The 4 Day Work Week

August 2nd, 2023

This week in Ryan's Weekly Wave: A study evaluates the 4 day work week, pressure to ban college legacy admissions intensifies, and it is okay to actually ‘feel’ your feelings.

Read more about the 4 Day Work Week, in the Deep Dive Section below.?

View this post on Deep Dive Careers.

In the News

The Federal Reserve continues to walk a tightrope between crashing the economy and keeping inflationary pressures low. (Investor’s Business Daily)

Democrat politicians propose ending college legacy admission practices and The Education Department launches a probe. (NBC News)

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has unveiled the new I9 form. Here is what employers should know. (SHRM)

Other News

Want to get into an elite college? Being rich is its own qualification. (The New York Times)

McDonalds earnings increased by 14% with $6.5 billion in Q2 revenue. (CNBC)

• Much of these gains were driven by mobile orders as 40 Million people worldwide have now downloaded the mobile app.

Opinion

Colleges can still use race in college admissions, they just have to do so indirectly and that will be a better system to achieve diversity. (Texas Tribune)

A Deeper Dive - The 4 Day Work Week is Evaluated in the Real World

The 4 Day Work Week Global is an organization dedicated to moving companies toward better work-life balance. Their rather large-scale observational study on the 4 day work week found it to be successful.

Included in the study were 33 companies that primarily perform knowledge work, especially: administrative, non-profit, and information technology.?

Here are some of the findings:?

• Employees reported increases in work ability. Prior to the trial period, employees reported their work ability as 7.17 and after, it rose to 7.83.
• There was no evidence to suggest an increase in the pace or complexity of work.
• 67% of employees reported being less burned out.

Companies are mostly on board with continuing the practice. Of the 27 who filled out the final survey, 18 are definitely continuing the practice. None reported to be leaning against continuing.

Further Analysis

There is a way to read these findings and reasonably conclude that employees benefited more than employers. Employers reported an overall performance score for the trial period of 7.6/10. Productivity was measured at 7.7/10. Conversely, 96.9% of employees wanted to continue the practice.

One might also ask how these companies were chosen and whether the same positive impression would be found in other companies and industries.

Read the full study for yourself here.

What I’m Reading

21 Lessons for the 21st Century - Yuval Noah Harari

I have mixed feelings about this book but they are mostly negative. It was relatively long and interesting enough. At times, I found myself intrigued by the author’s point of view but I also found myself actively refuting him while reading certain sections. His insight on the topic of artificial intelligence was quite forward-thinking and enjoyable. However, his outright dismissal of religion and distortion 'meaning,' a topic he spent quite some time on was disappointing.

What I’m Listening To

Todd Rose - Author of two of my favorite books, The End of Average and Dark Horse on Dax Sheppard’s Armchair Expert?

Quote of the Week

“The Supreme Court said you can’t use race affiliation. Why should you be able to use family affiliation?”?

Michael Roth - President of Wesleyan University (on the topic of banning college legacy admission practices)

Articles of the Week

There once was a company that was SO confident they could retain people that they decided to pay people to quit. The company is popularly known as Zappos. (The Productivity Pro)

If we self reflect too much, we become subject to the law of diminishing returns. (Nick Wignall via Medium.com)

Here is why you should “feel” your feelings, rather than just ignore them. (Psychalive.org)

New From Deep Dive Careers: Book Review: The End of Average by Todd Rose

• A few weeks ago, I ranted and raved about this book in a previous edition of this newsletter. Now, I took the time to put together a more robust book review that unpacks the key ideas and explains their significance. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Other Fun Stuff

Will Space Tourism be a casual activity for average people within the next 50 years? (Pew Research)

Dad Joke of the Week

The cat seems to get mad when I make jokes about his weight.?

He needs to LIGHTEN up.

*This post may contain affiliate links. These help financially support the Deep Dive Careers platform.

Subscribe here to get this content delivered directly to your email. Be sure to share this newsletter with a friend who you think would benefit from the information.