Do you want to work less and still get more done? This episode is for you!

In this week's episode of the Happier at Work® podcast, my guest is Alex Pang, Director of Programs at 4 Day Week Global. We discuss the increasingly important topic of work sustainability and finding a better work-life balance. Alex brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table, drawing on his background as a technology forecaster and futurist. In this episode, we delve into the detrimental effects of overworking, societal pressures, and the fear of missing out on success.

Overworking and prioritising professional success over personal life has become an all-too-common issue plaguing our society. Although overworking may feel rewarding in the moment, it ultimately has detrimental effects on our long-term well-being. The fear of missing out on success and societal pressure fuel this problem, making it difficult to strike a healthy work-life balance.

As we collectively seek work-life balance and sustainable work practices, let us remember that change starts with each one of us. By joining forces and finding common solutions, we can create happier and more fulfilling workplaces where everyone thrives.

The main points throughout this podcast include:

- the difference between perceived productivity and actual productivity,

- a smarter, better approach to work that benefits both individuals and organisations

- practical steps to reduce distractions, incorporate rest into the workday, and implement effective work habits

- busyness does not equate to effectiveness

- the importance of making time for thinking

- rest and its role in developing and sharpening our physical and mental abilities

- successfully implementing a 4-day workweek

Connect with Alex Pang:

Strategy+Rest: https://www.strategy.rest

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/askpang

Twitter: https://twitter.com/askpang

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/askpang

Do you have any feedback or thoughts on this discussion? If so, please connect with Aoife via the links below and let her know. Aoife would love to hear from you!

Connect with Happier at Work host Aoife O’Brien:

Website: https://happieratwork.ie

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HappierAtWorkHQ

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happieratwork.ie/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happieratwork.ie

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm0FKS19I5qSlFFmkx1YGqA

Alex, you're so welcome to the half year at work podcast. I've been waiting for so long to get you on the podcast, so it's absolutely delight to have you on today. Do you want to let people know a little bit Bit about your background and how you got into doing what you're doing.

Sure. So, and thank you for having me on. It's, sort of it's great to Great to be able to do this finally. So, so my name is Alex Pong, and I am, director Of or the programs and consulting at 4 Daybeat Global, which is a nonprofit that, as the name suggests, is devoted to helping organizations transition to a 4 day work week or some other kind of shorter work week as is appropriate in their industry. And, so I am the person kind of behind, production of, sort of, the content for, sort of, for, national trials would have been in the news. I work with larger companies that wanna do this sort of more 1 on 1. And how I got into it was I had a book a couple years ago about the 4 day week movement That was really at that stage just emerging and only just beginning to become aware of itself as a movement. Right. It had been it was, you know, 3 years ago, you know, in the before times, It was a couple 100 companies, all of whom had or had moved to 4 day weeks On their own, not really rec you know, not knowing that other companies had done it. They were in all sorts of different industries around the world, Varying sizes, but they were all trying to sit all trying to solve the same sets of issues around recruitment and retention and work life balance and making work more Sustainable and more meaningful, and they were all solving them basically the same ways. And, you know, my professional background is or of, was that I had worked for a number of years as a technology forecaster and futurist. And there's a term of art in that trade called weak signals, which is, you know, Whenever you see something strange or really interesting happening in, you know, in several different places And it seems unconnected. That's a sign that there is something really interesting about to happen. And so or when when I you You know, when I, when I saw this, my sort of futurist bell, you know, bell started ringing. Mhmm. And it seemed to me that this was, you know, that, that I realized there was a story here worth telling. And then the final, you know, the final piece of the puzzle is that the book Shorter itself and that project was a sequel to Sort of a previous book I'd written about the role of rest in the lives of really creative and prolific people. And, you know, that book was about how Some of history's most prolific and accomplished thinkers, composers, scientists, mathematicians, Even generals and, you know, and and some famous business people had discovered the value of what I called deliberate rest As a tool for both restoring the mental and physical batteries that you, you know, that you spend down every day, but also as a source of sort of create of new ideas, as a kind of creative wellspring, and as a way of making work or or careers more sustainable than, you know, they are when you just sort of grind it out every day and assume that, you know, you'll sleep when you're dead. The challenge with that book was that it was really about, like, Nobel laureates and sort of people who had a lot of control over their time, not Everybody else, you know, who has to show up at work and deal with bosses, etcetera. And when and Shorter was part grew out of an effort to understand how The lessons of rest could be applied more widely for everybody. And the answer was to apply them at scale across an entire organization For everybody. And so that's the backstory to or the explanation of who I am and how I got here.

Yeah. Love it. Absolutely love it. And I suppose for me, where I'd love to to start is this idea of rest. And, like, I feel like it's something that's come up in a lot of conversations that I've had recently, rather than I think we've we've often got this message of exactly that I'll sleep when I'm dead. The hustle culture, you need to get up at 5 AM. You need to do all the hours. You need to focus. And I know, certainly, for me personally, When I'm getting close to feeling a sense of burnout or I feel like I'm, like, I'm actually motivated to do more. I I just need to get this one more thing done. So I'd love to kinda maybe explore this concept of rest, why it's so important, and what the learnings are for Everyday people, not the Nobel laureates like you were saying.

