Episode 11: When employees work less, they achieve more.
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EPISODE GUEST: CHARLOTTE LOCKHART, FOUNDER & CEO, 4 DAY WEEK GLOBAL
“We have to remember that we borrow our people from their lives,” explains Charlotte Lockhard, founder and CEO of 4 Day Week Global, a not-for-profit community promoting the benefits of a productivity-focused and reduced-hour workplace. In today’s episode of Problem Performers, Charlotte discusses how reducing the work week actually increases productivity.
Charlotte’s 4 Day Week Global community focuses on bringing pilot programs into businesses to demonstrate the effectiveness of a reduced work schedule. The 40-hour work week was designed at a time when life looked very different for most employees. With the increased connectivity and workloads of modern life, it is no longer a well-balanced solution for most businesses. By reducing the length of the work week, business owners can reduce stress and burnout levels in their employees, and increase their efficiency as a result.
Tune into this week’s episode of Problem Performers for a conversation with Charlotte Lockhart and host Rebecca Weaver about the impact a reduced work week could have on your business, and how to broach the idea with your boss. Learn more about Charlotte’s pilot program and the ways businesses can adapt to better value their employees’ time.
QUOTES
“Life is shorter than you might think, often, and when I mean that it’s not just your physical life, but we turn around and in the blink of an eye our work life is gone.” (04:21-04:32)
“In the end, what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the four-day work week or some form of reduced-hour work week is we’re talking about rebalancing the place that work has in our lives. If we think about it, when we first had the 40-hour work week…our society was constructed differently. We didn’t have laptops and cellphones, and generally it was just dad that went to work, and he was generally home for family meals, and mum did the children and the community and charity stuff.” (05:44-06:28)
“Work’s place in our lives has gotten out of proportion to where it should have been, even with the 40-hour week. So the conversation we’re having with people is actually, how do we rebalance that life for ourselves?” (06:54-07:07)
“When I’m talking to employers I say, ‘We have to remember that we borrow our people from their lives’....If you take that attitude to your employment and into your environment, then actually you’ve got to think, ‘Okay, so if the bit of someone’s life that I have them for is to give me a productive outcome, then how can I do that with them that means that they can have more time away from work.” (07:11-07:50)
“At its heart, our program is a productivity-gaining program. We say to people ‘you need to join together with your people to find ways to do what your business does in less time. How you do that really will be up to the business, your people, and your customers’...It’s about management and business owners recognizing that they’re in partnership with their employees.” And when you treat that relationship as a partnership and respect each other in a partnership-style role, you’ll actually drive things better. And that’s what all the successful companies do.” (08:01-08:48)
“We’ve been talking about health and safety in the workplace for so long now, but really, it’s just been safety. And so the pandemic has given us a renewed focus on how we can work. Who’d have thought that you can run your business from home?” (11:08-11:29)
“The people are choosing their workplace, not the other way around. And this is a significant shift, and it’s global.” (13:06-13:17)
“Even though in our employment contracts it says ‘you will work these days, and you will work these hours, and we’ll give you this amount of time off,’ even though our employment contracts largely are around time, what we’re really employing people to do is an output. An outcome. We’re looking for what you’re going to give me, and what’s your productive outcome. So what we’re doing is we’re shifting from measuring time to valuing time.” (18:47-19:18)
“Leadership’s job in (adopting a 4-day week) is to decide to do it. And then there’s a full stop. Because actually, the only people who can truly work out how to make this a success are your team…The companies that have either look at this and then not run a pilot, or have started it and then stopped doing it, all got to that position because the C-suite got in the way.” (21:00-21:51)
“In your workforce at any time, between one in four and one in five [people] in your workforce have a workplace stress or mental health issue. And that’s probably greater with all of us coping with life post-pandemic…So those people are already not performing to a very high standard, because you just can’t. And we know that burnout rates are skyrocketing, and unprecedented. And of course, somebody that’s leading up to a burnout looks like they’re hyperproductive because there’s a bit of a manic phase that goes in before burnout…You only know you’re burning out when you’ve burnt out.” (23:14-24:05)
“If you give (employees) more time to recover and more time to look after themselves, more time to eat well and exercise and engage with community, and engage with all of the things that top us up whether it be physically or emotionally or mentally, then they will perform better for you in the time that they are with you. And so by giving people, for example, Wednesday off, then you are going to get better productivity out of them for the rest of the time.” (24:40-25:14)
“You run a reduced-hour 4 day week pilot in your business, you’re going to get a more productive business, more profitable business, and a happier workforce, and it won’t have cost you a cent. So it’s kind of like a win-win.” (28:47-29:03)
LINKS
Connect with Charlotte on LinkedIn.
Learn more about 4 Day Week Global at www.4dayweek.com.
Connect with your own confidential HR coach at www.HRuprise.com.
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TRANSCRIPT
COMING SOON!