October 31, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode of The Inside Learning Podcast, brought to you by the Learnovate Centre, we explore the concept of a four-day workweek with experts Joe O'Connor and Jared Lindzon. They discuss the historical roots of the five-day workweek, the productivity and well-being benefits of a shorter workweek, and how AI could reshape our approach to work. Learn how both individuals and organizations can adopt this innovative work model to improve productivity, foster a better work-life balance, and retain talent. Tune in to find out why a four-day workweek isn't just possible, but necessary in today's evolving work environment.
00:00 Introduction to the Inside Learning Podcast
00:15 The Case for a Four-Day Work Week
01:07 Meet the Authors: Joe O'Connor and Jared Lindzon
01:35 Questioning the Five-Day Work Week
03:41 Technological Advancements and Productivity Gains
05:22 The Role of AI in Modern Work
07:28 Historical Context of Work and Human Skills
10:09 Overcoming Resistance to Change
12:07 Benefits of a Four-Day Work Week
18:37 Advocating for a Four-Day Work Week
22:19 Implementing a Four-Day Work Week in Organizations
24:13 Individual Strategies for Efficiency
27:03 Conclusion and Where to Find More Information
🔗 Links Mentioned in This Episode
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Learnovate Centre: https://www.learnovatecentre.org
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Do More in Four (Book Website): https://www.domoreinfour.com
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Joe O’Connor – Work Time Revolution: https://www.worktimerevolution.com
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Jared Lindzon (Official Website): https://www.jaredlindzon.com
Inside Learning is brought to you by the Learnovate Centre at Trinity College Dublin, funded by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. Learnovate’s research explores the science of learning and the future of work.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The Inside Learning Podcast is broughtto you by the Learnovate Centre.
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Learnovate research explores the powerof learning to unlock human potential.
Find out more about learnovate researchon the science of learning and the
future of work@learnovateCentre.org.
The five day work week is a pillar ofmodern life, but it isn't backed by
science, ancient wisdom, or divine decree.
It's simply a relic of the industrialage and it's time for an upgrade.
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What if we could accomplishmore while working fewer days?
A shortened work week onceseemed like a radical idea.
Today it's embraced by innovativebusiness leaders, forward thinking
politicians, and a new generation ofworkers demanding more meaningful work.
In today's book.
Our guests are a pioneer of designingand leading four day workweek pilots
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around the globe, and a journalistwhose work has appeared in the New
York Times Fortune and Time Magazine
and they present a groundbreaking,data-driven exploration of why a four
day workweek is not merely possible.
It's necessary in an ageof artificial intelligence.
It is a pleasure to welcome beforeit's even launched, the authors of
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Do More in Four, it offers a battletested blueprint for a smarter,
more humane approach to work.
And we're joined by both authors.
Joe O'Connor and JaredLindzon, welcome to the show.
Pleasure to be here.
Thanks for having us.
Great to have you with us guys.
I have so many questions.
, But I thought first we'd startstraight out and put it out our stall.
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Why a four day work week?
Maybe we'll start first with you,Jared, and then come to you, Joe.
Why a four day work week?
Well, I think maybe the bestplace to begin is by actually
questioning why five days?
Why is that the waythat we've always done?
Done things and is that still the best wayto do things and folks often think that
there's a good reason behind the five daywork week that it was created with a lot
(01:59):
of thought and intention and it optimizedthe ideal amount of rest and work time.
But it's very arbitrary and wego into details in the book about
various labor rights movements thatended up leading to a five day work
week, not even all that long ago.
It only became law in the UnitedStates about 80, 80 years ago.
became standard a little bit before that.
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And so once we start questioning thewisdom of the five day work week,
it gives us permission to startconsidering whether or not that
still suits our modern realities.
And so the reality for mostorganizations, most workers is.
There's a lot of time spent atwork, but there's not a lot of
time spent at work doing stuff thatreally matters for the business'.
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Total output andoutcomes in the long run.
And when you start to pare down all ofthe noise, all of the extra stuff, all
the email writing and meeting attendance,and the stuff that takes up a lot of our
time, but doesn't really move the needle.
Once you get rid of that, you realizethat there is an opportunity to
reduce the work week without gettingrid of the work that really matters.
(03:04):
And if you wanna inspire people to dothe difficult work of assessing how
they spend their time, incorporatingnew technologies, new systems, new
processes, to really optimize every minutethey're on the clock, it takes a big
incentive to inspire that kind of effort.
And the four day work week isthe perfect combination of.
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Providing that shared incentive andrewarding people for doing the work and
sort of galvanizing force to ensurethat the time that we're spending at
work is really time well spent and it'snot wasted, and therefore it gives us
the freedom to do more in less time.
The big picture of why it's timefor a four day work week from a
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societal perspective for me isthe fact that we have had decades
now of incredible technologicaladvancements and productivity
gains, the types of advances that.
John Maynard Keynes when he predicted inthe 1920s that we'd all be working a 15
hour work week by the end of the century.
Richard Nixon went in themiddle of the fifties.
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He talked about how we were on thecusp of a four day work week that
would lead to a fuller and fairerfamily life for every American.
We've had the kinds ofprogress that we could.
Never even have imagined.
And yet the gains of that progress havenot necessarily been equitably shared
and distributed with the workforce.
And I think this has led to a lotof the challenges that we have in
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our current moment when we thinkabout division, economic inequality.
And so I think big picture we enterthe age of , intelligence, and
everything that brings, I think it'sabsolutely the right time to reevaluate,
our relationship with work and whatconstitutes the modern work week.
I think at an enterprise level, as Jaredtalked about, the nature of productivity
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has changed such that ours worked isactually not as direct A, a contributor
to modern productivity as the motivationof the workforce, the energy and
attention and focus of the workforce, thewellbeing and recovery of the workforce.
And so all of these dimensions thatare really critical to sustaining high
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performance in modern work can allbe leveraged and optimized through
something like a four day work week.