Right. Well, I mean, sort of to, to address these Issue slightly in reverse. But but if I think that the, you know, the lessons the lessons for Rest For Everybody are are really They're really universal in the sense that, so far as we know, there's nothing unusual about, you know, the, you know, the, Like the biochemistry or mitochondria of, you know, of famous scientists that makes them or of, makes them profoundly different from the rest of us at a, You know, in a at a sort of cellular level. So, you know, so what that means is that, the importance the importance of the value of, You know, sleep, naps, exercise, all of those good things is pretty universal. And the lessons that we learned from, sort of, You know, whether you are Ernest Hemingway or, you know, or, you know, or Beethoven or Toni Morrison, these are things that we can all learn from. It feels to me a bit like, you know, like, if I was Or about you know, if you're an amateur tennis player, you will never be as good as Serena Williams, But there are still things that you can learn from her about the game, about strategy, about how to train, and so on. And So but, the I think that the, you know, you know, There were a couple different roles that, rest turn out to play that are really important that I think are sort of underrecognized. Mhmm. The first the first one is that, you know, it serves as, oh, it serves in the short run As a source of new ideas and, importantly, as an immediate, you know, as an immediate sort sort of source of recovery. You know, to stick with the athlete's metaphor for 10 more seconds, one of the things that coach you know, that sort of smart coaches now sort of recognize is That rest is at rest and recovery are just as important as training for, sort of, developing and or, and sharpening both, Sort of physic you know, physical abilities, but also sort of mental ones required for or for for top performance. And I think that the you know, you could draw a parallel between Sort of the import of the importance of rest for top athletes and for sort of, and for sort of Creative people or anybody in a job that requires sort of judgments, deliberation, the ability to work with other people, empathy, All of these things that we, you know, that we tend not to think of as necessarily, You know, creative, quote, unquote, but are part of almost every job where you're interacting with another human. You know, at the daily level, it allows us to or to perform, you know, to perform those jobs better than we could Otherwise and there's more than a century of research that shows that this is you know, that, that, You know, our our capacity to do good work across virtually every profession declines once we are sort of Overworking. You know, so we can deal with short bursts of a couple weeks, but You know, but after that, our ability degrades substantially even though, sort of, we think we're still able to crush it. It's also important, You know, when you take rest seriously, it also serves an important kind of moderating function in that, You know, for people who are really passionate about their work, who or have like nothing more than, you know, sort of getting into flow or of Being engaged with ideas or, or or, or their tasks that There is a natural tendency, I think, to sort of try and do as much of that every day as you possibly can. And I think when you take one of the things that happens when you, sort of when you take rest more seriously and you recognize its value both for restorative purposes and for creative purposes Is that it helps kind of temper that fire so that it's it, so that it is less likely to be something that's, sort of that Consumes you when you're young, but rather become something that can sort of sustain you for, you know, sort of in a much longer career. And, you know, so, specifically, one of the things that I see, creatives who have a lot of, who have control over their schedules doing is redesigning their workdays around Periods of highly intensive focused work where they have no distractions whatsoever, where they're able to really Drill into their, you know, sort of their most important stuff. Charles Darwin moved out of London to The English countryside so that he could have more of this. Right? So this is, you know, this is well before sort of email and sort of text messages and, You know, and and the cornucopia of other distractions that we all have to deal with. But importantly, these periods of of intensive focused work last about 4 or 5 hours a day. And you do that, You can get through plenty of stuff and be done for the day because that seems to be about the upper limit of What you can realistically sort of do in sort of deep work focused mode in a 24 hour period. And then you spend the rest of the time, You know, we're to stick with Darwin. Or, you know, he would go for these really long walks on a path outside or about the the back of his house That he called his thinking path. And he'd spend a couple hours out there turning over ideas that he hadn't been able quite to work through when he was Sort of sitting in his, sitting in glorious isolation in his study. He'd come back from that. He'd maybe make some notes, and then the next day, would go back to work and sort of repeat. And, You know, working this way, working few you know, working few enough hours so that a department head or a boss would, You know, call him into the office and ask, you know, what's going on? You know, you need to you need to grind it out more. This is a guy who Changed the course of the natural sciences and the way we think about the place of humans in the world. He is not and he is an exemplar, but he is not unusual. That pattern of all of layering periods of deep focused work with deliberate rest. Right. Working really hard for about 90 minutes or so, taking a break, doing another 90 minutes, break, Maybe 1 more session, and then you're pretty much done. And, you know, that's pretty much the hard work of the day finished. That's something you see in the lives of Lots of writers and mathematicians and sort of other kind of pure knowledge workers. It's not something that other people are necessarily able to quite get to As consistently, but you still see that sort of recognition that or of, that those break periods In a way are just as important as, sort of, the periods when, you know, sort of when you are, when you're, Heads down and sort of working away on a problem, in part because and I think this is the last important thing about of, about rest is that that downtime is restorative. But if you look under the hood of what your brain is doing in these periods after you've been working really hard, you've still got a lot of ideas running around in your head. And let's say you go for a walk or or do some do something in the garden, that stuff is still in short term memory and Your creative subconscious then while you're doing something else, folding a laundry, cooking, whatever, Has an opportunity to kind of take that take those ideas and run with them. Right? To to sort of take its turn, Try different combinations of things. Try this approach to a problem, this, you know, sort of that approach. So even while your attention is focused on something else, Under the hood, what's going on is that, sort of, your creative brain is still, you know, is still working away on, Sort of on these problems. And, you know, sort of if you make a habit of this And you do it on a regular basis so that your creative subconscious can recognize that it has these regular periods in which to work is more likely to come up with or of a solution or at least a new approach to a problem that has eluded your conscious effort. And this is to go back to the or of to the idea of this be of these being sort of universals, not just things that are specific to very creative people. This is a pros this is a kind of cognitive process that we, that we tap into all the time. You know? I think we've all had the experience of trying to remember the name of the actor who was in the movie, in that TV show, and that other thing. And it you know, and You it's on the tip of your tongue, but you can't remember it. And then 5 minutes later, you're doing something else and pops into your head. Right? Yeah. Oh, that, you know, No. That was Scarlett Johansson. And that is what neuroscientists called the default mode network That kind of create a subconscious, continuing to work on problems even while your attention is somewhere else. And that same set of mechanisms when, You know, when given a sort of banquet of unsolved problems that sort of you've been working on, is Highly likely to take them up and if you give it space to make some progress on them. Mhmm. And so, you know, so I think that Sort of taking rest seriously and making room for it as a daily routine provides both of, Physical and mental restoration. It is a kind of modulator that extends the longevity of careers and allows you to do What you really love without it consuming you for more of your life. And finally, it also sort of boosts the odds that or provides another avenue through which you can, you can discover solutions to problems that have, that so far have eluded you. So, and really, you know, what I'm seeing in companies that are moving to 4 day weeks are It's a kind of recognition of, you know, the possibilities of the possibility that we can design we can design Working time and workplaces to give space for all of those things so that individuals benefit and so that organizations benefit. End of rant.

