In June 2021, Kickstarter followed several other businesses and announced that it was trying to work four days a week. Employees work 32 hours a week instead of 40 hours, and the workload and salary remain the same. Recent studies on the effectiveness of the four-day workday have been hyped up by the media, showing that reducing working hours can reduce employee stress, improve employee happiness without compromising productivity – provided it is executed effectively.
So how should it be executed effectively? Ashley, one of the authors of this article, is a researcher focused on time, money and happiness, and the other author, Charlotte, is the CEO of a global nonprofit that funds research on the four-day work and future of work. We have developed a six-step guide to help organizations plan and implement a system of reduced working hours. This article focuses primarily on office-centric knowledge-based work, but we believe it makes sense for all companies that can adjust their working hours.
1 Shifting the way of thinking
Psychological research shows that most of us are "moderate maximizers" – tending to focus on quantifiable objective indicators of success (such as working hours) over qualitative indicators (productivity or well-being). As a result, many companies use immediate response and time spent in the office as indicators of employee engagement, but these indicators rarely reflect the value that employees add to the organization.
To successfully implement a four-day workday, leaders must shift their mindset to focus on true efficiency rather than working hours. Employees must be ensured not to fear penalties for prioritizing work-life balance, and that leaders lead by example and demonstrate a healthier work-life balance. Ashley's research found that explicitly announcing company-wide initiatives to reduce working hours was more effective than informal or optional shorter-hour programs and driving this critical mindset shift.
In addition, leaders must accept the uncertainty of trying new initiatives. The first mistake many managers make is to anticipate all possible problems and eliminate all possible risks before the pilot project begins. Planning is important, but falling into decision-making inertia is completely useless – only through trial and error can really solve the problem, and leadership rhetoric is useless.
It also means accepting the possibility that some people don't like the change and will eventually leave because of it. It does not matter. Managers should admit that the new plan may not be suitable for everyone. Remember: when an employee leaves, it leaves a space for other people who embrace the new culture, ultimately making the team and the business stronger.
2 Identify goals and metrics
When the organization is ready for change, it's time to start planning. Both employees and leaders should be proactively involved in a range of key decisions. A company Charlotte and her team has worked for has established a subcommittee on employee operations to spearhead projects that reduce working hours. This working group (nicknamed the Committee of Pessimism) met for one hour a day for six consecutive weeks before the pilot project was launched to discuss possible problems.
Based on their experience and other case studies, we have summarized the following questions for your reference:
Questions employees can think about:
1. Should we work four days a week, eight hours a day, or five days a week, with less work per day?
2. What day or period should I subtract?
3. How can we avoid negative impacts on customers and other stakeholders?
4. What measures can be taken to improve work efficiency?
5. How do we share ideas to improve processes with each other?
Questions leaders can think about:
1. How do organizations measure productivity?
2. What kind of support do employees need to make the pilot project successful?
3. How long should the pilot project be operated?
4. Do we need to pay attention to legal issues?
At this stage, be sure to discuss how to measure the success of the project towards your goals, including where you want to change (such as employee happiness) and where you don't (such as customer satisfaction and job productivity).
3 Announced to the company and outside
The next step is to think about how to communicate the plan. Internal and external stakeholders may be concerned about issues, and leaders need to take the initiative to reassure all parties.
Perhaps the biggest question within companies is how this change will affect people's jobs. Explain why you're trying a four-day workday and assure employees that they won't lay off employees, take a pay cut, or lose paid leave.
In addition, shortening working hours may also involve some internal process and rule changes, which should be discussed in advance. For example, in one organization we served, employees met half an hour a week to solve problems previously discussed in inefficient ad hoc meetings, reduce distractions and increase the amount of time they could work. A recent Ashley study found that some knowledge workers are more productive during the pandemic, in part because they need to plan their time together more carefully.
The specifics of different organizations vary, and employees are encouraged to discuss how they can accomplish more in less time—using new tools, eliminating unnecessary meetings, or making meetings more efficient.
The same is true externally. Many companies worry about how customers will feel about shortened working hours, but they only need to communicate to reassure them. Identify customers, partners, and other stakeholders who will be affected, and have the appropriate internal representatives fully account for the time change.
Many times, you will be surprised by the level of acceptance from outside parties. In one Ashley study, employees could not respond to anyone's needs, including customers, at a time for hours or even a full day. While managers are worried, both employees and customers report higher satisfaction after such a time adjustment.
