Everybody is talking about this latest trend in business like it is an innovation or a ground-breaking discovery. Well, the 4-day workweek is neither. It is both and at the same time, none of the two. Confused? Imagine how confused your Boss is when asked if he is thinking to implement it in his business.
Humanity moved from landlords and slaves to landlords and workers, then from companies and everyday working employees to corporations with a 6-day workweek, later on from companies with computers and 5-day attendance, and we finally landed (partly due to the pandemic) with companies using the internet and employees with flexible hours, work from home, and so on.
Societies are living organisms with millions of particles that constantly adapt, review, improve and implement changes that, in the long term, provide better results.
Workers, bosses, companies, and governments work together making billions of tiny works and tasks each and every day, moving this entire Planet, slowly but surely, forward. And forward is good.
The current 4-day workweek trend is the bastard child of a pandemic and the force of habit. A pandemic that forced an entire planet to first stop on its feet and then work from home, and the unstoppable Force of habit of human nature that at some point saw, and experienced, that working like this might actually work. I have my doubts.
Some benefits (or so) of adopting a 4-day workweek
Better work-life balance: Employees might think that ‘hey, a 3-day weekend, every damn week? Bring it on!’ but there are some very dangerous traps hidden beneath this great gift. Can you as an employee work for 4 days and then switch off your mind for 3 days or will you just work that extra day from home? Will you have to perform 5-days of work within a 4-day deadline? What is the extra burden on your mind (and well-being) of that? Can you take the challenge or are you digging your own hole?
For employers that figured out that there is no such thing as work-life balance but only a life balance infused with work, 7 days a week, the 4-day workweek might work. They are used in receiving calls from clients on weekends, leaving work late, extra work for home over weekends, or light work over vacations. Adopting a 4DWW (a 4-day work week) might not make much to improve their well-being but if they manage to satisfy their employees with that, and a happy employee performs better, and then if the company performs better, THAT will improve their well-being for sure.
Improved productivity: productivity if often confused with attendance and timesheets. They are related but not ‘steel-bond’ connected. Productivity tools are available to make our lives easier, and perform tasks faster, better, and more reliable, just like an Excel sheet, today can perform a calculation that 50 years ago would demand 50 people to calculate numbers for 5 days. Improved outcomes from employees working a 4DWW are not guaranteed just because the employees would be more than happy to work less. Productivity will improve partly because the employee will value the extra day off so much that he will, by himself, stand up to the tasks he needs to perform in order not to lose it, and not because he suddenly became better or faster.
As for employers, improved productivity cannot be measured short-term but only long term. Results will have to be justified by sales, profits, tasks done, costs lowered, and client satisfaction.
Retain and attract the good and talented: A 4DWW is surely attractive to all employees and merely going 4DWW will amplify your HR arsenal in getting more CVs in for review. This new HR weapon will have to be handled with care otherwise it will backfire, big time. Getting more CVs isn’t necessary better so the people handling your people will have to sort out a lot of junk. This perk can help a company better compensate good employees and further nourish them to become better, it can attract good candidates (if your HR can filter them out of the junk), but it can also magnify problematic areas, groups and divisions within a company. A good employee will work harder and better to prove that they deserve that extra day off but what about the other people who rely on the backs of good employees to float around? Going all-in for a 4DWW without properly evaluating who, how and what is working for you, will get you in more trouble than getting 3-4 more good employees.
Cost: The reduced cost can be measured by the expenses a company lowers by having to operate an office for 4 days instead of 5. Electricity, cleaning, heating, etc., but not salary. The 4-day work week is not intended to reduce the work week AND the salary as a percentage. You are supposed to pay the same salary for fewer days and hours, otherwise, it becomes a measure to justify lower sales and avoid layoffs.
Customers: A metric to eclipse all others. Clients and client satisfaction. No matter what your HR department says, what your employees ask for, your consultants’ pitch, what your industry goes for, or what a Union promises, clients are the stakeholder responsible and to report to for this new tactic to succeed or fail. If the clients aren’t happy, aren’t buying, complaining, or switching to competitors, you are doomed to return to 5 days, or worse. Whatever you do, before even opening your mouth to even mention a 4-day workweek to anyone in your company, ask a client and try to think like a client. Everything else is pure, smelly, irrelevant, and dangerous bullshit.
Things to consider before you go 4-Day
Your industry: if you are in services, you have a better chance to implement it. How about product manufacturing? The hospitality industry or retail? Every industry has its own traps in implementing a 4DWW. And how about this: if we all implement the 4DWW what will we do for 3 days every week at home since nobody will be working?
Your performance: your performance, profits, and costs, are metrics vital for the discussion, implementation, and reviewing of the 4-day work week, or the 3-day weekend if you prefer.
Your clients: This is the one metric to consider before everything else. If you estimate that your clients cannot adjust, cancel everything.
Your people: employee retention, new (fitting) hires, satisfaction, performance, outcome, tasks finished, and deadlines met, are essential.
A clarification is needed at this point. A 4-day work week is not the same thing as a 3-day weekend. If you can figure this out, you are way ahead of most of the people chanting and singing 4-day workweek halleluiahs.
The way to 4-Day Guide
- To evaluate correctly focus on outcomes, not timesheets.
- Start small and adjust. Start with Friday afternoons off, move to the last day of the month off, you get the point. Don’t promise to adopt it, promise to test it.
- keep the end goal in sight (people, clients, company, profits).
- Early (successful) adopters will have an advantage in their industry until it becomes mainstream. After that, the positive results will start to diminish.
- Inflation, higher costs, crisis, and people retention metrics, are not objective and bad consultants. Don’t rush somewhere until you have a clearer picture of where all this will lead.
- Be willing to make radical changes and change radically. What? A 4DWW is a radical change so you too, as an employee or employer will have to change radically. Employees, better time management, fewer excuses. For employers, better people selection, better measurements, better listening, maybe better layoffs.
Some helpful questions to guide you through the 4-day workweek path
- Who’s it for? Employees.
- What’s it for? Retention and performance.
- How can you tell if it’s working? Client satisfaction, therefore profits.
- What are you afraid of? Rushing into something not tested, clients leaving, it is not working.
- What’s the hard part? Measuring results, getting feedback.
- Can you go back to how things were before? Yes.
- Will this kill you? Probably not.
The 4-day workweek is, without a doubt, a trend that is gaining momentum, not only because of its desirability but also because it can actually work if done correctly. Employees want it because at the very end they will work for 4 days, get paid for 5 days and live their lives for 7 days.
If we see it from an employer’s perspective it also looks ideal. What business wouldn’t want to offer 4 products and get paid for 5?
