The 4 day working week changed my life <and possibly my future>.

A few months ago I wrote a post about how covid has completely changed the corporate 9-5 world as we know it, or at least it should have motivated a change in perspective about how we, as modern humans, navigate our work life balance.

I was absolutely perplexed, I still am, as to why no one is talking about the fact that an 8 hour work day in the office does NOT equal an 8 hour work day at home. Working from home eliminates so many time altering factors, such as the following; long office conversations at the coffee machine, group lunches, endless context switching, office distractions, the commute, disruptions to your commute... and probably a stack of other things that happen when you're not in the safety of your four home office walls.

If your days feel like they’re never long enough to fit everything in after going back to the office, you’re not alone. Many of us struggle to find the time in our busy schedules to get everything done from the office, and with family life demanding so much of our attention, it can be difficult to fit everything in. But rather than work longer hours or making even bigger sacrifices to try and find the time, I'd thought to myself "why not try switching to a four day working week?", and creating extra time to get things like chores done.

So I did!

I decided to utilise what little annual holiday I had left, to ensure the last quarter of the year would consist of only 4 day weeks and 3 day weekends.

Whilst to some - this was a crazy idea, "you're wasting your leave, just take off a month in December"... The thought of coming back to a myriad of slack threads and millions of DM's after a whole month off, riddled me with anxiety.

So, I opted to see if the 4 day working week would actually work for me, as a better solution to create a work life balance and to confirm whether or not this would be something that would attract me more to a particular company or be part of my considerations for job offers in the future, given that the UK has just piloted the 4 Day Work Week with a small group of businesses who plan to adopt a 4 day working week permanently.

First and foremost, What is the four-day workweek ?

In the age where flexible working is becoming more of a lifestyle than a trend, most folks are opting to only work 4 days a week, some with a loss of pay but some have been lucky enough to partake in <successful> 4 day working week trials around the world.

In order to redefine the corporate view of employee performance and improve employee wellbeing, these trials aim to achieve seven goals:

1. Productivity:?If employees can demonstrate the same level of productivity in condensed hours, shouldn’t this edge companies towards a shorter workweek? A four-day week could motivate employees and improve productivity.
2. Wellbeing:?A four-day week can help achieve an optimum work-life balance. More free time can improve mental health and physical wellbeing, which in turn, can reduce presenteeism and absenteeism. If employees are better rested and happier, this can enhance job retention and reduce burnout.
3. Engagement:?A shorter workweek may reengage workers by pointing their focus to tasks, performance, and productivity, rather than clock watching.
4. Recruitment:?The pandemic paved the way for flexibility to be embraced on a grand scale. Now that most restrictions have come to an end, companies will need to decide whether to extend this flexibility beyond the pandemic, arrive at a compromise with employees, or revert to pre-pandemic working. However, continuing to offer flexible working arrangements can widen the talent pool when embarking on recruitment efforts.
5. Sustainability:?If office commutes are cut short, you can reduce your carbon footprint and move towards a more sustainable and cost-efficient way of operating.
6. Work-life balance:?A shorter workweek gives parents more time to balance childcare responsibilities, in particular mothers. McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace report found that women are experiencing burnout at a faster rate than men. One in three women considered downshifting their career or leaving the workforce in 2021. Additionally, four in ten women considered leaving their company or switching jobs — and high employee turnover rates in recent months suggest that many of them are following through. Evidence shows that there are fewer females in senior management roles, which is often backed up by gender gap reports. The introduction of shorter workweeks means more women can aspire to senior positions without compromising work-life balance.
7. Innovation:?As a result of the pandemic, businesses were forced to adapt overnight to accommodate home working in the face of Covid restrictions, which put business agility to the test. Systems which still remain in place post-covid and face being removed or adapted due to back to office programs being launched, despite already being invested in.