I wanted to build particularly onthe artificial intelligence thing,
because many people will see that as areplacement, but in a way, what you guys
talk about is in an augmentation andactually doing away with some of , those
meaningless tasks, meetings, anybody, Ithink the unnecessary meeting aspect
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of work is one of the biggest killers ofboth productivity and morale in companies.
But I'd love to hear from you whatyou think AI will bring to the table.
, Why will that reshufflehow we actually work?
Most of the stories that we talkabout in the book of how organizations
have transitioned to a shorterwork week are all about how they
found ways to do more in less time.
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And often technology was a big part ofthat story, automating certain tasks,
streamlining administrative processes.
But if we look at what's coming downthe road in terms of agent AI and
digital labor and the workforce.
That's gonna do much more than that.
And it's not gonna be just about doingmore in less time, but it actually
can create the conditions for thehuman workforce to fo focus on doing
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fewer things and doing them better.
I think AI is gonna change ourrelationship to productivity in that
a lot of the things that we currentlyassociate with efficiency, so.
Task speed, task volume, process speed.
These are the types of things thatincreasingly are gonna be outsourced
to machines, and what that's gonnamean is it's gonna shift human value
creation over to the effectivenesscomponents of productivity.
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So creativity, making goodjudgments and decisions, connecting
and building relationships.
All of these are the types of very humanskills and human traits that actually rely
much more on all of those things we talkedabout motivation, wellbeing, and energy.
And so I think that those organizationsthat are looking at AI as purely
cost cutting, , short term squeezingone to 2% more efficiency out of
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the workforce, are really comingat this in a very shortsighted way.
And that's where I think there, thereis this clear relationship between,
artificial intelligence and theprospect of a four day work week.
Jared, did you want to come in?
Lemme throw something at you asthe storyteller of the bunch.
I like to anchor everything inhistorical context and what Joe was
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talking about this transition to inthe skills that people need to.
Thrive in this workforce.
We talk about in the book, historicallybefore the Industrial Revolution the
skills that we needed to survive andthrive were very much, you know, human
skills, like persistence, creativity thestuff that we would characterize as
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soft skills, being able to communicate,collaborate and the way in which we
worked was probably something we'dlabel as, as a little bit more human.
And anyone who knows much about theindustrial Revolution knows that it
was a race towards hyper productivity.
That we were essentially, labor wasturned into a very calculable thing.
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Humans were turned into robots in away, and we lost much of the humanity
and the skills required to thrive.
, pre-industrial versus industrialwere completely different.
And in the industrial age it wasn't about.
Your, our most human traits wasabout our most robotic traits.
Efficiency, productivity,punctuality, obedience, loyalty.
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These were prized in an industrialworld, and keep in mind that
many of our rules and structuresare adopted from the industrial
era, but we're now thanks to ai.
Reentering a world past the industrialera where once again, our most valued
traits are those that are our most human.
And so we've built this structureof work to emphasize and
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maximize our most robotic traits.
But the past of work and the future ofwork are aligned in that our ability
to be effective workers are gonnadepend on our most human traits.
And that means rest time andrecovery actually have net output
gains when it comes to doing thosequintessentially human things.
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And so as AI transitions the valuethat individual workers bring from our
most robotic traits to our most humantraits, I think there is an opportunity
to create structures that are moreconducive to improving those most human
traits, which again, come back to rest.
And coming to work as our best selves.
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I often think about that, that you see inorganizations, usually the tech companies.
You'll see sleep pods or you'llsee a gym, but what you don't
see is people using them.
And I think about this, like, imagineyou walked in to your CEO's office, your
boss's office, and they're having a nap.
The first thing you're gonnathink, well, it's well for you,
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but actually they should be.
To your very point, they should be doingthat to get the best outta their mind.
But because of that stigma that comes withit, we don't do those things all the time.
I'm sure you've seen a lot ofresistance to those things.
Joe, I know you work in the field,bringing that to life inside
organizations, resistance to both thefour day workweek resistance to the
future of work, but also resistance to ai.
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I think what you're talking aboutis this kind of cultural hardwiring.
That we've had within organizationsthat conflate activity and presence
and availability with performanceand dedication and commitment.
And we talk in the book in a fewplaces about this challenge where,
for example, some research from Harvardthis year talks about the existence
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of what they call the detachmentparadox, where managers believe that.
When people disconnect from work anddetach from work and take time away from
work, that's good for their performance.
But yet, on the other hand, when people dothat, these managers punish them when it
comes to job evaluations and promotions.
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And that's not because these managersare inherently bad people, and
it's not because they're trying tosabotage the performance of their
company, but it's because of this.
Cultural and mindset, hard wiring that,that exists in these organizations.
And so because that's so deeplyingrained, it takes a really big
lever and a really big shift.
To try and overcome that, and that'swhat the Four Day Workweek represents.
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It is not just, magically andautomatically improving productivity
by virtue of reducing time at work.
It's about using this as a forcingfunction and as an incentive to redesign
work practices and processes, adopt newtechnologies, and really to bring the
workforce with you in that endeavor.
That point about making work morehuman and as a result more enjoyable
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is really important thing thatyou talk about in book because.
High quality talent inside organizationsis actually quite a scarce thing.
And when you have it all alignedand you have people engaged and
working with their full discretionaryeffort, you just get way more done.
And I'd love you to share thisabout the, some of the benefits
of the four day workweek.
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Not only that will happen in the future,but what you've seen from clients
and what you've seen historically.
So I think the benefits of a shorterwork week can be categorized almost.
Under three main headings.
The first is organizations who are usingthis as a catalyst for productivity
and for technological adoption.
So, organizations that wereotherwise struggling to transform
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that were struggling to to reallymobilize the workforce around
addressing some of these issues.
Using the four day work weekas a shared reward, as an
incentive to achieve those goals.
The second is around, wellbeing andreally seeing the four day work week
as a strategic tool to provide peoplewith, greater risk, greater recovery,
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and to overcome issues with burnout.