What I was gonna say, I would add to that society as well. Society benefits from this as well. You know? There's so much to unpack from that. And, you know, one of the things that I I suppose stood out for me is this idea of having time for thinking. And I think it's something that's so badly needed as a lot of organizations, but it's not necessarily given. And It's really hard to quantify that as well, and I'm kinda have this image of doing laundry or folding laundry while you're in the office. You know? I don't think you would get away with that too easily, But, you know, it's I suppose that that I have this overarching question of how do we make this work for Everyone, you know, a couple of things that I jotted down myself is, like, what does this mean practically speaking? What does this mean on a day to day basis for individuals And maybe for leaders in organizations, how do we build in more time for thinking? And then you were kinda talking about this Deep Work. Like, I buy into everything that you're saying, but you know? And it's great for these mathematicians and these creatives who are able to carve out this time. The reality in a lot of people's day to day is, as you mentioned earlier, the distractions. It could be the emails that are coming in. It could be the, you know, the bits of admin work. So it's great to have 4 or 5 hours to do the deep work, but what about the other work that also needs to get done as well?

Right. Okay. So I think that, there were there were a few practical things to recommend. And I think and One important preface also is that, you know, we often think that these things are These problems are sort of so big or so embedded in work culture that they are unsolvable because you have to change the culture, and then you can start to, Like redesign the workplace. My experience is that is that that's actually backwards. Right? That, you start with practice and culture Cult culture change flows downstream from it. In the several 100 companies that I've now worked with or studied, You know, none of them were trying to, like, reinvent notions of temporality for, you know, sort of the late capitalist age of The climate crisis or, you know, whatever. All of you know, they have very specific issues that they're dealing with. Right? Half their development team or or of the, you know, or 2 of their sous chefs, You know, quit in the last 6 months, or the founder had a heart attack scare and realizes that, You know, sort of they've been working 80 hour weeks for 10 years, and they've got 2 kids, and they're not gonna make it. You know, the company is not gonna survive if everyone keeps going this way, And probably they're not gonna survive, so you gotta make some radical changes. So the and Starting with the so starting with the practical stuff with the effort to deal with that, is where everybody begins. And then eventually you realize, wait a minute. You know, I'm actually thinking pretty differently about my relationship to or of work to time to productivity. So how do you so as a practical matter, how do you do this? And the answer is very a little tiny bit depending upon The industry, though it really is important, I think, to recognize that all work these days has an important creative dimension to it. Right. We have been working with, several nursing homes and hospitals, working with Sort of moving nurses and nurse managers to 4 day weeks. And, you know, number 1, talk about a profession that is overstressed, that is suffering from an epidemic of burnout. You know, in some countries, 50% of nurses quit with it you know, quit the profession within 3 years of graduating from nursing Wow. Which is you know? Yeah. Or, you know, at the very least, they move out of a hospital context and Mhmm. Sort of into something else. So, you know, The the most certainly, the most challenging parts of the field are really struggling, and the entire profession as a whole has shortages everywhere. One of the thing you know, one of the things that I've learned working with sort of nursing homes is that, you might not think of Nursing or being a nurse's aide is something that requires judgment and creativity, but it absolutely does. Right? You have someone with, You know, dementia, getting them up, getting them dressed, figuring out, you know, what their mood is, and working with that so that They can have a good day. That actually requires an awful lot of skill. And the problem that we and, that we have in, you know, too Too many societies is that we don't give that the honorific of creative work that sort of we give to, you You know, essentially, people who are on podcasts with lots of you know, with big bookshelves behind them, you know, or to For

