The idea of a four-day workweek has become a reality: Over the past five years, hundreds of businesses have offered about 8,700 workers worldwide a four-day, 32-hour workweek with no pay reductions.
The outcomes have been overwhelmingly positive: Businesses have benefited from increased revenues and lower turnover, and employees love it because they are less worn out and more engaged.
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According to Juliet Schor, an economist, sociologist, and main researcher on the tests, companies that successfully made the transition employed three crucial tactics to complete as much work as possible in less time. In her most recent book, “Four Days a Week,” Schor described the trial’s outcomes in depth and discussed the companies’ success factors with CNBC Make It.
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The first is putting productivity techniques into practice, including cutting or eliminating meetings, increasing their effectiveness, and adding protected focused time.
According to recent Microsoft data, meetings, emails, and other pings interrupt employees every two minutes during a typical 9 to 5 workday.
There were numerous strategies to reduce meetings in the companies Schor examined. Some conducted a calendar audit to see if regular check-ins were actually required or if they might be shortened or done less frequently.
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Written status updates were used in place of several meetings that were removed. The remaining meetings had to have an agenda and prior reading, so instead of reviewing summaries, participants spent time debating solutions.
Lastly, a lot of companies provide calendar blocks or days without meetings to enable employees safeguard their timetables and do concentrated work in a calm environment.
White-collar offices are able to reduce their work schedules through more efficient meetings and communication, but factory workers achieved this through process engineering, according to Schor.
For instance, executives at Pressure Drop, a brewery in the United Kingdom that Schor researched, urged staff members to “own” the process of increasing the productivity of their work activities.
There are many steps involved in brewing, but if one is well-prepared, they can do a number of them at a time. For instance, cleaning machinery takes hours, yet the operator waits for 30 to 45 minutes throughout that time. Workers learnt to start lining up kegs, preparing cans for the feed line, and setting up the next packaging run instead of wasting that idle time.
In order to allow employees to focus on their strengths and complete jobs more quickly, Advanced RV, a motorhome manufacturer located close to Cleveland, Ohio, identified which employees were best at what and adjusted their division of labor appropriately.
According to Schor, employees feel more capable when they believe they have control over how they complete their work. According to her, this ultimately makes individuals feel happier in their life and at work.
Lastly, a lot of companies dug deeper to examine if the activities and projects they prioritized aligned with their broader strategy and company mission.
According to Schor, one business reassessed the goal of one of their mailings. “They spent a lot of time on the newsletter and realized it just wasn’t really giving them anything, but it was extremely time-consuming.”
According to Schor, the team came to the realization that they were merely producing and distributing the newsletter because they had always done so, even though it wasn’t yielding the desired outcomes. As a result, they sent it less frequently, which allowed the newsletter team to focus on more important tasks.
According to Schor, this degree of intentionality, along with the incentive of greater vacation time, makes workers respect their jobs more, increases their drive, and results in business success.
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