And we know, if you take theWHO definition of burnout.
What it really means is people whofeel cynical towards their work,
who feel a lack of confidencein their own performance.
And so therefore that's somethingthat isn't just an individual wellness
problem, that is very much a corporateproductivity problem in its own right.
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And then the third one, and probablythe biggest thing that has really
driven the increase of adoption ofthis over the last number of years,
and it relates to the tight labormarket that you were talking about.
talent attraction and retention.
And so it's organizations who seethe opportunity in a world where,
according to Ranstad, for the firsttime in the 25 years that they have
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been studying the global workforce.
This year was the first yearthat work-life balance was
more important than pay.
we've seen that across anumber of different studies
that we cover in the book.
And so in recognizing that organizationshave seen the opportunity to
actually use the four day work weekas a competitive differentiator.
To really develop this very uniquevalue proposition particularly
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for firms who maybe can't competein the top quartile of salary.
And we tell some stories of organizationsin the book who, change the rules of
the game because they couldn't playthe game under, we're trying to hire
product developers and engineers, butwe're competing with Meta and Google.
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And doing something like a four daywork week is a creative alternative
way to actually attract andretain that top caliber of talent.
But it's important to say that youdon't recommend it as a perk.
It's more of a new model ofactually working as well.
Jared you write thehistorical part of this.
You've been writing about thefuture of work for over a decade.
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Maybe from your perspective,what have you seen, the shifts
you've seen to Joe's point about.
It's not these big companies, actuallyit's other companies that can use
it as a competitive differentiatorto get that talent on board.
Yeah, absolutely.
And as Joe mentioned we talked toa few for this book that said that,
previously they would offer remotework before any of the large tech
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companies that they're competing with.
We're offering remote work.
And that was how they attractedtalent away from folks who they
can never compete with on salary.
That's just a non-starter for them.
And then all of a sudden remotework became somewhat standardized.
There's been a pullback lately,but that was no longer a
competitive differentiator.
And so they began to explore thefour day work week as the next
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big thing that they could offerthat their competitors weren't.
And what I've seen over thecourse of my career is that.
For a long time we were talking abouta pretty small group of companies
that were competing with each otherfor the same talent and trying to
outdo one another for those talent.
Now, the world we exist in today isthat tech talent is needed in just
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about every corner of the economy.
And so you've got companies well outsideof Silicon Valley in industries that
would've never had to consider, globalcompetitive salaries before that are
trying to attract and retain the sametalent that Google and Meta are despite
being in completely different sectors.
And so that globalization andexpansion of the competition in
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the talent marketplace is requiringfolks that can't compete on salary,
which is the vast majority of.
Those competing with SiliconValley to find other ways to
compete more effectively.
And so that's one of the advantages.
we also find a huge amount of interestand uptake in industries and in roles
that are, particularly prone to burnout.
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One of the companies that we profilein the book is a family law firm.
And the legal industry, and particularlythe family law side of the legal
industry, faces some of the highestburnout rates and has some of
the most demanding work cultures.
And when you combine the two,medicine's another good example.
There are industries that.
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willing to do anything to attractand retain talent except give them
a little bit more of a reasonablelifestyle and something that the
conversation once you've shiftthe conversation from short-term
productivity to long-term sustainability.
The four day work week becomes aninvestment, paying a little bit of
time now to keep this person in theworkforce and productive for longer.
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And we're talking about scarce talentin fields like technology, but also in,
in fields as far as medicine and law.
The opportunity to reduce burnoutand attrition and absenteeism
alone pays for any potential timeloss, which again, we can make up
for by improving our processes.
(17:30):
And then the last one that I'llmention is also, Joe touched on this
as well, I just wanna bring it up.
That study after study is showing thatthe average worker is afraid of ai.
They are not just failing to embraceit wholeheartedly with open arms.
They're actively sabotagingthe organizations.
Strategies for adopting AI becausethere is genuine fear about what it
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means, the implications for theirjob whether or not it'll exist,
what the responsibilities will be.
And this fear of ai a lot ofindividuals are seeing it as
an adversary, not as a partner.
And in order to shift thatconversation, it takes.
Organization sharing in the rewardsthat AI promises, either through
(18:17):
compensation or through the time thatthey're gonna get back that is a
powerful opportunity to change theconversation and to change the perspective
from AI resistance to embracingai, which could be the competitive
differentiator for organizations of allshapes and sizes in the coming years.
In the book you talk about.
An organization or an individualadvocating for work for a four day work
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week and how they can do that without,I mean, let's be honest, PE-people,
assuming they're trying to be lazy andget an extra day off, but many people will
actually see the huge benefits of this.
And see, actually I'm way more effectiveif I actually do a four day work week.
So I'd love you to share that forpeople who are of that mind, they
wanna bring it to the organizationand then we'll move on to how to
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integrate it into an organization.
The first thing that I alwaysrecommend is, you know how
you start this conversation.
And I think as an individual employee,you need to start this conversation from
the perspective of viewing this as, , nota concession, not just a giveaway or a
perk as you described earlier, but asa partnership with the organization to
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actually achieve, whether it's, , theorganization is struggling with.
Retention or there's certainproductivity challenges or
technological adoption challenges.
Really framing this in the context thatyou know, your leadership care about.
And being prepared to embracethe conditionality of this.
That this is something that,needs to work both for you as a
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worker, but also for the business.
And therefore the fact that.
If you're running a pilot or ifyou're trying this out, that needs
to be explicitly linked to, businessmetrics and what success looks like
from the organization's perspective.
What's gonna make thissustainable for the organization?
I think, doing your preparation andbeing prepared to have the conversation
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on those terms will immediately openup a dialogue that feels much less
adversarial and feels much more like, thisis something that can be a win-win vote
for the business and for the workforce.
This is very easily dismissed as, tryingto get more time off and management
might not be totally open to that,but when you frame it as a shared
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opportunity to achieve business objectivesmore effectively than you can open that
dialogue a little bit more effectively.
