If weekends seem to fly by, be thankful you weren\u2019t born during the early 20th century when having one day off a week was the standard for most employers. In 1922, Henry Ford doubled time off by implementing the Monday-through-Friday timeline at The Ford Company.<\/p>\n
A five-day, 40-hour workweek may work well when output is measured by items coming down an assembly line, but productivity is different when it comes to knowledge work. COVID disrupted standard ways of working and created an experiment where companies learned that productivity isn\u2019t measured by hours in a chair.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it\u2019s time to rethink the workweek and do things differently, says Joe Sanok, author of\u00a0Thursday is the New Friday: How to Work Fewer Hours, Make More Money, and Spend Time Doing What You Want<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cOur best work never comes when we\u2019re stressed and maxed out,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s intuitive but research points to it, too. When you move to a four-day workweek with strong boundaries around when work starts and stops, employees are often more creative and more productive.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Researchers in Iceland<\/a>\u00a0tracked a group of 2,500 employees who worked a four-day workweek with the same pay and found that their wellbeing dramatically increased, and they reported less stress and burnout and better work-life balance.\u00a0Microsoft Japan<\/a>\u00a0experimented with a four-day workweek and experienced a 40% boost in productivity, although they\u2019ve since discontinued the practice.<\/p>\n It seems counterintuitive that less time results in more output. If you\u2019ve ever tried to finish up work before a three-day holiday weekend, however, you know it\u2019s possible to fit five days of work into a shortened week, says Sanok.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you reduce the amount of time you have, it forces you to make the best use of that time,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you have 20 tasks and only time for 14, you\u2019ll choose the best 14 and do the most essential things first.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Most of us have heard of Parkinson\u2019s Law, which says that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. By adopting a four-day workweek, Sanok says you\u2019ll look at it in a new way. \u201cIt forces you to examine what you\u2019re doing and drop the things you should not be spending time doing. You also have to address procrastination head on.\u201d<\/p>\n To adjust your workdays, Sanok says you need to set up hard and soft boundaries around your time. Hard boundaries are non-negotiable and soft boundaries are rules that can be relaxed when an emergency arises and can\u2019t wait until Monday to be fixed.<\/p>\n The hardest part may be setting boundaries with yourself, especially if you\u2019re self employed or work from home. Many of us may work out of boredom if we don\u2019t have anything else planned or out of anxiety. Identify what is the trigger for working outside of the time you want to work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s out of boredom, schedule some hobbies that provide fulfillment,\u201d says Sanok. \u201cIf it\u2019s out of anxiety or out of a feeling that your business isn\u2019t running appropriately, add an extra set of eyes to determine what isn\u2019t working correctly.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Then measure your progress to determine if the shift to four days is working well. \u201cYou can track how many hours you work and how much money you produce,\u201d says Sanok. \u201cIf you work 10 less hours and made 5% more, then you\u2019ve made the case to yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n If you are an employee, you have to gauge if your supervisor has an industrial mindset and sees you like a machine. If you think there\u2019s an opportunity for them to be adaptable to new model, Sanok suggests having a discussion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAre there clear KPIs for your role?\u201d he asks. \u201cHow are you already judged? And consider what are the potential fires that could happen when you\u2019re not in the office or clocked in. Then identify who could cover that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Four-day workweeks often work best when an entire team is on the same schedule. To handle client emergencies, Sanok suggests companies put a contingency plan in place, with one person on call on a rotating schedule. He\u00a0also suggests that companies try a four-day workweek as a two- to three-month experiment, or have one team pilot it to determine how it might impact others. Then hold a monthly 360-degree review to determine what\u2019s going well and what needs adjustment.<\/p>\n \u201cNo supervisor wants to look like they made numbers drop due to an experiment,\u201d says Sanok. \u201cThey want credit for being innovative. When you take an experimental mindset and find out what works well, you can use the key learning lessons in a second experiment.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe Babylonians gave us the seven-day week, the Egyptians had an eight-day week and the Romans had 10,\u201d says Sanok. \u201cIt\u2019s all completely made up. Henry Ford gave us the 40-hour week so he could sell more cars to workers who now had more leisure time. It\u2019s no longer the Industrial Era, and we don\u2019t have to think of people as robots and machines. The post-pandemic generation gets to decide what we want to do moving forward. Doing something different could actually make a difference.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Research suggests that a four-day workweek could make workers more productive. Now you just need to convince your manager. If weekends seem to fly by, be thankful you weren\u2019t born during the early 20th century when having one day off a week was the standard for most employers. In 1922, Henry Ford doubled time off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[15,16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":626,"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions\/626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesanok.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WHY LESS IS MORE<\/h2>\n
HOW TO IMPLEMENT A FOUR-DAY WORKWEEK<\/h2>\n
GETTING YOUR BOSS ON BOARD<\/h2>\n
Original article featured in Fast Company on 10-07-21 here: https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/90683509\/how-to-convince-your-boss-to-consider-a-four-day-workweek<\/h5>\n
Author: Stephanie Vozza<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"