It’s simple. We work too much. There’s evidence that shows we work too much and it’s not a fun time for anyone. So what would a world with shortened work hours and no loss in pay look like?
Pretty damn good. You’d be a fool to disagree.
The weekend is a sacred thing. We live for it, we get our rest from it, but the two-day weekend as we know it has only been around for about a hundred years. The history of the work cycle across the globe is actually quite varied and at times, it gets pretty wacky.
Pretend for a moment you’re back in Ancient Roman times and the days of the ‘nundinae’. You get one day off school a week and it’s market day. You’re only allowed to set up shop or for a real treat, you could go to the market and spend your coin. There’s also church if you’re lucky. Not much of a day of rest, but it could be worse.
Then there’s England in the 17th century, where we see a glimmer of the beginnings of the two-day weekend. Along with Sunday, workers sneaked Monday off (they called it ‘Saint Monday’), to go to church and worship. And by ‘go to church’ and ‘worship’ we mean, ‘go to the pub and get pissed’. Unsurprisingly, workers liked this. Bosses, not so much.
Goodbye, Saint Monday. You’ve been fun.
None of this really sounds ideal but don’t worry - it gets worse.
Fast forward to 1929 and the Soviet Union, where Yuri Larin, an economist and politician with a little too much imagination (to put it politely) decided it would be great to abolish weekends altogether. This aimed to both solve the current post-revolution economic problem and help to crush the power of religion. Fun! Thankfully, this only lasted a couple of years and workers returned to having one day of rest per week.
While work cycles still vary across different cultures, the two-day weekend idea that was first instituted by an American cotton mill in 1908 has stuck. But can working conditions become even better for us as time goes on?
We know that 2023 is not where history ends, and there might be hope for us yet. Over the last five years, a not-for-profit community called 4 Day Week Global have organised a series of pilot studies around the world to trial a four-day workweek. We swoon at the thought.
There are varied ways that companies are rolling out the shortened work hours strategy, but the good news is that they’ve seen increased productivity and a huge boost in general well-being amongst workers across the board.
Is it realistic to run the workforce this way? Can we still generate profit within a shortened week? Could this really be the way of the future?! We’ll let the stats speak for themselves.
SOURCES:
A Failed Soviet Experiment Offers A Warning To Today’s Burnout Generation, in AOGA Eye on Design
Four-Day Work Weeks: Current Research and Practice, by Rex L Facer II and Lori L Wadsworth, in Connecticut Law Review
Soviet Experience with Shortening the Workweek, by David W Bronson in the ILR Review
Who invented the weekend? BBC Bitesize
Working Hours, by Charlie Giattino, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser, on Our World in Data
PRIOR EPISODES MENTIONED
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Rod 00:00
This is simple. We work too much. There's evidence that shows that we work too much. We could work less than two at least as well, if not better. It's all
Will 00:12
a matter of a bunch of errors in the Soviet Union.
Rod 00:14
Name 40.
Will 00:17
indeed up well, some of them, some of them were catastrophic.
Rod 00:19
Name 10.
Will 00:21
Yes, some of them were evil, definitely evil errors. Some of them were just dumb.
Rod 00:29
Where they?
Will 00:29
Iin the late 1920s, Stalin and the Politburo had a couple of problems that they wanted to solve. Two in particular, I'm gonna just draw on here. One was an economic problem. The interesting thing in the 20s I think that the Soviet economy was just booming, like, they'd come out of the revolution. And they were industrializing, at a super rate, they were just factories and everything. And interestingly, they were booming so much that that was like, How can we have more boom, more? Boom, not too much. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, more boom, like, pumping out tractors? Can we pump out more tractors? We can be the tractor capital of the world, really? Anything fragrant post revolution, Soviet Union, for actors don't totally touch us tractors, the endless line of tractors. We don't need them. We put them right around the corner and back in for recycling into the truck. It does remind me when I told you the story of the Soviet space. Space Robot, the space tractor that came out of the tractor factory. Anyway, problem number two was I don't know if you know this, but the atheists communist revolutionaries who led the Soviet Union then Yeah, not so keen on religion.
Rod 00:52
Really atheist?
