Latest / Best of Business / Dougal Sutherland: Is the UK's 4-day working week really a good thing?

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Dougal Sutherland: Is the UK's 4-day working week really a good thing? · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: It is nine minutes past eleven and Google Sutherland from
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  Speaker 4: Calder Doogle Cura Jack just funny about tamarillos. My wife
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  Speaker 4: eats sliced tamarillos with salt on toast with salt.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, I didn't know this is an option, so
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  Speaker 2: so did she have any sweetness there or whatsoever or
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  Speaker 2: just the just bread and tamora.
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  Speaker 4: Where you're just toast. So it's like, let's that's I
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  Speaker 4: like to have a little bit of sugar. Yeah, So
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  Speaker 4: do I balance out of the tartness? Yeah? No, so
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  Speaker 4: it's I guess different strokes for different folks.
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  Speaker 3: Man. That's very interesting. Okay, thank you do. God, I'm
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  Speaker 3: I'm intrigued by that.
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  Speaker 2: I wonder if the saltiness and the tartness gives you
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  Speaker 2: a different kind of Amarillo experience.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've never been brave enough to try it. I've
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  Speaker 4: got to say.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Hey, So in the UK they've that they have
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  Speaker 2: been talking more and more about workers getting increasing worker
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  Speaker 2: rights to request four day weeks, right, yeah, and this
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  Speaker 2: is one of those things that has been bubbling away
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  Speaker 2: for a few years. I know, the perpetual trust thing
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  Speaker 2: in New Zealand was it was, you know that we're
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  Speaker 2: kind of a pioneering organization when it comes to the
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  Speaker 2: four day working week, But on the face of it,
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  Speaker 2: is it actually any good?
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  Speaker 4: Well I I saw that article, I went, oh, that
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  Speaker 4: sounds like a good thing, you know, four day working weeks,
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  Speaker 4: and and and then I read it and I went, oh,
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  Speaker 4: I don't think that is a good thing, because actually
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  Speaker 4: it was the right. What they're talking about in the
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  Speaker 4: UK is the right or the ability to compress a
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  Speaker 4: five day working week, so forty hours into four days,
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  Speaker 4: so you work four ten hour days. And I read
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  Speaker 4: that and I went, oh, I don't think that's a
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  Speaker 4: great idea at all. I think that's a good pathway
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  Speaker 4: to burn out really, And it was one of those
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  Speaker 4: I think. So, I mean, you know, if you were
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  Speaker 4: if you take into account travel time and that kind
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  Speaker 4: of thing, if you're working a ten hour a day,
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  Speaker 4: let's say that's eight till six. I think that's ten hours.
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  Speaker 4: You know, you're probably leaving home at seven and getting
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  Speaker 4: home at seven, so that's there's not much room left
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  Speaker 4: in a normal day, and then you're going to have
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  Speaker 4: Friday to kind of recover. And it's sort of like, well,
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  Speaker 4: what's the point.
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  Speaker 3: That's very interesting?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, see, I mean this is probably going to come
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  Speaker 2: as a shock to you. I have been accused of
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  Speaker 2: being a bit of a workaholic from time to time. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that's just the of the one of the arrows that
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  Speaker 2: I have to be here, And yeah, I reckon it
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  Speaker 2: sounds great. Interesting, Well, if you said to me because
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  Speaker 2: I kind of do that anyway. But maybe that's just
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  Speaker 2: me being a bit of a workerholic, you know, like
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  Speaker 2: I kind of like what times I start with Yesterday,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I started works. I probably got to
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  Speaker 2: work at eight yesterday and I finished at seven forty five.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean that wasn't necessarily to day.
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  Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean, yeah, that's that's yeah interesting because yeah,
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  Speaker 5: for me, that will be a bit of a nightmare.
