The 4 Day Week

The 4 Day Week will help you improve your personal productivity and that of everyone around you by outlining a powerful technique to reduce the workweek by one day and implement other changes to help employees be healthier, happier, and more focused.

One day Barnes boarded an airplane heading to London from New Zealand where he lived. He had no idea the impact the copy of The Economist that he was about to read would have on him and many others.

He came across an article that told of research on office workers in the UK and Canada. The startling figure that Barnes discovered was that in a typical eight-hour day these people were only productive for 2.5 hours at most!

Part of the reason this was so shocking was that it brought to mind all of the people he had working for him. If these studies depicted the fate of the regular office worker, weren’t they struggling with the same problem? How would he fix it?

That’s when his mind began forming an idea. If he switched to a four-day workweek instead of five, he would only need to get an extra 40-minutes of productivity from his employees to get as much out of them in four days as they were now doing in five.

It was also the birth of his 100-80-100 principle. He figured that his people should get 100% of their compensation working 80% of the time if they could keep up 100% productivity.

Trials in his own company showed promising results. When his staff got the extra day to relax and be with loved ones, their well-being improved. He noticed they had a better attitude, were more productive, and cared more about the company’s goals.

So now you’re probably already convinced that this is a good idea, but don’t go rushing into it. Establishing the four-day week in your company is tricky. You’ve got to do it right if you want it to have the positive effects you seek. The overarching goal here should be to communicate efficiently. That means keeping employees engaged by explaining what’s going on but also getting their input often. Barnes gives four main principles to help you do this right: Be transparent about the purpose. Involve staff members in the process. Remember employees needs when seeking to improve productivity. Don’t make executive decisions without input from your team. Let’s dive deeper into each of these, starting with transparency. Make sure that everybody knows that the real reason that you’re doing this. Some of the benefits you might aim for could be to improve their well-being and productivity or to attract and keep top talent. Next comes staff member involvement. Ask…