We offer case studies and wehope that they are helpful
for organizations to find.
Others that look like them and looklike the problems that they're trying
to solve and offer some specificexamples and a lot of data to show
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how those challenges that the businessis facing can be helped through the
adoption of a four day work week.
We also strongly recommend not going forthe whole big enchilada right off the bat.
If you say, Hey, move the wholecompany to a, four day schedule and
we'll figure out how to make it work.
It's a non-starter if you say, maybein a few months from now, we can
(21:13):
experiment with a half day Friday fora small corner of the organization.
And if they meet certain metricsover a month long or two month
long trial, we expand it outto more units of the business.
And once we've got a four and ahalf day workweek moving smoothly,
we can investigate whether there'sopportunities to further time
without compromising outcomes.
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So.
Starting small approaching theconversation with your employer's
organization's perspective in mind andreally identifying the challenges that
they're trying to solve and framingthis as a solution to those challenges.
And using some of the examples that weprovided to show how it is an effective.
Solution for a lot of thosemain challenges we discussed.
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Namely you know, AI and technologicaladoption and productivity
addressing burnout and absenteeismand recruitment and retention.
If your organization's strugglingwith those, which most organizations
are framing it as a solutionthat's been proven more effective
than the other solution, is theway to start this conversation.
And again, start small and, goin with their perspective in mind.
(22:19):
Let's move then to the organization.
So the organization, Adoption.
Of this, and then maybe we'llfinish with you as an individual
and how you can integrate it foryourself so you're actually being
the most effective you could be.
So I think one of the critical thingsto recognize from an organizational
standpoint is that this is not justpurely a personal productivity initiative.
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This is something that absolutelycan connect as an incentive to drive
individuals to adopt new productivitypractices, new tools create more focus
and less distraction in the workday.
However, at its heart, this is verymuch a collective endeavor, and I
think if you compare the differencebetween a four day work week.
Pilot or implementation effort within anorganization to giving people an annual
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pay rise or offering people more personalflexibility or access to remote options.
Those are things that are very muchthey're framed at the individual level.
Whereas I think when a four day work weekworks particularly well is when there's
this collective effort, both within teamsand within the organization as a whole.
To address things like, how we meet, howwe collaborate, how we make decisions.
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These are all things that no oneindividual on their own can solve.
But with this kind of sharedreward of a four day work week, it
offers the opportunity to actuallythink differently about how the
business operates as a whole.
So I think approaching this collectively.
Attacking that low hanging fruitthat we know exists in terms of
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meeting bloat, distraction inthe workday, outdated processes.
And really using this as a frame bywhich people collectively go about
solving some of those problems.
We've talked about personal advocacy,we've talked about the organization,
but then your organization doesnot want to do it and you can't
hide from that organization,but you are a believer in this.
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What can you do?
It's extremely helpful whenthis is a shared effort.
It becomes so much easier tofind efficiencies to improve.
Processes when the organizationis really invested in this idea.
However, there's a lot of stuff that asstrategies and advice that we offer for
the individual who's just looking to findmore hours in their day, and this might be
(24:36):
for the folks who are hopeful that a fourday work week might be in their future.
might be for folks that are working afew too many Saturdays and a few too
many evenings and are trying to get backto a more manageable grasp on work.
And it starts with auditing how theyspend their time at work and really
being honest with themselves andmaybe even putting some pen to paper
(24:57):
and tracking how that time is spent.
Looking for rooms for efficiency.
We talk about the importanceof having a very clear.
To-do list and a clear priority list, andgiving each hour of the day a mission.
So starting the day with an understandingof what is absolutely critical, what
success will be for me today, andthen working within that framework
(25:19):
to really ensure that the top.
Priorities are addressed first becauseoften, you know, we start our day
with an hour of emailing and thenhave a two hour meeting, and then
it's, you know, lunchtime before we'veactually done any of the meaningful
work that is really gonna upthat time that we're looking for.
We also talk about some.
(25:40):
Seemingly obvious opportunitiesto increase productivity that
maybe are worthy of a reminder.
For example, finding waysto minimize distractions.
making peace withimperfection is a big one.
I think too often folks get hungup on trying to make things a
hundred percent when 80% will do.
As we describe in the book givinggold level effort to bronze level
(26:04):
priorities there, there's a lot of.
Things that happen within theday that aren't as necessary.
And all of those little additions to ourschedule end up taking big bites out of
time that could be better spent elsewhere,either professionally or personally.
And then finally, there's a lot ofscience and research about how to make.
The most out of your day basedon when our brains are at
(26:27):
their best for certain tasks.
Our circadian rhythms really dictate whenis the best time of the day to do certain
things, when we're gonna be most creative,most analytical, and figuring out, doing
a little bit of work on the forefrontto understand how your brain works best,
what those fluctuations are, and tryingto optimize your schedule accordingly to
(26:47):
the best that you can do as an individual.
Are just some of the ways in which youcan really get more out of the hours you
work and hopefully find some of theseefficiencies useful in getting your time
back, even if your organization hasn'tagreed to move to a four day work week.
It's a brilliant book and it's outon January 13th, 2026 in the uk.
(27:10):
I don't know whether that's the casein the US but certainly in the uk.
Guys, for people who wanna find you,where's the best place to find you?
I know Jared, you write for a lotof top organizations, but where can
people find out you to reach out?
And Joe then will come to you as well.
The best place to find bothof us is domoreinfour.com.
(27:31):
We got a website for the bookwhere you can find more information
and reach out to us individually.
I also have my website,jaredLindzon.com where I post all of my.
Research and articles about the four daywork week and all things future of work.
And Joe, where's the bestplace for people to find you?
Our website.
I run a future of work.
(27:52):
Consulting advising and researchfirm called Worktime Revolution.
You can find us onworktime revolution.com.
You can also find me and WorktimeRevolution on LinkedIn, and I have a
substack that people can subscribe to.
And I will link to all thosedifferent locations as well.