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  Speaker 5: But but I think I wonder if what you know
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  Speaker 5: for you, maybe I wonder if it's one thing that
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  Speaker 5: you've got a lot of passion for your work, and
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  Speaker 5: that's you know that old saying if you, if you,
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  Speaker 5: if you, if you find a job you love, then
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  Speaker 5: you'll never work a day in the life, day in
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  Speaker 5: your life kind of thing, because you're always But I mean,
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  Speaker 5: I think and if we're talking at four day working weeks,
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  Speaker 5: and you mentioned the Picture Guardian earlier that I think
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  Speaker 5: that's a much better way. And that's the one hundred
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  Speaker 5: eighty one hundred rule where you get work one hundred, No,
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  Speaker 5: you get one hundred percent of the salary, you work
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  Speaker 5: eighty percent of the hours, So that's thirty two hours
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  Speaker 5: a week.
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  Speaker 4: And the company expects one hundred percent productivity. So and
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  Speaker 4: every time that we almost every time, like ninety percent
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  Speaker 4: of the time that an organization tries it, it seems
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  Speaker 4: to work on almost every metric that they use to
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  Speaker 4: measure it. Yeah, and I know, I know some people
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  Speaker 4: that are doing that and everything. I've got a friend
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  Speaker 4: who does it, and I said, oh, how's it going
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  Speaker 4: every time I see him, and he goes, ah, that's great,
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  Speaker 4: he said, I get this whole extra day off to
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  Speaker 4: do life admin on a Friday or whatever day he chooses.
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  Speaker 4: And yeah, it's just like, oh, now that's a great
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  Speaker 4: I think that's a great thing that you get all
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  Speaker 4: the still get all your pay, but you only do
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  Speaker 4: four days in a week, which sounds much better.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that does sound good. I mean that's amazing if
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  Speaker 3: you can do that. I think that one hundred percent.
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  Speaker 2: Productivity thing is the is the vital bit, right, Like
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  Speaker 2: if you're you know, there's kind of an expectation, there's
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  Speaker 2: almost like a yeah, I mean the firm sort of
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  Speaker 2: needs to be really you know, be really clear on that, right,
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  Speaker 2: like if you are at we are expecting you to
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  Speaker 2: be working.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and look, and that's part of the rationale
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  Speaker 4: behind it is actually that we're not all that productive
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  Speaker 4: in our days when we're at work. So if we
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  Speaker 4: can increase the productivity of the time that we are
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  Speaker 4: at work, the reward or the payoff for the workers
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  Speaker 4: is that you get a day off and the company
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  Speaker 4: still gets and almost every when you look at the research,
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  Speaker 4: almost every organization that does it, their productivity often increases.
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  Speaker 4: And it's just that it seems to me a sort
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  Speaker 4: of the best of both worlds that the business gets
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  Speaker 4: what they want and probably more of it, and people
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  Speaker 4: get what they want, and it's like, wow, it was
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  Speaker 4: kind of like, yeah, I'd like to do that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: but you do have to do quite a bit of
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  Speaker 4: background to actually figure out what productivity is at your place,
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  Speaker 4: because most of us aren't sort of in a factory
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  Speaker 4: producing widgets that you can sort of easily count. So
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  Speaker 4: you know, for example, for your job, I'm not sure
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  Speaker 4: how measure product of the.
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  Speaker 3: Ty No job probably would wouln't fit it.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, but well, you see everybody says that everybody goes,
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  Speaker 4: oh no, no, I wouldn't work for us because we have
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  Speaker 4: to do a B and C. And actually I think
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  Speaker 4: that's a bit of a myth. I think that that
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  Speaker 4: if you sit down and nut it out, and it
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  Speaker 4: might take up you know, six months to a year
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  Speaker 4: to figure it out, but I think most businesses can
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  Speaker 4: probably do it. It doesn't mean that everybody has to
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  Speaker 4: work a four day week. Some people work a five
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  Speaker 4: day week, but they you know, they have shorter days,
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  Speaker 4: so shorter a fewer hours every day. So I think
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  Speaker 4: it's an easy thing to do. People go on, I
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  Speaker 4: wouldn't work for us, wouldn't work for us for the reasons.
