September 08, 2024 Why a 4-day workweek sets up an uneven playing field for workers While workers in well-paid jobs have bargaining leverage to assert their legal rights, others in lower-paid jobs face minimal protection and risk direct exploitation in a four-day working week. BY The Conversation The U.K. government has announced a proposal that would … Continue reading Why a 4-day workweek sets up an uneven playing field for workers
September 02, 2024 Why Japan wants its citizens to try a 4-day workweek The government launched a ‘work style reform’ campaign that promotes shorter hours and other flexible arrangements along with overtime limits and paid annual leave. BY Associated Press Japan, a nation so hardworking its language has a term for literally working oneself to death, … Continue reading Why Japan wants its citizens to try a 4-day workweek
July 03, 2024 These industries might benefit most from a 4-day workweek Can a 32-hour workweek be implemented in only certain types of white-collar jobs, or can it work in all industries? BY Nicole Gull McElroy When architecture firm BSB Design shifted to a 32-hour, four-day workweek in 2021, Dan Swift, the company’s president and CEO, … Continue reading These industries might benefit most from a 4-day workweek
May 19, 2024 What’s the future of the 32-hour and 4-day workweek? How companies are rejiggering the workweek to offer 4-day and 32-hour options. BY Lydia Dishman Welcome to Work Smarter, Fast Company‘s newsletter on career, leadership, and productivity advice. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. There has been a lot of buzz in … Continue reading What’s the future of the 32-hour and 4-day workweek?
By Alex Daly and Ally Bruschi January 25, 2024 As leaders, the first question we always get when we tell people that we successfully adopted a 4-day workweek at our company is: How did you measure performance and success? As client services professionals in PR, we are used to the KPI question. We get … Continue reading How we found a version of a 4-day workweek that fits our company
By Kathleen Davis November 27, 2023 I often think about the Maggie Smith line in Downton Abbey “What is a weekend?” Being a Countess, she didn’t know what a weekend was because she had no workweek. But there was a time in the not so distant past when working Americans also had never heard … Continue reading Forget the 4-day workweek. We should be talking about the 5-day, 32-hour week instead
By Jared Lindzon In early 2022, business was booming for digital publisher Alpha Brand Media, and staff were struggling to keep up with demand. “We were going through classic growing pains, needing to scale the company’s infrastructure and workflows and processes and policies, and it was quite disruptive,” recalls CEO Jenise Uehara. “It was … Continue reading So you’ve decided to implement a 4-day workweek. Now what?
By Charlie Metcalfe February 26, 2023 “In answer to the many rumors that have been going around the plants, I think I had better start out by saying—yes, we are going to reduce our work schedule,” Bill Hewlett wrote in the July 1970 edition of Watt’s Current, Hewlett Packard’s company newsletter. The IT company’s … Continue reading 4-day workweeks aren’t for every company. Here’s a compromise
By Adele Peters January 31, 2023 When more than 30 companies spent six months testing a four-day workweek last year—changing their schedules without reducing salaries—they overwhelmingly reported positive results. Productivity went up. It was easier to hire and retain employees. And workers, unsurprisingly, were happier with their jobs and reported better work-life balance. In … Continue reading Will Maryland be the first state to adopt a 4-day workweek?
By Brandi Olson November 20, 2022 During a recent coaching session, my client had a confession for me: Her marketing team was making a long-anticipated shift to the coveted four-day workweek. But instead of celebrating, her team was . . . lukewarm. Sure, they were a little excited at the thought of having … Continue reading The 4-day workweek shows us that working more doesn’t mean more success