Pros:

• Better work-life balance:?Giving employees an extra personal day allows them to work on personal projects, hobbies, and spend more time with their families. Working long hours contributes to stress, which in turn can have negative health effects on workers. Improved work-life balance helps employees be healthier and ready to work.
• Increased worker productivity:?Workers are more productive when given time to rest and relax adequately. Workers will be less burnt out from long working hours and will be more productive at their jobs. As seen from Microsoft Japan and Perpetual Guardian, workers are more productive during a four-day workweek.
• Competitive advantage for hiring:?A four-day workweek is also a competitive advantage for employees. Employees value work-life balance and flexible scheduling. Companies can advertise themselves as leaders in that space if they offer plans like this. Employees enjoy working at a company where management places employee satisfaction first.

Surely its not all good though?

However there were also several factors that I hadn't considered when I began on this journey that I found less favourable....

Cons:

• Complex to implement:?Changing from a five-day to four-day workweek isn't easy to do. Schedules have to be changed, policies adjusted, and workers briefed about the change.
• Increased pressure with deadlines:?Workers will have fewer days to complete projects while working reduced or the same number of hours per week. This can put increased pressure on employees to get things done when they have less time. Work from outside organizations can still come in on days that aren't worked, creating additional stress.

However, the pro's completely outweighed the cons for me personally on this one, as a happy workforce is an efficient workforce.

4-Day Workweek Statistics for the pessimist in you!

1.?15% of organizations offer four-day workweeks to some of their employees, up from 13% in 2017. (Society for Human Resource Management)

2.?The number of ZipRecruiter jobs that mention four day weeks is up 67% this year. (USA Today)

3.?40% of U.S. workers would prefer a four-day week. (Workforce Institute at Kronos)

4.?The average U.K. office worker is only productive for two hours and 53 minutes on a normal workday. (Vouchercloud.com)

5.?Schedule flexibility is nearly twice as important to remote workers (92%) as it is to on-site workers. (Owl Labs State of Remote Work)

6.?66% of surveyed workers wanted to work less than five days a week but only 17% of their employers offered that option. (Robert Half)

7.?Rates of burnout in workers across most U.S. job fields are 40 to 50%. (Business Insider)

8.?The average U.S. worker works about 38.6 hours per week. (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)

9.?22% of on-site workers feel overworked. (Owl Labs State of Remote Work)

10.?On-site workers are working longer weeks because it's required, while remote workers are doing so because they enjoy what they do. (Owl Labs State of Remote Work)

But why did this new way of working change my life?

By giving myself an additional day over the weekend, I realised that I needed to split these days into specific categories, I struggled so much with the additional time - what was I supposed to do with it all?! The categories I chose were socialising, life admin, rest & recuperation/self care days.

By organising my life into these timeboxes that allowed for me to relax and actually sort the things that had been on my to do list for, quite frankly, forever! My mind has been less cluttered, I've found myself able to be more sociable and my brain seems to be working more efficiently than ever - I'm way more productive at work and I'm noticing that my engagement during meeting's has probably increased by 50%, which is absolutely unbelievable, but the quality of my engagement is also increasing too, I'm finding my anxiety to ask the hard complicated questions has gone too.

Additionally, my quality of sleep is better, my anxiety is less, I'm so much less stressed about piles of washing or not having put the hoover around.. mainly because shockingly... I've actually had the time to dedicate to doing these things around the house.

But most astonishingly, noticeably, the quality of my relationships are better - my friends and family have noticed that I'm more social and willing to do <out side of the house/active> things as I don't have to sacrifice social time for life admin any more. They've noted that I'm more enjoyable to be around as my energy levels aren't being depleted by distractive, borderline obsessive, thoughts about things I should have done, but didn't have time to get to.

I've not been able to implement this through to next year though, which I am already dreading - I'm even considering asking to reduce my working week WITH LESS PAY or considering employers who do advocate for a 4 day working week - because I feel like I've benefitted so much from not working those additional 8 hours a week, which to me is something I'd never even considered before, but its just SO worth it.

I will end this with a caveat though, I am a single woman in her late 20's so not all of this may apply to you but its at least worth a consideration, especially with seeing so many benefits in less than two months, imagine how your quality of life would improve over a long period! Mind blowing, really.