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  Speaker 4: But don't get fooled by that method.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, do you know, the more I've thought about it,
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  Speaker 2: just for speaking, I actually think I'm not into the
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  Speaker 2: I'm not into the four times ten hours because, like
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  Speaker 2: you say, it's the it's the transition time from going
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  Speaker 2: into work into not being at work at home, and
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  Speaker 2: but you're basically your entire days gone, and like you
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  Speaker 2: get no time with family and stuff. So yeah, actually
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  Speaker 2: I think maybe that isn't going to work.
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  Speaker 4: But you probably do it from time to time, right,
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  Speaker 4: but just not all day every day.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, doing it like one or two days, you know,
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  Speaker 2: every fortnight or something, might be. It might be might
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  Speaker 2: be survivable. But if you're doing it the whole time,
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  Speaker 2: then yeah, I think it would just really grueling. But
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  Speaker 2: I think you're heading on a really important point. And
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  Speaker 2: this is one thing that I love in organizations, and
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  Speaker 2: I'm fortunate to have it in my job, and I
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  Speaker 2: get it. Not everyone is lucky enough to work in
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  Speaker 2: a job or an industry where this is possible.
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  Speaker 3: I reckon.
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  Speaker 2: There is so much to be said for workplaces that
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  Speaker 2: measure success by outcomes rather than inputs. And so so
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  Speaker 2: rather than saying to employees, you know, you are going
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  Speaker 2: to be doing these hours and this, they constantly measure
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  Speaker 2: everything by outputs, so like, this is what we expect
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  Speaker 2: to be achieved, and if it is achieved, then you know,
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  Speaker 2: and you're leaving it quarter past four or good, it
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  Speaker 2: doesn't matter. And we're gonna we're gonna encourage your culture
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  Speaker 2: whereby you don't feel guilty for that. No one's judging
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  Speaker 2: so long as the work is done. We're going to
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  Speaker 2: meet you on that.
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  Speaker 4: And that's great, you know, absolutely, And and that sort
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  Speaker 4: of one hundred eighty one hundred four day working week.
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  Speaker 4: That one thing I love about that, which is connected
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  Speaker 4: with what you were saying, is they basically give the
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  Speaker 4: solution to the people who are doing the work and saying, hey, look,
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  Speaker 4: this is what we want to achieve, and let's figure
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  Speaker 4: it out together. So it isn't management saying Okay, this
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  Speaker 4: is what you've got to do and this is how
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  Speaker 4: to do it. It says you, guys, figure it out.
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  Speaker 4: You're clever people, you know the job, let's figure it
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  Speaker 4: out together. And almost universally it comes off that people
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  Speaker 4: feel better and enjoy work and keep producing. Probably even
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  Speaker 4: more so, I love the sort of democratization of it
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  Speaker 4: where everybody gets to say and how it can work?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Right, So what do you reckon people and organizations should
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  Speaker 2: do if they're interested in trying this?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think you do have to do
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  Speaker 4: quite a bit of setting up, and we've worked with
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  Speaker 4: organizations who have done it before, and often there can
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  Speaker 4: be like at least a six month maybe twelve months
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  Speaker 4: leading time, and I might be exaggerating that slightly, but
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  Speaker 4: you do have to sit down and figure stuff out.
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  Speaker 4: So you know, how do we measure productivity? How? You know,
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  Speaker 4: how can how would if we have to provide coverage
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  Speaker 4: five days a week, how would that work? There's also
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: things to nut out about how do we make our
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: time at work more efficient? And there's often lots of
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: work that goes into having efficient meetings, Like many of
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: us get stuck in sort of these endless meetings which
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: which seem to have no huge purpose. And so I
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: think the main thing is do your research, you know,
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: go online. There's lots of examples that you can look
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: at and and and start having some conversations about it,
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: being aware that it's going to take a little bit
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: of time to set up.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great advice. Thank you so much, Google.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: I love how Doggle gets us thinking, you know, it
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: gets us thinking about these sorts of things.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Dogle somethland there from Umbrell Well Being for.
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