Authors of do more.
in four, why it's timefor a shorter work week.
Joe O'Connor and Jared Lindzon,thank you for joining us.
(28:15):
Thank you for having us.
for having us.
Thanks.
Thanks for joining us on Inside Learning.
Inside Learning is brought to you by theLearnovate Centre in Trinity College.
Dublin Learnovate is funded byEnterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.
Visit learnovate Centre.org to find outmore about our research on the science
of learning and the future of work.
The Inside Learning Podcast is broughtto you by the Learnovate Centre.
(00:04):
Learnovate research explores the powerof learning to unlock human potential.
Find out more about learnovate researchon the science of learning and the
future of work@learnovateCentre.org.
The five day work week is a pillar ofmodern life, but it isn't backed by
science, ancient wisdom, or divine decree.
It's simply a relic of the industrialage and it's time for an upgrade.
(00:27):
What if we could accomplishmore while working fewer days?
A shortened work week onceseemed like a radical idea.
Today it's embraced by innovativebusiness leaders, forward thinking
politicians, and a new generation ofworkers demanding more meaningful work.
In today's book.
Our guests are a pioneer of designingand leading four day workweek pilots
(00:50):
around the globe, and a journalistwhose work has appeared in the New
York Times Fortune and Time Magazine
and they present a groundbreaking,data-driven exploration of why a four
day workweek is not merely possible.
It's necessary in an ageof artificial intelligence.
It is a pleasure to welcome beforeit's even launched, the authors of
(01:12):
Do More in Four, it offers a battletested blueprint for a smarter,
more humane approach to work.
And we're joined by both authors.
Joe O'Connor and JaredLindzon, welcome to the show.
Pleasure to be here.
Thanks for having us.
Great to have you with us guys.
I have so many questions.
, But I thought first we'd startstraight out and put it out our stall.
(01:35):
Why a four day work week?
Maybe we'll start first with you,Jared, and then come to you, Joe.
Why a four day work week?
Well, I think maybe the bestplace to begin is by actually
questioning why five days?
Why is that the waythat we've always done?
Done things and is that still the best wayto do things and folks often think that
there's a good reason behind the five daywork week that it was created with a lot
(01:59):
of thought and intention and it optimizedthe ideal amount of rest and work time.
But it's very arbitrary and wego into details in the book about
various labor rights movements thatended up leading to a five day work
week, not even all that long ago.
It only became law in the UnitedStates about 80, 80 years ago.
became standard a little bit before that.
(02:21):
And so once we start questioning thewisdom of the five day work week,
it gives us permission to startconsidering whether or not that
still suits our modern realities.
And so the reality for mostorganizations, most workers is.
There's a lot of time spent atwork, but there's not a lot of
time spent at work doing stuff thatreally matters for the business'.
(02:42):
Total output andoutcomes in the long run.
And when you start to pare down all ofthe noise, all of the extra stuff, all
the email writing and meeting attendance,and the stuff that takes up a lot of our
time, but doesn't really move the needle.
Once you get rid of that, you realizethat there is an opportunity to
reduce the work week without gettingrid of the work that really matters.
(03:04):
And if you wanna inspire people to dothe difficult work of assessing how
they spend their time, incorporatingnew technologies, new systems, new
processes, to really optimize every minutethey're on the clock, it takes a big
incentive to inspire that kind of effort.
And the four day work week isthe perfect combination of.
(03:24):
Providing that shared incentive andrewarding people for doing the work and
sort of galvanizing force to ensurethat the time that we're spending at
work is really time well spent and it'snot wasted, and therefore it gives us
the freedom to do more in less time.
The big picture of why it's timefor a four day work week from a
(03:45):
societal perspective for me isthe fact that we have had decades
now of incredible technologicaladvancements and productivity
gains, the types of advances that.
John Maynard Keynes when he predicted inthe 1920s that we'd all be working a 15
hour work week by the end of the century.
Richard Nixon went in themiddle of the fifties.
(04:06):
He talked about how we were on thecusp of a four day work week that
would lead to a fuller and fairerfamily life for every American.
We've had the kinds ofprogress that we could.
Never even have imagined.
And yet the gains of that progress havenot necessarily been equitably shared
and distributed with the workforce.
And I think this has led to a lotof the challenges that we have in
(04:28):
our current moment when we thinkabout division, economic inequality.
And so I think big picture we enterthe age of , intelligence, and
everything that brings, I think it'sabsolutely the right time to reevaluate,
our relationship with work and whatconstitutes the modern work week.
I think at an enterprise level, as Jaredtalked about, the nature of productivity
(04:53):
has changed such that ours worked isactually not as direct A, a contributor
to modern productivity as the motivationof the workforce, the energy and
attention and focus of the workforce, thewellbeing and recovery of the workforce.
And so all of these dimensions thatare really critical to sustaining high
(05:15):
performance in modern work can allbe leveraged and optimized through
something like a four day work week.
I wanted to build particularly onthe artificial intelligence thing,
because many people will see that as areplacement, but in a way, what you guys
talk about is in an augmentation andactually doing away with some of , those
meaningless tasks, meetings, anybody, Ithink the unnecessary meeting aspect
(05:39):
of work is one of the biggest killers ofboth productivity and morale in companies.
But I'd love to hear from you whatyou think AI will bring to the table.
, Why will that reshufflehow we actually work?
Most of the stories that we talkabout in the book of how organizations
have transitioned to a shorterwork week are all about how they
found ways to do more in less time.
(06:01):
And often technology was a big part ofthat story, automating certain tasks,
streamlining administrative processes.
But if we look at what's coming downthe road in terms of agent AI and
digital labor and the workforce.
That's gonna do much more than that.
And it's not gonna be just about doingmore in less time, but it actually
can create the conditions for thehuman workforce to fo focus on doing
(06:22):
fewer things and doing them better.
I think AI is gonna change ourrelationship to productivity in that
a lot of the things that we currentlyassociate with efficiency, so.