anyone who's listening and not watching on YouTube, Alex is Skyrim himself.

Yes. You know, sort of, you know, I squarely fall in that sort of in the in the kind of Canonical description of a knowledge worker mainly because people like me have been the ones who've gotten to sort of define what knowledge work is, And we have defined it way too narrowly. But okay. So that's one of the reasons that this stuff is applicable across a wider variety of industries, you know, whether you are sort of, you know, a professional, you're a tradesperson, White collar, blue collar, salaried hourly. Okay. So one of the things in almost all of this, All of these workplaces is rule number 1, you know, or to protect the deep work, that There is. You know, just as, you know, just as individuals benefit from having periods where, you You know, they can really focus in and sort of ignore emails, Slack channels, etcetera. So to do organizations, and I think actually there's a little evidence that There's a multiplier effect when entire, sort of, groups do it. That partly, you know, when you know that nobody When you know that everybody else is in deep focus mode and nobody is bothering anybody else, you're a everybody is able to concentrate better. Nobody has to worry about either interrupting or being interrupted because you're all on the same schedules. And it's also a little bit like Going to the library during finals, right, when you're, you're you have that experience of being in a room studying with lots of other people. None of you are necessarily studying the same things, but being in the presence of other people who are concentrating really hard

Yeah.

Has a kind of, sort of, sort of social contagion

Yeah. Sort

of effect. So rec and I think that recognizing that as organizations that People are capable in those deep work periods of doing in 2 hours. You know, what would normally take Six semi distracted hours to do is, you know, and that people will feel better about the work, And be able sort of to do it probably be able to do do it to a higher quality is thing number 1. Number 2 is eliminate the distractions. Right? So I think, you know, there are lots of companies Who are doing things like having meetings only on particular days of the week or implementing rules that say that It's okay to be off email or that you you know, for most of the day, or that you should only check your email, let's say, at 10 AM and at 3 PM. And otherwise, you know, you you do not you're not obligated or expected to sort of interact with it because or of, for the rest of the day. That's not necessarily possible in every profession, but it is but if it's something that you can get away with, then, You know, particularly if your colleagues are doing it. And, honestly, our colleagues are the greatest sources of both, you know, sort of product they're both product tivity amplifiers and our greatest distractions. If you do it together, then those kinds of rules can have sort of real power. It's also the case that implementing those periods of deep work naturally kind of creates a sort of well In which the you know, in which people people are not going to be sort of interacting with, You know, with Slack, etcetera, much less Facebook or Zappos. And then the final thing is recognizing that there is that there really is an important social and Collective dimension to these problems and that the most enduring solutions come from collective action rather than from trying to, rather than trying to go it alone, that, you know, we the fact that we all I have these challenges of figuring out how to make work more sustainable in our own lives, of figuring out how to carve out time to actually get work done in offices that often are, like, You know, essentially, like carnivals of distraction, and to more effectively use tools that Sometimes want to redirect, redirect and commodify our attention so that they can sell it to advertisers. The fact that we all have these problems, You know, much less the ones around work life balance, dealing with children while building careers, etcetera, which are other universals, The fact that we all have these problems suggests, maybe, we should all solve them together. And, you know, What one of the other great lessons that either 4 day week company teach us is that by banding together, by finding common solutions, by finding, You know, by changing around the structure of the workday itself and the way that work happens, you are able to create solutions that are far more powerful, that are more enduring, that do not create zero sum games or put you in conflict with your colleagues, but rather create situations in which All of you are working together in order to work better, more sustainably, and I think, the evidence is now showing, to work happier.

Love that. You're speaking my language now, Alex. Working Yeah.

I'm trying.