Will 01:31
Shhhh yeah, but communists are competing power that has a hierarchy. Yeah, exactly. So not even not even we don't like the God thing. No, but also we want to crush the power of religion. Yes, we are. We are not just each to their own. No, they are like no, not to your own. No more religion not to any own. They wanted to they wanted to crush the power of religion. Now, you wouldn't think that these two problems were related. But suddenly in 1929 a revolutionary right. Economist ambassador and occasional Minister guy I know Let me guess seaot ago Grace Niko, no, don't don't guess name Slow, slow. If you guess names, you end up racist. That's the only way you can be racist that way. I can't be racist against Russians like crush my people first. That's true. That's true. Okay, fair enough. His name was Yuri Larin. I was close. I just just as a as an aside, Lenin said, he's a very capable man and has a vivid imagination. Imagination is a very valuable, valuable asset. But Comrade Larin has a little too much of it. I would say for example, that if his stock of imagination were divided equally, amongst all the members of the Communist Party, there'll be very good results. But until we can perform this operation, comrade Larin must be kept away from the State Administrative Planning and Economic Affairs. Wow, that's not even damning. We're only a little bit of price. It's clearly like Lenin is like, Okay, this guy is on the team. But he's just a bit wild. Watch the fellow? He's just a bit to a message my crazy cousin. He's a bit nuts, Anway Larin. proposed a solution to both of these problems at once. Right. So his plan, and it's a it's a Russian word, nepreryvka, anyway, which Google translates as uninterrupted work, or more simply, almost simply, we should abolish weekends. So how would his plan work? Larin proposed that the seven day week be ripped up. We're not doing that calendar anymore? No. And instead of the seven day week, we're gonna have a new five day calendar.
Rod 03:45
Every day Monday.
Will 03:46
Yeah, but just just first of all, he renamed every nine days these days didn't quite catch on when one went to Atlanta was one of them. The others, the others the most metal name for the days ever or could hammer sickle Yes, party and trade union trade union, Soviet as well, miss, but I just could you imagine a world where the days were called Hammer mobile, sickle sickle. And what's your least favorite day today, the union party that is battling anyway, workers, workers would get their normal seven, seven hours a day for four days out of five, and then you get the day off. So you're gonna do so you still get a day off? We're not We're not endless working nights. And so have your five days a week, you get four days work one day off four days. But but here's the thing. You're thinking, How is this making the factories work harder? Or how does this kill religion? Here's Loughran, stupid genius. Excellent. Instead of all having the same day off, workers would be randomly assigned one of the five days Yes, they will have their day of rest. So they will given a series of these calendars that they're really quite beautiful objects. Where each day was color coded. Yeah, there's like there's like the red the blue the green.
Rod 05:00
It's like a high school timetable. You know, you just had days one to seven, I hadn't had a high school had an eight day cycle. Okay, so Monday didn't matter. This is like day 1234567 or eight. And so the rotation of the timetable was quite a bit there 10 days in a fortnight, so you would be back to your high school, it was kind of both the same and different, because it was a fancy expensive one, which is pretty much it's kind of like the Soviet, then the rich, they come back on each other. Maybe, maybe, anyway, all the workers would be randomly assigned a day off out of the five. So wonderful.
Will 05:38
Memorize your color. And you will always know your day of rest. So you'd look at the you look at the year, and you can see all the blue, the blue ones that that's my day, I will remember. Yeah, exactly. Now that there were still a few national holidays, just five, but the rest of the rest were randomly assigned. So what it meant for the factories is that of your workforce, one in five, I've got a day off. But you've got 80% of your workers all the time. So you can just have a factory that always has always ready to go. So it's doesn't doesn't need runs five days a week, yeah, five days or five days a week, or into the future.
Rod 06:09
The important thing is to make sure that husbands and wives and stuff have different days off.
Will 06:14
You might be guessing some of the problems here. Like you might when it comes to weekends, I think very hard times oh, it's weird. spoiler, spoiler listener. This is no longer the calendar in either the Soviet Union or or in any world oriented. didn't last forever. But yes. And the key thing is, there'd be no communal day for church. Yeah, so only 20% of people have the day off. So church can't really do anything beats impossible to have a service with only 20% of the people. Now Stalin in his cabinet, they were initially a little bit skeptical of the idea. There's like, one why, yeah. But nepra Rivkah caught on in the press, which is it's really weird that the press were bullying the Politburo leaders into doing this. The Press weren't completely organs of the state, then yet, I think I think there was a little bit of independence at the time. But they weren't they were super keen on communism, like they would be more communist. Yes. And so they were saying this is a great socialist idea. Yes, we should absolutely use this five day week thing.
Rod 07:17
And the one thing it definitely isn't, is Western looking. Therefore good.
Will 07:22
So Stalin approved the plan. Yes. August 1929. They rolled out a bunch of calendars to all of the workers around the Soviet Union and said, We no longer have seven days a week, we have five days a week, and you get a random color day off. And that's a whole Soviet Union. Today, it changes. Yeah, fuck you. So there might have been like a trial period where they trial the few factories first and kept going. Like, I wonder, as you guessed, well, problems instantly, like on day one. And again, this is far more independent than I would imagine. A letter published in the in the Pravda, which is the, you know, the Boston newspaper said, What is there for us to do at home? If our wives are in the factory, our children are at school, and nobody can visit us. So yes, you guessed it, right. They are literally so random, random day. So you might have you know, there's even evidence that people at the time, they would, they would write people's colors in their address book. So you'd know, oh, this person is a green person. I can hang out with them. Oh, this one's a purple person. I can't do anything with them, except on nighttimes or something like
Rod 08:27
that perfect utopian system. Just what color shape are you for today wise. the social engineering by accident is insane. It's but it really is, you know, this recipe fabulous
Will 08:42
when you have absolute power. And you just go Sure, sure. Of course not. There would be no benefit to weekends other than church. And so let's just roll on with the factories
Rod 08:51
So I've got an idea. Got a social idea, and I want to check it out. Let's see. Oh, the whole country. I'm just gonna do it all at once. Because I can roll out Yeah. What's the trial period? Well, we thought about it. Okay, everybody tomorrow, this?