Task speed, task volume, process speed.
These are the types of things thatincreasingly are gonna be outsourced
to machines, and what that's gonnamean is it's gonna shift human value
creation over to the effectivenesscomponents of productivity.
(06:46):
So creativity, making goodjudgments and decisions, connecting
and building relationships.
All of these are the types of very humanskills and human traits that actually rely
much more on all of those things we talkedabout motivation, wellbeing, and energy.
And so I think that those organizationsthat are looking at AI as purely
cost cutting, , short term squeezingone to 2% more efficiency out of
(07:10):
the workforce, are really comingat this in a very shortsighted way.
And that's where I think there, thereis this clear relationship between,
artificial intelligence and theprospect of a four day work week.
Jared, did you want to come in?
Lemme throw something at you asthe storyteller of the bunch.
I like to anchor everything inhistorical context and what Joe was
(07:31):
talking about this transition to inthe skills that people need to.
Thrive in this workforce.
We talk about in the book, historicallybefore the Industrial Revolution the
skills that we needed to survive andthrive were very much, you know, human
skills, like persistence, creativity thestuff that we would characterize as
(07:53):
soft skills, being able to communicate,collaborate and the way in which we
worked was probably something we'dlabel as, as a little bit more human.
And anyone who knows much about theindustrial Revolution knows that it
was a race towards hyper productivity.
That we were essentially, labor wasturned into a very calculable thing.
(08:13):
Humans were turned into robots in away, and we lost much of the humanity
and the skills required to thrive.
, pre-industrial versus industrialwere completely different.
And in the industrial age it wasn't about.
Your, our most human traits wasabout our most robotic traits.
Efficiency, productivity,punctuality, obedience, loyalty.
(08:34):
These were prized in an industrialworld, and keep in mind that
many of our rules and structuresare adopted from the industrial
era, but we're now thanks to ai.
Reentering a world past the industrialera where once again, our most valued
traits are those that are our most human.
And so we've built this structureof work to emphasize and
(08:55):
maximize our most robotic traits.
But the past of work and the future ofwork are aligned in that our ability
to be effective workers are gonnadepend on our most human traits.
And that means rest time andrecovery actually have net output
gains when it comes to doing thosequintessentially human things.
(09:16):
And so as AI transitions the valuethat individual workers bring from our
most robotic traits to our most humantraits, I think there is an opportunity
to create structures that are moreconducive to improving those most human
traits, which again, come back to rest.
And coming to work as our best selves.
(09:36):
I often think about that, that you see inorganizations, usually the tech companies.
You'll see sleep pods or you'llsee a gym, but what you don't
see is people using them.
And I think about this, like, imagineyou walked in to your CEO's office, your
boss's office, and they're having a nap.
The first thing you're gonnathink, well, it's well for you,
(09:57):
but actually they should be.
To your very point, they should be doingthat to get the best outta their mind.
But because of that stigma that comes withit, we don't do those things all the time.
I'm sure you've seen a lot ofresistance to those things.
Joe, I know you work in the field,bringing that to life inside
organizations, resistance to both thefour day workweek resistance to the
future of work, but also resistance to ai.
(10:18):
I think what you're talking aboutis this kind of cultural hardwiring.
That we've had within organizationsthat conflate activity and presence
and availability with performanceand dedication and commitment.
And we talk in the book in a fewplaces about this challenge where,
for example, some research from Harvardthis year talks about the existence
(10:38):
of what they call the detachmentparadox, where managers believe that.
When people disconnect from work anddetach from work and take time away from
work, that's good for their performance.
But yet, on the other hand, when people dothat, these managers punish them when it
comes to job evaluations and promotions.
(11:00):
And that's not because these managersare inherently bad people, and
it's not because they're trying tosabotage the performance of their
company, but it's because of this.
Cultural and mindset, hard wiring that,that exists in these organizations.
And so because that's so deeplyingrained, it takes a really big
lever and a really big shift.
To try and overcome that, and that'swhat the Four Day Workweek represents.
(11:22):
It is not just, magically andautomatically improving productivity
by virtue of reducing time at work.
It's about using this as a forcingfunction and as an incentive to redesign
work practices and processes, adopt newtechnologies, and really to bring the
workforce with you in that endeavor.
That point about making work morehuman and as a result more enjoyable
(11:46):
is really important thing thatyou talk about in book because.
High quality talent inside organizationsis actually quite a scarce thing.
And when you have it all alignedand you have people engaged and
working with their full discretionaryeffort, you just get way more done.
And I'd love you to share thisabout the, some of the benefits
of the four day workweek.
(12:07):
Not only that will happen in the future,but what you've seen from clients
and what you've seen historically.
So I think the benefits of a shorterwork week can be categorized almost.
Under three main headings.
The first is organizations who are usingthis as a catalyst for productivity
and for technological adoption.
So, organizations that wereotherwise struggling to transform
(12:30):
that were struggling to to reallymobilize the workforce around
addressing some of these issues.
Using the four day work weekas a shared reward, as an
incentive to achieve those goals.
The second is around, wellbeing andreally seeing the four day work week
as a strategic tool to provide peoplewith, greater risk, greater recovery,
(12:51):
and to overcome issues with burnout.
And we know, if you take theWHO definition of burnout.
What it really means is people whofeel cynical towards their work,
who feel a lack of confidencein their own performance.
And so therefore that's somethingthat isn't just an individual wellness
problem, that is very much a corporateproductivity problem in its own right.
(13:12):
And then the third one, and probablythe biggest thing that has really
driven the increase of adoption ofthis over the last number of years,
and it relates to the tight labormarket that you were talking about.
talent attraction and retention.
And so it's organizations who seethe opportunity in a world where,
according to Ranstad, for the firsttime in the 25 years that they have
(13:33):
been studying the global workforce.
This year was the first yearthat work-life balance was
more important than pay.
we've seen that across anumber of different studies
that we cover in the book.
And so in recognizing that organizationshave seen the opportunity to
actually use the four day work weekas a competitive differentiator.
