen obviously build into one another
(34:16):
and kind of help broaden thethinking. People have examples as
well. And that's also where wecan help because we have examples
from other organizations thatwe can bring in, but people have
examples from otherworkplaces, from how it works in
their team, et cetera, thatalso demonstrate. So it's like evidencing
the fact that it is possibleto do things maybe a little differently
than you've done them so far,or to think about different ways
(34:37):
of approaching it. And it'sreally through those conversations,
I think in terms of where youwould start, that's definitely where
you start. And then there isan element of workshopping. And we
did this at Global Witness inparticular. It was great because
it was an all staff day. So wegot to meet everyone in person as
well, which was really lovely.But yeah, it's that element of then
how do you turn thosesuggestions and ideas and that brainstorming
(34:59):
phase, how do you turn thatinto an actual plan? You decide what
you're going to be committingto and you turn those into tangible
actions that you then decideto implement.
And just looking at the actualreality of how all this planned out
now, you're now four monthsin. I know you set out with this
to improve the well being, I'msure, hopefully having some positive
(35:20):
impact on other staffmeasures. Have you had any sense
yet of impact or evenanecdotal things that have changed
or it's too early to evaluate?
No, I don't think it's tooearly at all, Verena. I think anecdotally,
the conversations that I'vehad with people and the emails that
(35:41):
I've received, everyone isreally enjoying it. And in terms
of a sense of, you know,because I've been with the organization
quite a long time, so I havequite a good sense of how it functions.
Productivity is not impactedat all. We've had no feedback from
donors and we've managed somehigh activity work really well. We're
(36:07):
keeping an eye on time off inlieu accrued and you know, so we're
looking at that monthly andwe're looking at sickness monthly
and there's nothing there thatcan't be talked, you know. Oh, that's
why we've got this figure.Yeah. Time off in loo hasn't suddenly
shot off through the roof. So,so far so good. And Tatiana, you're
(36:29):
coming in very soon, aren'tyou, to do the midpoint review?
Absolutely. Starting next week.
Yeah. Oh, next week.Brilliant. We're really hoping to
see because our staff reportedquite high level stress when we did
the sort of, the feasibility.I would love to see a small reduction
in that and I'd love to see anincrease in the score around managing
(36:54):
that professional andpersonal. But what we are going to
do is we're going to start tocapture stories of what people are
doing on their Fridays. I haveto say I've spent most of my time
at the dentist, but.
You know, better times will come.
That's important.
Yeah, exactly. But you know,again, it's not a massive time out
(37:19):
of my day. I can make theappointment for the middle of the
day. I'm not stressing aboutit, but yeah, I think last appointment
tomorrow.
Wonderful. That's something tolook forward to. And Tatiana, from
what you've seen, sorry to doThis a live evaluation of Global
Witnesses approach. But what,from what you've seen so far, what
are the things that GlobalWitness have done really well that
(37:40):
you wish other organizationswere implementing the four day working
week, or perhaps just limitedto one thing, like one thing that
they have done really wellthat you wish other organizations
who are implementing the fourday workweek would also do?
The main thing that I alwayssay that Global Witness did do really
well, I think is reallyengaging everyone and getting the
(38:01):
appropriate amount of feedbackand input in order to design what
they would need in the mostappropriate way. And I think that
was really, really well donein terms of targeting particular
groups of people, targetingparticular teams that we knew there
would be specific issues within terms of having specific constraints,
having to react toemergencies, et cetera. But also
(38:23):
thinking about, for example,we did a workshop specifically for
people who had caringresponsibilities, because that was
also a question in terms ofhow you implement the shorter working
week, what the model was goingto look like and what kind of impact
that can have on how your lifeoutside of work is organized as well.
So how flexible it would be,et cetera. And I think in terms of
that openness and thatflexibility in the approach to it,
(38:46):
yeah, Global Witness did thatreally particularly well, I would
say.
Looking at the implementationnow, is there anything else that
you haven't shared yet that ifsomeone is starting to process Nadia,
or of thinking about this fourday working week, that they really,
really should do differentlyor perhaps even mistakes? If you're
willing to share, you don'thave to, but anything that you would
(39:07):
tell a friend who is justabout to start this whole process,
I mean.
I think I sort of referencedit, but just stay with it. You know,
it's like when you're gettingto the nine months, oh my God, we're
still designing the pilot.Just stay with it. It's really worth
that design phase beforeimplementation. And I think, you
know, the lessons learned arearound making sure you're engaging
(39:30):
all of your stakeholders andnot making assumptions that everyone
will be as excited about theshorter working week as you are in
hindsight.
What do you think would havegone wrong practically if you didn't
do all this huge design work?Because I know myself, I would want
to just jump into doing it tomorrow.