This is it. I love the idea that you're talking about so social contagion and how when we see our colleagues doing something specific or changing the way they behave, then it's kind of an opportunity. It almost gives us permission, I think, to do that as well. Mhmm. Also, that they can be our greatest source of distraction as well, whether it's coming over to us in the office, you know, or being in an open plan and being impacted by noise and things like that, or just a pop up message on Slack or or whatever channel that you're you have active at the time. I think, really, really interesting, insights around that. I love this idea as well that you mentioned about practice. So putting into practice what it is that you're doing and not expecting to go through this entire culture change program. And then out of that culture change program, things are gonna happen differently, but actually rather more are organic where you put into practice what you're learning about how to work more effectively, Lee. How to do better work, how to be more focused, how to reduce distractions, and and work building in rest into your working day so that that then becomes the workplace culture as opposed to having a culture change program, for want of a better word, and then having that kinda come out of the culture change program. Love this idea of thinking differently about how we use our time and what it means to be productive. Because I think Oftentimes, we confuse being busy with being productive, and I'm guilty of that myself. It's so easy to get stuck in reactive mode and you're getting stuck into emails or you feel like you're responding to things so that you're you're actually really busy, but in fact, you're not getting The really important stuff done that's gonna make a difference for you in your career or for the business.

Right. No. You know, the pro and the problem with that is not that Part of it feels bad in the moment. Problem is that it feels good in the moment. And it but it is not good for us over the long run. And, you know, like, you know, like so many things that deliver a high but, or have turned out to come at a But turn out to or extract a extract a price later. Or if I think that the you know, we all Almost all of us have the experience of sort of getting a real charge out of, you know, work of Working hard early in our careers, demonstrating that we, you know, we can do the work, we can be the professional, we can be the, you know, sort of What sociologists at work call, you know, the ideal worker, the person who puts professional priorities over family life, is always available to Clients, you know, is the perfectionist, etcetera. But that you know, and the problem with that is not That it is, you know, ins it's not that it is instantaneously soul sucking, or destructive, but It provides enough satisfaction and works just well enough to convince us that, You know, we can you know, that this will make us successful if we can just keep it going, and everybody else is doing it. So right. You know, whatever what other choice do you have? The problem, of course, comes when the toxins from all of that build up and when our lives become more complicated Or when we simply get sort of older and, you know, the appeal of spending 12 hour days in the office is no longer Quite as great as it used to be. And so but I think that the, you know, that, that The the issue the issue with with overwork when we're young or those long hours is, You know, that's that they are they feel rewarding in a way even if they're not actually as productive. And recog and being able to disaggregate those things is, I think, a really important part of Learning how to think more clearly about our own work, about how our, you know, how our organizations operate, And find and thus making it possible to move to something that is actually smarter and better for sort of All individuals and for organizations alike.

Do do organizations that are putting into practice this new way of working or this kind of new way of thinking. Do they have something in common?

Great question. When the movement was smaller, they had more in common than they do now.

Okay.

I think that the, you know, the. Okay. So 3 years ago when Shorter when Shorter came out, I was looking at just over a 100 companies around the world that I'd sort of profiled in some depth. And almost all of them were small to medium sized companies. They were they were a couple with a couple 1,000 people, but most were in the, you You know, 20 to 200 range, let's say. The other thing that was important about them was that they almost all We're still run by their original founders or some member of the founding team, which was important because when you were moo at that time, when you were moving From a 5 day week or, you know, 6 day week to a 4 day week, that was a real you know, you needed someone with, like, the moral authority Or ownership stake to be able to say, yes. This is a big change, but we're just gonna do it.

Yeah. And,

you know, And who better to do that than a founder? I think that the you know, these days, it is I more than half of companies come Into the pro coming to our programs still wanting to solve those everyday existential issues. They've got, you know, their issue the Recruitment and retent retention challenge, burnout, work life balance, Those things. And then there are a smaller but growing number for whom the 4 day week is seen as a build on existing, let's say, wellness programs, other kinds of family friendly programs that the company has put into place, and they see the 4 day week as the logical next step in becoming or remaining An employer of choice. Another factor these days is that for for some is An effort to kind of rebound to strike a new, a new bargain around, work time and work presence. So it might be you got a 4 day you know, we want you back in the office 2 days a week because, honestly, there is certain kinds of work that really Happened best and most effectively when everyone is around a table looking at a prototype, and you can you know, we can we can get Through this review really quickly, if everyone sees the same things and also if everyone can see other people's body language and, you know, sort of Understand that whether someone is really enthusiastic about, let's say, a design change or an edit or whether they're mainly being polite. And the smart thing to do would be to spend another minute and try and dive in and understand, is there, you know, is there is there A better solution to a or to or to a problem that would satisfy you both. That kind of stuff is really difficult to do over Zoom. Mhmm. But If you are, you know, even for, sort of, empathetic employers, but it becomes really possible to do or if when you're physically proximate. And so A 4 day week may, you know, can, for some employers, be an opportunity to say, okay. The deal will be you get a 3 day weekend every week Forever. But, you know, but let's be all together in the office or of on Tuesdays and on Thursdays. And that's you know, and they may also be experimented with other kinds of, You know, or of forms of hybrid work or flexible work. And so this might be 1 of 2 or 3 experiments that they're running. Mhmm. But I think that's So, you know, there were so those are the main things that kinda bring bring companies into or of into the program. I think that, the other things that they, that they all share are these are not super laid back, You know, places that already have, like, incredibly flexible hours and, like, cool lifestyle, these are not people, like, selling surf surf wax out of the backs of their vans down by, you know, the pier. Right? These are law firms. These are, Nursing homes account you know, of professional services, places that have very high standards that, you know, where pea that attract People who want to do good work, who are probably a little too perfectionist for their own good, and who can easily be sort of ground up and burned out by, sort of, the, sort of, by the By these systems and by the work that they really like. The ones that's that succeed also are ones, I think, that managed to do a couple things. One of them is, you know, as I'd said, everybody has to work together in order to or to make the, or to To make to make a shorter work week a success. And a shorter work and the 4 day week really is something that is, Like, endorsed from the top, but executed from the bottom. So, you know, you need the approval of the CEO Or or to the founder in order to make it happen. And very often, it is the CEO or founder who is The 1st person to seriously say we should take a look at doing this. But, you know, no boss and certainly, you know, no consultant, knows everybody's work well enough to or have to redesign it for them and to tell them how to do it smarter.

