How To Make Four-Day Workweeks Work…And Cut Turnover

July 31, 2023
Richard Finnegan
Articles

Four-day workweeks feel trendy, what we used to call a fad, but data is driving companies to open their minds to it and some to actually doing it. Google “four-day workweek” and you’ll find an abundance of reporting, and the most current postings center on two recently released reports:

ResumeBuilder.com polled 976 business leaders to learn that 20% already have a four-day workweek and another 41% said they plan to implement one on at least a trial basis.[i]

And non-profit firm 4 Day Week Global surveyed 41 companies across the U.S. and Canada that had implemented shorter hours last year, to find that weekly work hours had stayed reduced from 38 hours to 32 hours one year later.[ii] So the novelty didn’t wear off.

It’s easy to see why reducing the number of workdays would be popular with employees. In one study of those who’ve made the switch, almost half said they’d require significant raises to return to five days while 10% said no amount of money would make them switch back.

And on the company side, work satisfaction is up, productivity is up, recruiting is easier…and for our purpose here, turnover is down. And during these days of extreme workforce shortages, every company is seeking a recruiting edge. This could be “it”.

So What’s Not to Like About Four-Day Workweeks?

Lee Corso is the college football announcer famous for his line, “Not so fast, my friends”. Lee lives a couple of miles north of me here in Orlando so I’m naturally a fan. So if Lee was reporting on work schedules versus football, here would be his objections:

Will executives really take the plunge based on outsiders’ data versus what they see with their own eyes every day?
And do you pilot first, likely in the department where you best predict success…implying that if even it works here, it still might not work everywhere?
And how could you make it feel fair if some departments work four days while other departments work five?
And what are the employee relations consequences of raising company-wide expectations with a pilot that you then declare a failure, so no employees’ schedules change?

One of the reports contains this seemingly-simple sentence which is instead a daunting challenge:

Proponents of the four-day week contend that companies can trim a full day from the week without a loss of productivity.

One for-certain risk is that white-collar workers would still work as many hours as now, and bristle at the sound of other employees discussing the activities of their now-longer weekends. Especially since so many of our white-collar workers now work from home and would be stretching themselves invisibly. Productivity goals can’t change so their work must get done.

And this points to the most-widely reported “solution” for reducing work hours which is…wait for it…reducing the time we all spend in meetings, raising these questions:

Do we really have to have this meeting?
Do regularly-scheduled meetings need to happen as often?
Must any of our current meetings be scheduled for so long?
Should meeting invitation lists be trimmed so only those who will really contribute or benefit must attend?

Two of the common anti-meeting fixes have been (1) schedule all meetings to end in 30 minutes and (2) remove the chairs so everyone must stand.

But those who work on factory floors and in call centers don’t spend as much time in meetings as white-collar workers do. Nor do nurses or CNAs in healthcare, although their schedules have been atypical for years, in part to retain them longer.

How Would We Reduce Weekly Schedules “Without A Loss of Productivity”?

Let’s then imagine we manage a manufacturing facility that tracks its production numbers daily and weekly. And our objective is to reduce the currently-scheduled number of weekly work hours while keeping pay the same. For some this means reducing work from five days to four days, for others from six days to five days…or maybe even five days to four and a half. Here is one way to proceed:

Choose the one metric that best represents weekly productivity, and establish a floor that must be met for the next 12 months.
Challenge your top team to develop tactics to reach that weekly metric in less time, for example reducing from 5 days to 4 requires achieving that same goal in 80% of the time.
Challenge every policy, every work process, and each piece of equipment to ensure they maximize getting production out the door.
Do the same with schedules, ensuring the right number of trained employees are onsite when they need to be.
Establish two employee retention goals, (1) to reduce current annual turnover by 20% and (2) retain 90% of new hires for 90 days.
Train managers to conduct Stay Interviews at least once per year with each employee and twice with new hires during the new-hire goal period.
Address every employee performance issue to either resolve it or terminate that employee.
Do the same with supervisors and managers, top to bottom, but especially for the first-line supervisors.

Need help establishing retention goals?
Schedule a conversation with me at DFinnegan@C-SuiteAnalytics.com and we’ll discuss the numbers and needs you should have to evaluate your retention goals. We work with companies in every type of industry to cut turnover by 20% and more by building trust and accountabilities.

Then if you believe you can achieve your goal, tell your employees your plan, the goal that must be achieved, and a possible implementation timeline if the total team can both achieve the goal for one month but also project to continue achieving it for an additional 90 days. But the full team will return to its original schedule if the productivity goal cannot be met.

Every employee on every level must be all-in to achieve the newly-stated productivity goal…but if they cannot achieve it, they must work as many days hours as required to do so…with the goal of ultimately committing to a reduced schedule.

But if your top team believes you cannot achieve the stated weekly production goal regardless of the changes suggested here, play safe by stopping all discussion of reducing weekly work hours, at least for now.

Currently Workers Have the Upper Hand, So Be Prepared To Consider Offering 4-Day Workweeks

Who among us would have predicted that today nearly 100 million U.S. workers would be working from home?[iii] The reason is not because we all believe working from home increases productivity, but instead because workers have the upper hand. And data from the U.S. Census Bureau tells us this won’t get much better for at least the next decade.[iv] So we had better be ready to offer reduced workweeks if that becomes the next hot employee benefit trend.

Let’s close with a reminder that the #1 reason employees stay or leave is how much they trust their boss. Implementing four-day workweeks gives us a little slack in that an employee might stay for a jerk boss a little longer, but only until they can find an otherwise similar work situation elsewhere.

[i] https://thehill.com/business/4052078-more-than-half-of-us-employers-ready-to-try-four-day-workweek/#:~:text=Most%20workers%20love%20the%20idea,of%20work%20in%20fewer%20hours

[ii] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-27/four-day-workweeks-are-good-for-employee-health-study-suggests?in_source=embedded-checkout-banner

[iii] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/real-estate/our-insights/americans-are-embracing-flexible-work-and-they-want-more-of-it

[iv] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.html