I think we would havecontinued to work in the way that
(39:50):
we were working and thenbecome a bit unstuck, you know, because
all of us, and probablyparticularly at Global Witness, we
have too many meetings. Ifyou're working an extra half an hour
or 45 minutes, you don'treally think about that. But actually
to sort of be sat down andconfronted with, okay, we're going
(40:12):
from, you're working an extrahour a day, you're working extra
hour and a quarter a day, andyou're suddenly overnight going to
go to. To 30 hours. What needsto change is really important. And
I have to say, as anindividual, that's been my massive
learning is that I, you know,as well as adjusting my own rhythms
(40:34):
of how I work, I also needothers to adjust how they work with
me as well. So I think that'swhy the length of the pilot was really
needed. And it just got peopleready for it. So it was almost like,
you know, we all went home oneFriday, came back on the Monday,
and there was, you know, apartfrom saying happy, shorter working
(40:55):
week, everyone, it was likenothing had changed.
Interesting. So you changebehaviors before you change the working
days.
Yeah, that's a really good wayof looking at it, actually. Verena,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna writethat one down.
Did you want to jump in, Tatiana?
Yeah, I would echo that. Andthat goes towards what you were saying,
Verena, earlier, about reallybeing intentional about it. I think
(41:15):
for me as well, having workedfive day week jobs, if not more sometimes
before, when I joined thetunemy and started working a four
day week, that was obviouslytransformational in many ways for
me. But I think for me aswell, the main thing was changing
the approach to working time.And that's where really that constraint
that you're putting on it,which is you have less time available
(41:37):
for this, and you're gettingso much more time available for a
lot of other things that arealso extremely productive in many
other ways as well. But thefact that you have less time available
for this, actually there is anelement, and that was one of the
big focuses at Global Witness.And as Nadia just said around, are
you just going to do anythingthat needs to get done as it comes
along, or are you going tohave an intentional and kind of more
(42:00):
strategic approach at what youneed to do? And how are you going
to organize yourself to getthat done within the time you have?
And obviously that's a bit. Ithink probably a lot of people can
relate to that feeling of youjust do things as they come along
and it kind of never ends in away. There's no point at which your
boss will say, actually, youdon't have to do that. You know what?
(42:20):
You should go, right? So it'salso about changing and modeling
that behavior at all. Levelsand changing your relationship to
that is a really big changeactually, even in terms of your mindset.
Right. So that's probably themost important thing. And I think,
yeah, as Nadia said, it's acollective element to it because
you need to haveaccountability on it. If some people
around you are not doing it orare not enabling you to do it, it
(42:44):
will be very difficult tostick with it. So there needs to
be kind of collectiveaccountability around it. And that's
where probably that's one ofthe most beneficial things of the
design and preparationprocess, is that once you get to
it, it has had time to sink inand you can just then get on with
it. That being said, designphases can be shorter. Just to reassure
as well.
(43:04):
Lovely. What do the two of youthink now about how work could look
like in the future acrosssociety? Has this work with the short
working week changed yourthinking about the future of work?
Always, I'm always thinkingabout the future of work, as I'm
sure Tatiana is as well. Onething that has really emerged for
(43:26):
me is, is that we probablyneed to think a little bit more about
the design of roles. I know wewere talking about this earlier in
the week, weren't we, Verena?And you know, I think over the next
12 months to three years,senior leadership team line managers
will increasingly be askingfor tools and skills to design a
(43:50):
role in a way which focuses onoutcomes rather than a list of tasks.
I also think that those sortof processes, people, processes in
organizations that have becomea bit of an industry, like an annual
appraisal, don't sit with ashorter working week because you
(44:11):
know, again, it's an exampleof where you need to find different
ways of doing things because ashorter working week does not allow
the entire organization toslow down around one process. So
one thing that we're pilotingis a continuous learning framework
so that people are having moreregular, quicker check ins with their
line managers. There's aquarterly thing on, you know, on
(44:33):
your wellbeing, what you'vedone over the last quarter and what
you're going to do over thenext quarter and that's it. And I,
I don't see how organizationscan't move to a shorter working week
without adjusting some ofthese processes that have been around
when we all used to work fivedays a week.
That's so interesting. That'sone of the things that I was going
(44:54):
to mention as well. I think interms of kind of defining what we
think success is, performance,you know, whatever you want to call
it. But generally what we aretrying to achieve and just more generally
having a more holisticapproach to this is something that
a lot of organizations say,not many actually walk the walk,
but some do, which is great.But in terms of that definition of
(45:15):
performance for us as asociety, for us as human beings,
but for organizations as well,absolutely has to include measures
of health and well being andsustainability. Generally speaking,
it makes absolutely no senseto think that anything can be successful
if it's destroying its ownconditions of existence. Right. Whether
that's the planet, the people.But it's very often the case and
(45:39):
I'm not saying anythingparticularly new here, but it's so
striking and that's somethingthat can be modeled that company
level and we see that happenthrough shorter working week processes.