Right? So,

You know, so you need to give people the space to experiment, to try new things, to, you know, to fail sometimes, To learn from those failures and then to get better. What that requires is, in turn, an approach, you know, what management people call transformational rather than transactional leadership. You know, transactional, You know, transactional leadership is mainly about sort of small gains and kind of maintaining the current sort of working within the current system. Transformational leadership is about is much more about creating space in which people can do great work that is meaningful for them With a high level of autonomy. And you need all of those things, the flexibility, the autonomy, The freedom to fail and to learn quickly in order to make you know, to do something as dramatic as redesign the workday and redesign sort of work processes. And in order to do to do those things, you need to sort of unlock the the Sort of the skill and knowledge that your employees have. You know, anybody who's been in a job for more than a couple years or in an industry or Profession for more than a few starts to develop a list of things where if they were in charge, You know, would be different because, you know, honestly, the way we, you know, the way we do things is Because we've always done you know, we've always done this thing this way.

I think everyone everyone has no opinion on that, don't they? What they would do if they were running the company or what they would do friendly.

Precisely. And the 4 day week is an opportunity to try some of those things out and to put them into practice. Yeah. And so I think that the that, you know, Having, you know so 4 day successful 4 day week companies are sort of spaces led by, sort of, The transformational leaders that give their employees the opportunity and the space to sort of redesign Sort of their work together. And I think that's you know? And whether you're talking about a restaurant Or, you know, a a law firm or a factory. Those are the things that I see over and over again That make the difference between a successful trial and sort of one that is not.

Yeah. I I have a question coming back to what you mentioned about professional services because that's the area that I came from. So we're very much reliant on client, and we're delivering stuff to clients, and We're on contracts which are based on time. And I know certainly from you know, and I've talked about this in in previous episodes with, with Andrew and Charlotte from the the founders of the 4 day week. In relation to professional services, how do you account for things like that? So the examples I think we had or that we were looking at were law firms and accountancy firms that are done by billable hours, essentially. Now we had Different kind of contracts in place, but essentially it boils down to the number of client facing time or the number of hours of work that you completed for a client. How do you factor those kind of things in when you're working when you're, I suppose, transforming to this kind of model.

Right. Okay. There are a few professional service firms that, move from hourly billing to value based or project based billing before implementing I mean, it's the way forward, I

think, is the value based. Mhmm.

Definite I mean, it's it's it it's got it's got a lot going for it. I mean, you know, clients like the predictability, their, you know, etcetera, etcetera. However, not every firm does this. And what I dis and what I okay. So within the company, within the firm, What I see is, a couple things happening. You know, 1 is The 4th is that moving to a shorter work week offers an incredibly clear set of incentives to tighten up processes, To reduce, you know, admin time, non billable hour overhead sort of work, whether that is, No. Outsourcing it, automating it, figuring out what stuff you can simply actually not do because people never read those reports. And so that's one source of time savings that gets you to sort of a 4 day week without, you know, sacrificing clients. Another thing is that there were systemic gains. Right? You have a big reduction in, unwanted losses or, you know, unwanted turnover.

Yeah.