4 Pilot
After the decision, the plan, the announcement – now it's time to act! Keep in mind that the goal of the pilot phase is not to get everything done right from the start, but to find the tools and processes needed to achieve reduced man-hours. You may want to spend at least a few months conducting a comprehensive and thorough pilot study, during which you will encounter problems. Do your best to solve the problem, and remember to wait until the pilot project is over before a comprehensive solution is possible. Don't see the problem as a sign of failure, but as an opportunity to adjust and revise the implementation plan. Some of the issues that appeared in the pilot phase are summarized below:
What boundaries do I have to set for myself and my team? How do I need leadership assistance to execute a schedule of reduced working hours? How will team events like Friday Cake Day be affected?
An essential element of a successful pilot is creating an environment where employees can confidently ask these questions — yes, ask what the office's dessert time will be like. We believe that employees will try their best to make good choices and support them as they try different ways to improve efficiency.
5 Evaluation of pilot projects
After the pilot project is completed, the results can be analyzed using various methods. First, there are qualitative and quantitative indicators that can help you understand the impact of pilot projects on employee happiness.
Qualitatively, group interviews provide insight into employees' four-day work experience, and more formal job satisfaction surveys can uncover trends in employees' self-reported stress levels, work-life balance, and quality of life. From a quantitative perspective, you can look at other indicators. For example, did employees take less sick leave during the pilot project? If the answer is yes, it may indicate a decrease in burnout.
Productivity-related metrics depend on the specifics of the team. If you're a sales team, you can focus on the number of successful orders, the conversion rate, or the average time it takes to complete an order. If you're a creative team, you can focus on performance, such as conducting 360-degree reviews or collecting data on online clicks to evaluate the quality of internal and external content.
The data can also help you understand how employees are optimizing their work: are they working overtime more often, segmenting meetings, taking fewer breaks, and working faster? You don't want employees to sacrifice their breaks to rush work or increase their working hours, so if you see these signs, talk about reducing your personal workload or trying to be more productive.
Most importantly, do not repeat the analysis. While the specifics of your company's workforce are unique, there are already countless white papers, reports, and case studies that you can refer to to help understand the results of your analysis. You can also work with academics or other professionals who can help you find useful metrics to interpret the data.
6 Scale up – but don't stop iterating
After the evaluation of the pilot project is completed and the problems found are solved, it is necessary to promote the long-term implementation of time adjustment. Leaders need to integrate new initiatives into the corporate culture at all levels of the organization to ensure that employees don't return to their old habits (don't email on days off!). ), and continue to use productivity rather than working hours as an indicator of success.
At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to success indicators for a long time and adjust the process according to the actual situation. An effective strategy is to retain employee-led meetings and focus groups after the results of the initial pilot project have been analyzed to help identify and overcome emerging challenges. For example, a four-day workday at a client company in Charlotte found that employees experienced a "pure urgency effect": an over-focus on urgent but less important tasks and a neglect of more important long-term tasks. In response to this situation, the company arranged a monthly meeting to discuss the long-term strategic plan and maintain a consistent strategic focus.
The company also found that the original incentive structure was not suitable for the new working time schedule. Sales teams, in particular, are rewarded based on the number of orders completed and start prioritizing smaller customers in order to complete more orders in a shorter period of time, rather than focusing on large, strategically important customers. So the company reorganized its sales team, forming teams for small customers and large customers, ensuring that both sides can invest the same resources.
Of course, it's not just productivity that matters. Another Charlotte client found that employees worked ten hours a day to accommodate the four-day workday, severely affecting job satisfaction and well-being. To address this, the leadership team adjusted a number of departments to ensure that employees focused on reasonable tasks, created new positions for tasks outside the current scope of the team's responsibilities, and hired temporary employees to share the work for full-time employees during busy periods.
When promoting policies to reduce working hours, organizations face unique challenges. To be successful in the long term, continuous experimentation and iteration are essential.
Over the past two years, workplace routines have changed radically. We're at a critical stage today: we can seize the opportunity to change patterns before everything goes back to the old state — an opportunity that leaders can't afford to waste. While any change won't be easy, leaders who embrace new models like the four-day workday will find it worth the effort.
Ashley Whillans charlotte Lockhart |
Ashley Wildlands is an Assistant Professor of Negotiation, Organization, and Marketing at Harvard Business School and teaches courses on "Negotiation" and "Motivation and Motivation" for MBA students and executives. Her research focuses on the impact of non-monetary rewards on employee engagement and the link between time, money, and happiness. She is the author of Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time & Live a Happier Life (Harvard Business Review, 2020). Charlotte Lockhart is a business advocate, investor and philanthropist with over 25 years of experience in a wide range of industries, both domestic and international. She is the CEO of the 4Thy Day Week Global campaign, promoting the benefits of a focus on productivity and reduced working hours. She is a director of the Centre for Well-being Studies at the University of Oxford and a member of the Four-Day Workday Advisory Board for the United States and Iceland.
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