To really develop this very uniquevalue proposition particularly
(13:57):
for firms who maybe can't competein the top quartile of salary.
And we tell some stories of organizationsin the book who, change the rules of
the game because they couldn't playthe game under, we're trying to hire
product developers and engineers, butwe're competing with Meta and Google.
(14:17):
And doing something like a four daywork week is a creative alternative
way to actually attract andretain that top caliber of talent.
But it's important to say that youdon't recommend it as a perk.
It's more of a new model ofactually working as well.
Jared you write thehistorical part of this.
You've been writing about thefuture of work for over a decade.
(14:38):
Maybe from your perspective,what have you seen, the shifts
you've seen to Joe's point about.
It's not these big companies, actuallyit's other companies that can use
it as a competitive differentiatorto get that talent on board.
Yeah, absolutely.
And as Joe mentioned we talked toa few for this book that said that,
previously they would offer remotework before any of the large tech
(14:59):
companies that they're competing with.
We're offering remote work.
And that was how they attractedtalent away from folks who they
can never compete with on salary.
That's just a non-starter for them.
And then all of a sudden remotework became somewhat standardized.
There's been a pullback lately,but that was no longer a
competitive differentiator.
And so they began to explore thefour day work week as the next
(15:20):
big thing that they could offerthat their competitors weren't.
And what I've seen over thecourse of my career is that.
For a long time we were talking abouta pretty small group of companies
that were competing with each otherfor the same talent and trying to
outdo one another for those talent.
Now, the world we exist in today isthat tech talent is needed in just
(15:40):
about every corner of the economy.
And so you've got companies well outsideof Silicon Valley in industries that
would've never had to consider, globalcompetitive salaries before that are
trying to attract and retain the sametalent that Google and Meta are despite
being in completely different sectors.
And so that globalization andexpansion of the competition in
(16:03):
the talent marketplace is requiringfolks that can't compete on salary,
which is the vast majority of.
Those competing with SiliconValley to find other ways to
compete more effectively.
And so that's one of the advantages.
we also find a huge amount of interestand uptake in industries and in roles
that are, particularly prone to burnout.
(16:25):
One of the companies that we profilein the book is a family law firm.
And the legal industry, and particularlythe family law side of the legal
industry, faces some of the highestburnout rates and has some of
the most demanding work cultures.
And when you combine the two,medicine's another good example.
There are industries that.
(16:46):
willing to do anything to attractand retain talent except give them
a little bit more of a reasonablelifestyle and something that the
conversation once you've shiftthe conversation from short-term
productivity to long-term sustainability.
The four day work week becomes aninvestment, paying a little bit of
time now to keep this person in theworkforce and productive for longer.
(17:08):
And we're talking about scarce talentin fields like technology, but also in,
in fields as far as medicine and law.
The opportunity to reduce burnoutand attrition and absenteeism
alone pays for any potential timeloss, which again, we can make up
for by improving our processes.
(17:30):
And then the last one that I'llmention is also, Joe touched on this
as well, I just wanna bring it up.
That study after study is showing thatthe average worker is afraid of ai.
They are not just failing to embraceit wholeheartedly with open arms.
They're actively sabotagingthe organizations.
Strategies for adopting AI becausethere is genuine fear about what it
(17:54):
means, the implications for theirjob whether or not it'll exist,
what the responsibilities will be.
And this fear of ai a lot ofindividuals are seeing it as
an adversary, not as a partner.
And in order to shift thatconversation, it takes.
Organization sharing in the rewardsthat AI promises, either through
(18:17):
compensation or through the time thatthey're gonna get back that is a
powerful opportunity to change theconversation and to change the perspective
from AI resistance to embracingai, which could be the competitive
differentiator for organizations of allshapes and sizes in the coming years.
In the book you talk about.
An organization or an individualadvocating for work for a four day work
(18:42):
week and how they can do that without,I mean, let's be honest, PE-people,
assuming they're trying to be lazy andget an extra day off, but many people will
actually see the huge benefits of this.
And see, actually I'm way more effectiveif I actually do a four day work week.
So I'd love you to share that forpeople who are of that mind, they
wanna bring it to the organizationand then we'll move on to how to
(19:04):
integrate it into an organization.
The first thing that I alwaysrecommend is, you know how
you start this conversation.
And I think as an individual employee,you need to start this conversation from
the perspective of viewing this as, , nota concession, not just a giveaway or a
perk as you described earlier, but asa partnership with the organization to
(19:25):
actually achieve, whether it's, , theorganization is struggling with.
Retention or there's certainproductivity challenges or
technological adoption challenges.
Really framing this in the context thatyou know, your leadership care about.
And being prepared to embracethe conditionality of this.
That this is something that,needs to work both for you as a
(19:46):
worker, but also for the business.
And therefore the fact that.
If you're running a pilot or ifyou're trying this out, that needs
to be explicitly linked to, businessmetrics and what success looks like
from the organization's perspective.
What's gonna make thissustainable for the organization?
I think, doing your preparation andbeing prepared to have the conversation
(20:08):
on those terms will immediately openup a dialogue that feels much less
adversarial and feels much more like, thisis something that can be a win-win vote
for the business and for the workforce.
This is very easily dismissed as, tryingto get more time off and management
might not be totally open to that,but when you frame it as a shared
(20:30):
opportunity to achieve business objectivesmore effectively than you can open that
dialogue a little bit more effectively.
We offer case studies and wehope that they are helpful
for organizations to find.
Others that look like them and looklike the problems that they're trying
to solve and offer some specificexamples and a lot of data to show
(20:51):
how those challenges that the businessis facing can be helped through the
adoption of a four day work week.
We also strongly recommend not going forthe whole big enchilada right off the bat.
If you say, Hey, move the wholecompany to a, four day schedule and
we'll figure out how to make it work.
It's a non-starter if you say, maybein a few months from now, we can
(21:13):
experiment with a half day Friday fora small corner of the organization.