Which in turn means that your head of people and culture is not having to spend as much time on the road recruiting people. And that 6 months that you spent training someone isn't lost 18 months later when, you know, when they leave. Or Just as importantly, if you are, you know, let's say a specialist law firm, or some some other sort of professional services, If you've got those, you know, 1 or 2 people who are 1 of 10 people in the world who are experts in, you know, this important subset of This industry and, you know, they burn out and they have to go, you know, into rehab for 4 months. And all of a sudden, your 2 top clients are, you know, scree you know, we're screaming at you. This stuff you know, this work isn't getting done. How are you going to make this right? Mhmm. And so, Basically, what this means is that there, there is a greater degree of stability in your capacity to do the work and to build the hours. And so even in places that see a little decline in the number of hours billed in any given month, The total number across the year goes up because, you are able to better predict your supply of labor, and You'll have fewer and and you've got fewer surprises. On the client side, In talking to about, at this stage, 250 or so professional service firms about this issue, I have heard One story of 1 client who said a current client who said, this isn't gonna work for us, And 1 prospective client who said, you know, I want someone who's gonna sleep with the phone under their bed. Yeah. That's just, you know, that's just that's just who I am. Yeah. Incredibly, even in places like, you know, law firms, advertising agencies, PR, clients are some of the biggest supporters of 4 day week experiments. It needs to be explained properly. Right? I think you need to lay out for them that You're not doing this because you've hit, you know, sort of revenue issues, and therefore, you know, this is part of this is part of cost cutting, which is Much less of an issue these days. I think in 2018, let's say, that that was one of the first questions that would have come to mind. Right? Is this is this Part of financial retrenchment. But that it's a positive, and you explain how that's so. But also explain you know, make clear that, you know, that if there is a genuine emergency on Fridays or what have you, That, of course, people are gonna pick up the phone just like we always have, that we have thought through the big contingencies. We'll have someone on call if, you know, sort of on Fridays to pick up for, or if if we've got a customer service line or, you know, sort of Some other sort of some other sort of SLA level expectations around technical support, etcetera. And that as far as, you know, you, the client, are concerned, you know, sort of your life isn't gonna change. Right? We're gonna do the same work when it we're gonna hit the same deadlines, etcetera. If you can do that, I think Clients respect it. Yeah. You know, number 1, it's a it you know, when you think about it for a minute, who's more professional? Right? The firm that needs 6 days a week To get the job done or the people who need 4 days a week to get the to get the job done. Yeah. Number 2, These are people who are dealing with all the same issues that you are.

Yes.

And particularly if You're not in a purely transactional kind of business. If you have relationships with these folks, they know something about how you work, you know how they work. If you can figure this out, then there are lessons maybe that you can teach them about how to solve Those problems around recruitment and burnout and retention and sustainability in their workplaces as well. And so I think that, you know, that So long as you position it correctly that clients don't see this as, you know, a kind of suspicious move that betray that, You know, betrays professional ideals

Mhmm.

But rather, you know, almost as an experiment that you are undertaking that Almost on their behalf. Right? Something that is gonna make you better, but also can point the way to solutions to Problems that they have as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Alex, before we wrap things up, there was a question I had from I'm having read Shewerter. And one of the things that kinda stood out for me, and it's one of the things that that I can still picture where I was listening to that book when I heard the words, It's this idea of creating policies where people, are encouraged to take breaks, are encouraged to take shorter hours. But, However, the policies may exist, but people are not taking them. People are not. Mhmm. You know? So it's not just about creating this policy. It's about ensuring that people feel safe to do. It's so they feel like they're not gonna be judged, that their career is not gonna be hampered. And I think in in that particular case, it was the policy is open to both men and women, but women were the only one taking advantage of this flexible working policy. Because I think from a men's men men's perspective, they were thinking this is gonna impact on my career. From a woman's perspective, they very much welcomed the flexibility. So any thoughts or, you know, maybe things have evolved since then a little bit.

Okay. So, yeah, what you're referring to is the Hoffman Reid study of, sort of, Attitude flexible time in a sort of management consultancy. And or for people who haven't read it, the the thirty 2nd summary is they were looking at the ways in which men and women created flexibility within their jobs or or to balanced balanced work and family demands. Short version is the women followed the rules and went you know, took advantage of, like, the 80% or part time or flexible work policies, and they were punished for it. Whereas the men did it kinda under the table. Right? They traded off projects so that, you know, so that the so that, You know, during during the kids' baseball season, they were not having to fly to Frankfurt every 2 weeks to deliver status updates to, you know, sort of whoever GmbH, and they were rewarded for it. Further, the assumption the, sort of the Sort of sexist assumptions within even sort of this fairly progressive place was that if the you know, if a woman was out of the office. The assumption was she was picking up kids even if she was pitching clients, whereas a man being out of the office was out pitching clients even if they were pitching softballs. And then finally, when when these results were presented to upper management, the response was, this is really fascinating. We didn't know this. How do we help the women behave more like the men? It's like okay.

As opposed to

how the

men behave more like

the Let us Let us please take a step back here and sort of rethink a couple things.

Yeah.

Now one of the things that I so, does this happen in does this happen or does it happen as much in or if in in 4 day week companies? And I think that the answer Sort of, the, the or of the the tentative answer is no because everybody is doing this and because Everybody's success depends upon being able to work together in order to create that kind of flexibility and that sort of free time. And so, you know, my, you know, my my ability to go home Thursday is not dependent upon how efficient I am Individually at increasing my efficiency by 20% or whatever. It depends not just on my ability to sort of, you know, sort of to Sort of to work smarter. But my ability to or of, to respect your need to focus and sort of Our common understanding around how we behave during focus time or how we approach meetings and other kinds of communication So that we can all get the work done, so that we get out of the office, end the day Thursday, and enjoy a 3 day weekend. The other important thing about it is that it starts at the top. Right? It's, you know, the way the other way that you keep people from thinking that, this is, you know, this is a trap or that I will be able to, Sort of to, to, to accelerate my career by not participating is if you see the boss doing this, that's a pretty powerful signal that Actually, the rules have changed.

