3 Keys Consulting, LLC’s Post

How a Four-Day Workweek Actually Works, From the Companies Pulling It Off Fewer meetings, busier days, and other ways to fit a week’s work into 32 hours At ThredUp, an Oakland, Calif.-based online clothing reseller, moving its nearly 300 salaried employees to a Monday-to-Thursday week meant culling meetings, focusing on the most important work, and curtailing lengthy email exchanges. The shorter week can get hectic, and work sometimes spills into Fridays, but employees say having more time to recharge is worth it.  #hrm #Workhours #4dayworkweek #workforcedevelopment READ THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE LINK BELOW

Summary : Her Comes the Four Day Workweek? Once a workers’ pipe dream, the four-day, 32-hour workweek is gaining ground as hundreds of employers try the schedules and businesses rethink the conventional ways of work. The United Auto Workers made the shorter week a demand in its contract talks with Detroit automakers. Lawmakers in California, Massachusetts and other states have introduced bills aimed at pushing more businesses to adopt a four-day schedule. Most proposals are long shots but signify the appeal in policy circles. Organizations that have dipped a toe into shortened workweeks say it has resulted in happier, healthier staff, less turnover and a wave of interest from job applicants—usually with little to no loss in productivity. Meeting bloat was one of ThredUp’s biggest targets as it gave the four-day week a test run before making it official early last year. Department heads cut meetings by roughly 20% after reviewing which were really necessary and which served mostly as progress reports. Managers and workers were trained on running more efficient huddles and volleying fewer emails. (One tip: Pick up the phone after three rounds of replies without a resolution.) Tuesdays were deemed “maker days,” devoted mostly to uninterrupted focus work. Still, voluntary turnover among corporate employees fell to 4% last year, less than half of what it was in 2020. More than half of new hires who were surveyed said the shorter workweek tipped the scale in their decision to join. And over 90% of employees, who the company says are meeting the same goals as before, said the four-day workweek has boosted their productivity. After the trial run, “at least two engineers said to me, ‘I’ll take a pay reduction to keep Fridays off,’” said Anton Naumenko, senior director of software engineering. To keep Monday through Thursday from feeling too intense, Qwick bosses break for lunch or organize occasional happy hours. After a decadelong career in technology, during which she would work from a coffee shop some Saturdays, Kekic said she occasionally has to remind herself not to message a colleague or her team on Fridays. 

Kudos to the forward-thinking team at thredUP for prioritizing work-life balance and employee happiness through their four-day work week! 🙌 Their all-time high employee retention rate speaks volumes and it's evident that their commitment to pioneering this new world of work is paying off. This success story serves as a powerful reminder of the positive impact a shorter work week can have on both individuals and the company. The future of work is evolving, and initiatives like this pave the way for a healthier, more balanced work culture. #Goals #WorkLifeBalance

The four day work week concept just begs the question what if people worked smarter in the way article highlights (less email, less meetings) but still worked five days a week. If you’re working for the a mission based company, how much more could be accomplished and how much would US productivity go up (which translates to living standards)?

Leadership and the Disruption of Generative AI. That's where I'm leaning in. I think both are critical for this moment. I assert that location is not causally related to performance. Whether remote, hybrid, in-office, or 4 day work weeks, leaders produce results. "Working less takes a lot of work. Just ask the companies trying four-day schedules. At  ThredUp, an Oakland, Calif.-based online clothing reseller, moving its nearly 300 salaried employees to a Monday-to-Thursday week meant culling meetings, focusing on the most important work and curtailing lengthy email exchanges. The shorter week can get hectic, and work sometimes spills into Fridays, but employees say having more time to recharge is worth it. “It’s not for everybody,” said ThredUp’s chief people officer, Natalie Breece, who helped lead the transition. “It requires a constant evaluation of your own behaviors and your organization’s behaviors to move faster.” Once a workers’ pipe dream, the four-day, 32-hour workweek is gaining ground as hundreds of employers try the schedules and businesses rethink the conventional ways of work. The United Auto Workers made the shorter week a demand in its contract talks with Detroit automakers. Lawmakers in California, Massachusetts and other states have introduced bills aimed at pushing more businesses to adopt a four-day schedule. Most proposals are long shots but signify the appeal in policy circles. Organizations that have dipped a toe into shortened workweeks say it has resulted in happier, healthier staff, less turnover and a wave of interest from job applicants—usually with little to no loss in productivity. Yet working smarter, not harder, isn’t as easy as it sounds." #leadership #thinkingdifferently #remotework #hybridwork https://lnkd.in/gU8kViRF

Even if 4-day work weeks are out of reach for most of us, we can learn things from those experimenting with them. For instance, at ThredUp, a company that implemented a 4-day week, "Managers and workers were trained on running more efficient huddles and volleying fewer emails. (One tip: Pick up the phone after three rounds of replies without a resolution.) Tuesdays were deemed 'maker days,' devoted mostly to uninterrupted focus work." Operating more efficiently can benefit us all, whether we use the saved time to get more done or avoid late nights and weekend interruptions. https://lnkd.in/eJGRUaR5

Check out this terrific WSJ piece about companies trying four-day workweeks. It also includes data and commentary from the ActivTrak Productivity Lab! 🔥

The term 'self fulfilling prophecy' is a saying for a reason. Often when it comes to the 4-Day Work Week, or Flexible Working Arrangements (FWA), it's the skeptical people at the top, stuck in their ways, that either cause progress to not move forward, or hamper its effects when it does. This transition to the future for work takes time, focus and purposeful intent to make it work, and when implemented the right way for each individual businesses, the majority of companies and employees would never go back. #FutureOfWork #4DayWorkWeek #FWA

Once a workers’ pipe dream, the four-day, 32-hour workweek is gaining ground as hundreds of employers try the schedules and businesses rethink the conventional ways of work. The United Auto Workers made the shorter week a demand in its contract talks with Detroit automakers. Lawmakers in California, Massachusetts and other states have introduced bills aimed at pushing more businesses to adopt a four-day schedule. Most proposals are long shots but signify the appeal in policy circles. Organizations that have dipped a toe into shortened workweeks say it has resulted in happier, healthier staff, less turnover and a wave of interest from job applicants—usually with little to no loss in productivity.   Yet working smarter, not harder, isn’t as easy as it sounds. Henry Ford cut the standard workweek to five days from six in the 1920s on the premise that a more compressed schedule, along with assembly-line innovations, would make work more efficient. Since then, predictions that technological and economic advances would result in our working less haven’t borne out. As far back as 1956, then-Vice President Richard Nixon declared a four-day workweek would be reality for most Americans in the “not-too-distant future.” One reason shorter weeks remain out of reach, skeptics say, is that it is tough for large companies with customers and staff across time zones and countries to find a shortened schedule that works for all. A handful of big brand names such as Unilever and Samsung have experimented with a shorter week on a limited basis, but most adoptees are much smaller firms. Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University, says it is doubtful most businesses can shed a fifth of the workweek and maintain productivity. “Whenever I talk to managers, they find the topic pretty insulting—they argue it implies they are completely wasting a day a week,” he said. A more viable approach for giving people more leisure time, he says, is to offer the option of four-day schedules, at four days’ pay.  “But that’s not a new idea,” he added. “It’s called part-time work.”