- Welcome to The Journey!
I have a question for you.
Is a four-day workweek right for your business?
- Yes Emma, it is.
- I agree.
So companies all the time are looking into,
"Hey, how can we increase employee productivity,
and just like, the overall experience?
How can we enhance that for our employees?"
- Yeah, I love working for GoDaddy,
but honestly the best part is the unlimited snacks,
and just that little bit
just makes me so much happier to come to work.
- Yeah, definitely.
And, if they can just add to the snacks.
Like, hey, get Monday off once in a while.
Increase productivity and overall satisfaction.
- That's a win-win right there.
- (laughs) Yeah.
Also, I know companies are questioning
not just the hours do we cut back
to do the four-day workweek.
but also, just increase pay, more money,
also more vacation time.
I know that works really well for me.
Whenever I come back from like, a little vacay,
or get that bonus, I swear my productivity
goes through the roof.
You hear that, boss?
Give me a raise!
- It's funny how that works.
- Yeah.
Another thing to consider,
I start off just thinking like,
oh, companies can go to a four-day workweek.
But another thing that I've seen
is companies actually just increase the amount of hours
or decrease the amount of hours in the day as well.
I mean, for me, I think I'd prefer, like,
the three-day weekend, but what about you?
- I agree, I'd rather work more in a single day
because I'm pretty much already doing that already, mostly.
- You're already there. - Exactly.
- You've done the commute.
- Yeah, why not have a day
where you can stay at home in your pajamas.
You don't have to leave.
That's what I would prefer.
- Totally, or your robe.
That's what I do.
- So let's talk about why businesses
may be considering a four-day workweek.
Those millennials.
It's really millennials, generation Zers.
They all sort of do realize how important
that work-life balance was to their overall mental health.
I know when I come back from, you know, a nice vacation,
like we had talked about,
you're so refreshed and you're ready to get to work.
But if you're going home and you're stressed,
every single day you're overworked,
you're coming in and you're really not at your best self.
- Definitely.
Yeah, I notice when I started to kinda shift towards
this four-day workweek, like,
in my personal life four-day workweek,
I notice just the people I was around,
and my relationships, family, friends, etc.
Like, I was a more balanced person,
and millennials like myself,
like we're super in tune with that.
We don't wanna isolate ourselves
from our families and our friends.
So I think we're on to something
with cuttin' back hours of the days of the week
on the work thing.
- Yeah, and if you come into work with the right mindset,
you're so much more better at your job and you're--
- Productivity.
- Exactly.
- So, some businesses,
when thinking about like, productivity
and how to increase it,
they've actually put some research into this.
And they've seen lowering the work day
to--this is shocking--three hours.
Three hours of work a day.
- Yes please. - I would be off in an hour.
That has actually increased productivity.
- All right Emma, it's time for us to go clock out.
- (laughs) Yeah, I know.
So we're done.
All right, so now I want to dive in
to the pros and cons on four-day workweek.
One that comes to mind, super obvious: less time commuting.
Whether you're doing public transportation,
or you're in your sweet whip, less time doing that.
All for it.
- Yeah, and you can also save money as a business
whenever it comes to heating,
electricity, AC, any of those things.
- Save the environment.
- Also another pro, you get to spend more time
with your family, or your friends, or your pets.
I know my dwarf rabbit Jack,
he definitely appreciates when I'm around more,
and I think that's the same for cats and dogs
and animals of sort.
But definitely, think about your family
and actually having you around more,
and what that does for your own mental stability.
- Yeah, my dog Lanie is definitely pro-four-day workweek.
- Yeah, more time at the park with mom,
more quality time on the walks,
quality walks-- - It's only fair.
- It's only fair.
Also aside from pets, back to us, adulting.
Like one thing that stresses me out
about five day workweek that I, like,
have to commute to and back from,
is when am I gonna fit in other things?
Like going to the doctor, you know?
Trying to stay healthy, just making other appointments.
Like my lease on my car is ending soon,
and that used to stress me out so much
when I had a five-day workweek,
'cause like, when am I gonna fit this in
to like, go return this vehicle that I don't want anymore.
But things like that, adulting.
- Right, and you don't want to spend your whole weekend
taking care of, you know, those adulting things.
- Yeah.