And if they meet certain metricsover a month long or two month
long trial, we expand it outto more units of the business.
And once we've got a four and ahalf day workweek moving smoothly,
we can investigate whether there'sopportunities to further time
without compromising outcomes.
(21:33):
So.
Starting small approaching theconversation with your employer's
organization's perspective in mind andreally identifying the challenges that
they're trying to solve and framingthis as a solution to those challenges.
And using some of the examples that weprovided to show how it is an effective.
Solution for a lot of thosemain challenges we discussed.
(21:56):
Namely you know, AI and technologicaladoption and productivity
addressing burnout and absenteeismand recruitment and retention.
If your organization's strugglingwith those, which most organizations
are framing it as a solutionthat's been proven more effective
than the other solution, is theway to start this conversation.
And again, start small and, goin with their perspective in mind.
(22:19):
Let's move then to the organization.
So the organization, Adoption.
Of this, and then maybe we'llfinish with you as an individual
and how you can integrate it foryourself so you're actually being
the most effective you could be.
So I think one of the critical thingsto recognize from an organizational
standpoint is that this is not justpurely a personal productivity initiative.
(22:41):
This is something that absolutelycan connect as an incentive to drive
individuals to adopt new productivitypractices, new tools create more focus
and less distraction in the workday.
However, at its heart, this is verymuch a collective endeavor, and I
think if you compare the differencebetween a four day work week.
Pilot or implementation effort within anorganization to giving people an annual
(23:06):
pay rise or offering people more personalflexibility or access to remote options.
Those are things that are very muchthey're framed at the individual level.
Whereas I think when a four day work weekworks particularly well is when there's
this collective effort, both within teamsand within the organization as a whole.
To address things like, how we meet, howwe collaborate, how we make decisions.
(23:29):
These are all things that no oneindividual on their own can solve.
But with this kind of sharedreward of a four day work week, it
offers the opportunity to actuallythink differently about how the
business operates as a whole.
So I think approaching this collectively.
Attacking that low hanging fruitthat we know exists in terms of
(23:50):
meeting bloat, distraction inthe workday, outdated processes.
And really using this as a frame bywhich people collectively go about
solving some of those problems.
We've talked about personal advocacy,we've talked about the organization,
but then your organization doesnot want to do it and you can't
hide from that organization,but you are a believer in this.
(24:13):
What can you do?
It's extremely helpful whenthis is a shared effort.
It becomes so much easier tofind efficiencies to improve.
Processes when the organizationis really invested in this idea.
However, there's a lot of stuff that asstrategies and advice that we offer for
the individual who's just looking to findmore hours in their day, and this might be
(24:36):
for the folks who are hopeful that a fourday work week might be in their future.
might be for folks that are working afew too many Saturdays and a few too
many evenings and are trying to get backto a more manageable grasp on work.
And it starts with auditing how theyspend their time at work and really
being honest with themselves andmaybe even putting some pen to paper
(24:57):
and tracking how that time is spent.
Looking for rooms for efficiency.
We talk about the importanceof having a very clear.
To-do list and a clear priority list, andgiving each hour of the day a mission.
So starting the day with an understandingof what is absolutely critical, what
success will be for me today, andthen working within that framework
(25:19):
to really ensure that the top.
Priorities are addressed first becauseoften, you know, we start our day
with an hour of emailing and thenhave a two hour meeting, and then
it's, you know, lunchtime before we'veactually done any of the meaningful
work that is really gonna upthat time that we're looking for.
We also talk about some.
(25:40):
Seemingly obvious opportunitiesto increase productivity that
maybe are worthy of a reminder.
For example, finding waysto minimize distractions.
making peace withimperfection is a big one.
I think too often folks get hungup on trying to make things a
hundred percent when 80% will do.
As we describe in the book givinggold level effort to bronze level
(26:04):
priorities there, there's a lot of.
Things that happen within theday that aren't as necessary.
And all of those little additions to ourschedule end up taking big bites out of
time that could be better spent elsewhere,either professionally or personally.
And then finally, there's a lot ofscience and research about how to make.
The most out of your day basedon when our brains are at
(26:27):
their best for certain tasks.
Our circadian rhythms really dictate whenis the best time of the day to do certain
things, when we're gonna be most creative,most analytical, and figuring out, doing
a little bit of work on the forefrontto understand how your brain works best,
what those fluctuations are, and tryingto optimize your schedule accordingly to
(26:47):
the best that you can do as an individual.
Are just some of the ways in which youcan really get more out of the hours you
work and hopefully find some of theseefficiencies useful in getting your time
back, even if your organization hasn'tagreed to move to a four day work week.
It's a brilliant book and it's outon January 13th, 2026 in the uk.
(27:10):
I don't know whether that's the casein the US but certainly in the uk.
Guys, for people who wanna find you,where's the best place to find you?
I know Jared, you write for a lotof top organizations, but where can
people find out you to reach out?
And Joe then will come to you as well.
The best place to find bothof us is domoreinfour.com.
(27:31):
We got a website for the bookwhere you can find more information
and reach out to us individually.
I also have my website,jaredLindzon.com where I post all of my.
Research and articles about the four daywork week and all things future of work.
And Joe, where's the bestplace for people to find you?
Our website.
I run a future of work.
(27:52):
Consulting advising and researchfirm called Worktime Revolution.
You can find us onworktime revolution.com.
You can also find me and WorktimeRevolution on LinkedIn, and I have a
substack that people can subscribe to.
And I will link to all thosedifferent locations as well.
Authors of do more.
in four, why it's timefor a shorter work week.
Joe O'Connor and Jared Lindzon,thank you for joining us.
(28:15):
Thank you for having us.
for having us.
Thanks.
Thanks for joining us on Inside Learning.
Inside Learning is brought to you by theLearnovate Centre in Trinity College.
Dublin Learnovate is funded byEnterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.
Visit learnovate Centre.org to find outmore about our research on the science
of learning and the future of work.
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