Yes.

Right? Yeah. And I've had, you know, I had 1 boss say, you know and it's not just about Following the rules. It's a it's also that this begins to rewire your understanding as a leader, You know, as a manager around the relationship between professionalism and sort of working time, I had 1 CEO who said that, you Before we implemented a 4 day week, I, you know, I liked hiring people who I knew Could put in long hours and didn't have a, you know, didn't have a personal life. Mhmm. Right? So, you know, essentially coding for, you know, a preference for hiring, you know, unmarried men who were a few years out of university.

Yeah.

After, you know, after implementing a 40 week, I realized Anyone can sit in a chair for 12 hours a day. That's not a skill. Right? What I need what I need is someone who can be here for 6 hours, who could be super focused, who is professional, who can get the work done, who can deal with one thing and then another, Knock these things out, and then, you know and respect everyone's time, be empathetic, but also a little ruthless when necessary, and then Move on and have a life. And who are the people, it turns out, who have that combination of professional capacity, experience, You know, sort of both hard and soft skills. It was sort of the working moms in his sort of company. Right. These were the people, number 1, who tended to be a little older, who had more experience, who, you know, who very often Had been just as productive working, let's say, your 3 or 4 day weeks as the people who were full time but just weren't recognized for it.

Yeah.

But who in a 4, but who in an office where everyone is working 4 day weeks go from being Slightly marginal figures of, you know, kind of questionable or to, you know, questionable professional dedication To being exemplars. Right? These are, you know, these are now the people who have the skills that you want to emulate, who are working in the way that you wanna learn how to work. And so I think that the that, you know, turning this, you know, turning this from An individual choice that then reflects or is interpreted as reflecting, you know, your own Profession you know, your own, sort of, professional dedication, your obedience to the I or to the standard of the ideal worker In a traditional 5 day week environment, the sort of place that Hoffman and Reid were sort of, sort of were studying, Versus a 4 day week environment in which everybody is working together, not individually, to achieve these goals Means that, you know, sort of means that the the impact, the outcome, is very, very different. Collective action is the most potent form of self care, it turns out.

I love that. Brilliant. You know, it sound it sounds kind of like we're all in this together. We're all kind it's not individualism and I'm competing against you for time or for clients or for resources or whatever. We're all working together towards a common goal, which might be the 4 day week. But In addition to that, it's the common goal of what the organization is trying to achieve as well, with a very direct link between what people do on a day to day basis and what the organization is achieving, has achieved, is trying to achieve. We love this conversation. The question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, what does being happier at work mean to you?

For me, it is about, It's about doing it's about flow and meaning. So in the short term, you know, sort of the short term, it's about flow. Right? It's about being able to do work that is Extremely absorbing. That makes good use of my abilities that, you know, I can sort of sink into and lose myself in for or for a few hours. However, you know, flow is something that you can achieve like playing video games. And so Flow itself is not enough. You need, for me, work doing work that also has meaning, that is going to have some longer term, more enduring value. And one of the, you know, one of the the great The great satisfactions of the work that I'm doing now with 4 Day Week Global is that it pro it, you know, it provide it Very much provides both of those things. Yeah. Right? A constant stream of really interesting problems to solve that, you know, I think are going to that Win solved, help make people's lives demonstrably better at, you know, at potentially a very big scale. So that's what that's That's what being happy at work means to me.

Love it. Incredible incredible work. And, Alex, if people want to reach out, if they want to connect with you, if they want to find out more about you or 4 Day Week Global, what's the Best way they can do that.

Well, 4 Day Week Global, you know, is at 4 day week global.com. And then I am Or on I'm not doing that much on social media partly because my, you know, my my my favorite local platform has been taken over by a madman. So, and I really haven't my

dream to

you know? No. I mean

And has been renamed as well, strangely. Yeah.

So we won't we won't say anything else about it. But, the you know, and also I'm thinking about a new book, Kind of sketching things out, so I'm consciously trying to do do less there. My own website is called Strategy and Rest, and it is, www.strategy.rest. Rest now, very conveniently for me, being a top level domain. And then, you know, I think though the as with any writer, you know, I think that the or, you know, My my most important most important speech is actually my work you know, is actually the books. So, you know, those are those are rest and shorter. Though if you're in the UK, there's a new edition of shorter called work less do more, Which actually I have right here, which came out sort of just a couple months ago.

Really?

So with a fabulous new Fabulous new cover that's kind of inspired by mid mid 20th century Brazilian, sort of architecture and design Yeah. Which is actually where I lived as a kid. So Sort of. It's a it's a really appealing cover

cover for me. Yeah.

So but, you know, sort of, if you really wanna find me, Rest and work less, do more is where is where to go.

Alex, thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time today. I absolutely loved this conversation.

Oh, thank you. It's been a real pleasure.