- Then you don't even get a weekend.
You feel like it's over with,
and then you're having to try and schedule
in those doctors appointments throughout the week,
and it's just bad. - And then all of a sudden,
it's Sunday, and you get the Sunday scaries.
- Do you ever get the Sunday scaries?
- Sunday scaries are real. - It's a real thing.
And then Monday you wake up, and you just like,
"Anxiety,"
and you didn't have that time to like, reset.
So you go into work, productivity decrease.
On the decline.
- And one advantage if you are considering
a longer workday, like ten hours,
so that you can have a four-day workweek,
is that you know, you have more employees there
to take care of all those different opportunities.
So I know I work in Texas,
and so there's people and clients
that we need to talk to, in all the way
from the East Coast to the Pacific Coast.
- Ah. - So.
- Timezones. - Exactly.
So whenever you're staying later, you know,
you can handle more of those Pacific Coast clients,
and earlier-- - Hawaii!
- More Eastern time.
Yeah, Hawaii, that's like, five, six hours.
- Is it? - Yeah.
- I just remember calling Hawaii later,
'cause I'm on Pacific time,
and I would call Hawaii later in the day
when I was a sales rep. - Oh yeah.
- Yeah.
- And they're like, just waking up, it's great.
- They're like, starting their day.
So research shows that actually the 32-hour workweek
resulted in zero change of productivity.
- Yeah, so it's not always necessary
to be in the office for 40 hours
just because everyone else does it, right?
- Yeah.
- So they tell me I have to be there
five days out of the week,
and I have the same amount of work to do.
I'm just gonna make it last throughout five days.
If I have four days to do the same amount of work,
I'm gonna be a lot more productive,
and work with the times that work for me.
- So this reminds me of when I was
in a psych course in college,
and they were talking about productivity
with how students studied
and what they got done in their day.
And it was actually interesting because moms, you think,
"Oh my gosh, they're so busy,
where will they find the time to study?"
But because they already knew going into it like,
"I gotta plan around my kid, picking up from school,
dropping off at school, lunches, etc."
They actually more done within--
- Yeah, basically, Superwoman.
- Yeah, basically superwoman within a timeframe.
Also, better attendance.
You know, you only have to be there four days.
So there tends to be an increase
in actual attendance with that versus a five-day workweek.
- Now I guess we gotta kinda talk about
some of the cons as well.
So let's- - Pros and cons.
- Yeah, we'll be fair.
All right, so you know, of course
everyone has to be on the same page in your office,
and I know it's really different for everyone, right.
So one thing might work better for one person.
- Totally. - And the other
might work better for us.
- Yeah, and those employees that are like,
"No, I'm sticking to that five-day workweek."
They might risk the chance of them feeling alienated, right.
'Cause maybe a small percentage of your employees
are still coming in on that Friday or that Monday,
that fifth day of the week,
and that can be definitely a con
when it comes to this four-day workweek versus five.
So another con about the ten-hour workday,
might be too long.
Keeping you away from your families,
or moms away from kids.
- Yeah, exactly.
So if you're a human mom, or a dog mom.
You know, you have to think
about those kinds of things, right.
So I have my dog Laine, so I'm not gonna leave her,
you know, in the house, for ten hours out of the day.
- True. That's not really practical.
And more importantly, if you have a kid,
that may not work with like, your daycare schedule.
- Right. - So these are things
you have to keep in mind.
- Definite con.
Also very interesting,
I notice with California, where I live,
is that if you do in fact have an employee
that works past eight hours,
the company has to pay overtime.
So can you do that?
Does that work with your schedule?
Can you afford to?
That might add up.
The last con is you may have to hire more people
to make up for that increased flexibility, so.
- Good point. - That's more benefits
that you're having to pay for,
more training, I mean that's a lot of money.
- That's adding up.
- Exactly.
- So some trials have shown that this
four-day workweek can in fact be a good move
for your company, and there's some research too.
If it's not implemented properly,
it's not a great change.
But overall, if your team's on board
and you communicate this, I say give it a shot!
- And now you know some of the pros and cons
of that four-day workweek.
So be sure to like this video.
Go ahead and share it with everyone, including your boss.
- Also comment below.
Which pros and cons do you like?
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This is The Journey.