And the other thing I wouldsay is a more general reflection,
I think. But just in terms ofthe place of work in general in society
and in life and what we defineas such, the question as well, of
(46:00):
again I was mentioning when wehear feedback about people who are
benefiting from shorterworking hours, sometimes we hear
in some media, for example,example, that there's a little bit
of backlash on the idea insome cases. And people say this is
for lazy people who just don'twant to work that hard. What we are
hearing is actually peopledoing a lot of things outside of
(46:21):
work that again can be definedas incredibly productive in many
cases. You could say add moresocial value than what they are doing
in their jobs, depending whattheir job is. But the huge amount
of care labor that people aredoing outside of work, and this is
a thing that we ask about whenwe engage with organizations in terms
of whether people feel thattheir current working hours enable
them to take care of theirfamilies or their loved ones. And
(46:43):
we've got about 40% generallyon average of people who say no to
that, 43amongst women, whichis quite a high number and a significant
concern when you think aboutit, because it's so important for
us to be able to do that rightas a society. So I think there's
also really a big questionaround what kind of activities qualify
as work, kind of activitiesare worthy of social recognition,
(47:05):
financial compensationpotentially, and how those different
spheres of activity interact.And this is absolutely not to say
that we should stop workingand just do that, but the kind of
balance between the differentrealms of human activity really I
think is a big question andsomething that we hear a lot about
in our conversations withpeople as well and definitely since
the pandemic. Share yourthoughts, Nadia. I'm not seeing that
(47:27):
as a very positive elementoverall at all, but definitely led
to some reprioritization insome cases of those different spheres
of life.
Wonderful. We're comingtowards the end of our podcast, so
if you want to share one thingthat someone who's listening to this
now and perhaps is in aleadership role who wants to start
(47:47):
the process of exploring thefour day working week, one thing
they can do this week thattakes less than five minutes.
I would say take time off,even if it's very little time. Because
again, it's that intentionalapproach to protecting time and working
with the time that you have.So whatever you think is feasible,
whether it's half an hour,whether it's half a day, depending,
(48:11):
but just take that time foryourself and think about what you'd
like to do with your time.
Thank you so much, Tatiana.How about you, Nadia? Do you have
something to share?
I was going to say somethingsimilar, but I think to sort of build
a little bit on what Tatianais saying is that, yeah, I mean,
start to just be a bit moremindful of how you work. If you want
(48:33):
to start having theconversations in your organization
or you might need to develop abusiness case, start thinking about
what you can change nowwithout the shorter working week
and become a bit of anadvocate for it before maybe mentioning
it.
If I can just add this veryquickly. But I think something that
you shared many times, Verena,that I'm also really convinced about,
(48:56):
maybe talk to a working parentand see how they organize our time.
Because people who haveconstraints outside of work find
ways of doing that. We seethat amongst part time workers, for
example, they're often muchmore intentional and efficient with
how they use their time. Sothat can be one way to do that as
well.
That's an excellent practicaltip and very on message, Tatiana.
Thank you. Tatiana. Where canpeople find out about autonomy and
(49:19):
about you? Where should they head?
To their website. So ourwebsite, sorry. So www.autonomy.work.
everything's on there.
Lovely, Nadia. If people wantto find out more about you, stalk
you online, stalk GlobalWitness, make a massive, very big
donation to Global Witness tochange the world and stop the climate
(49:39):
crisis. Where should they head?
Www.globalwitness.org and ifanyone has heard anything that I've
said today that they want tochat more about, they can Find me
on LinkedIn.
Lovely. Thank you so muchboth. It's been a pleasure to chat
you.
Oh, thank you, Verena, forinviting us.
Thank you so much.
(50:01):
I really appreciate youlistening. Thank you so much. And
I always love to hear from ourlisteners. If you want to connect
with me on LinkedIn, just goto Verena Hefti and I'd be delighted
to hear your feedback and yoursuggestions or just have you say
hi link. Likewise, if you dofeel passionately about gender equality
(50:21):
and you want to support afemale led podcast, then please do
leave a review and share itwith a friend. Just because at the
moment, podcasting is still avery, very male dominated environment.
Most of the top chartingpodcasts are led by men. I really
love all the people who'vejoined from the podcast our fellowship
(50:43):
program and if you want to dothe same then please head over to
leadersclass.org/Fellowship inorder to get access to a community
of support to help you combineambitious career with young children
together with people who haveyour back. See you next week.
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