Will 09:04
That's what they say about those communist countries that can act fast. get shit done, get get shit done. Not always sensible shit.
Rod 09:11
That's so seductive. though. I used to say when I was a psych student, what I really wanted to do is end up working for like McDonald's corporate headquarters because no ethics committees, sure. And they'd want you in my head. I'm like, you could do whatever you wanted. You could fuck with the restaurants and see what it does to people.
Will 09:24
So are you saying that you could be like Politburo member in some sort of communist psychology? Yeah, Nirvana where you just get to roll out what?
Rod 09:32
Not member? Comrade Chief comrade, Chief?
Will 09:34
I'm guessing it wouldn't be perfect. No, no, it'd be a terrible idea. I shouldn't do it. I totally lost it for a while. The people are socializing only with their same color groups. And as they said, The Days ceased to matter. Like there was there was no they lost their original names. They lost the hammer and sickle day. They were just called either day. 12345 Or they would just go with the color
Rod 10:00
So, this is blue day and so, yeah, so fucking Mr.
Will 10:05
So that lasted from 1929 to 90 June 1931. Yeah. So about two years. Eventually they decided, okay, let's give everyone one day back two whole years, two whole years, that's long enough to really know how they know calendar because can you imagine? You're like, Where the hell are we up to you lose all sense of rhythm?
Rod 10:25
I mean, look, I know days of the week are arbitrary. Now what must have been fun for international travel? It actually continued longer.
Will 10:32
So what they did in 1931, they added a sixth day they said, Okay, let's have a common holiday, everyone, everyone gets to see their friends on one day. But otherwise you get a second day that's randomly amongst the five so that lasted in so the lucky buggers who got them consecutively and everyone else Saku but stupid as it was. It does point to the deep dive that I want to do for you today into the history and the future of this magical thing that I know you love, and I love to the weekend. I got a little spoiler for you. Yeah. I'm pretty damn excited for the future here because there's ways things are headed. There's something coming, I reckon that unites both Karl Marx and Richard Nixon. Welcome to the wholesome show.
Rod 11:25
The podcast it spends its days relaxing in the swimming holes.
Will 11:30
I'm Will Grant
Rod 11:31
I'm Roderick G Lambert's. Stop with the dirty talk. I mean, we're recording on one now, but we had to go to work this morning, which is very confusing.
Will 11:43
It's weird. I really do. I was talking to someone the other day. Weekends are sacred. I think that. Well, but I think there's something really nice about a weekend. Yeah. Part of the reason I like them so much is because they're too short. Obviously. You covered them even more because they're scarcer. I wanted to be longer. Yeah, obviously, I think the three day weekend is not only the future, it just makes sense. Let me tell you about that. Please do. So the idea of having one day off per week, or per weekly thing, let's call them per weekly thing. Time. So because because not all cultures have used the seven day gob. That's ancient. Yeah. So the ancient ancient Jews, I think goes back to like at least 600 BCE. Like we're talking two and a half 1000 years. They've had the Sabbath prove the horrors What proof for well pre thought remember Thor is post Jesus or his post Jesus. It doesn't make me sick. It makes me weirded out. That's Odin, Thor, all of them. I'm worried that you're weirded out makes me say two and a half 1000. Yeah. So they've been they've been having a seven day cycle with one day off for the Sabbath. Yeah, without day off. It's for religious observation. No working. Yeah. Ancient Rome. They had an eight day Joby. Yeah. It's weird. Isn't it?
Rod 13:01
Is it just weird? Because we used to seven. I mean, why not? Eight, why not an even number. As you only have five fingers. He's looking at your hand. Fingers. I'm trying to think of like, looking down expecting somebody that's telling
Will 13:13
You what I've been telling you about numbering systems and 12 is way better system than 10. So on a 12 day week, I would take 12 a week but but I'd need Saturday off. Yeah, at least they Yeah, something like that.
Rod 13:22
Streaming six straight days on 12 minus seven is less. Isn't that six?
Will 13:31
Yeah, ancient Rome. They had the the nundinaenoon. That was one day off, you know, not going to school. You go to the shops, or you set up shops, that kind of thing. All religions are the only two options that's going to shops or setting up shops, market day. Anything else you're not allowed or go to church or the equivalent of worship Apollo French Revolution. They were a bit ourselves. They went with the 10 day. Decade. Deckard DS. Oh, yeah, they had one day off. So one of those ds ds or something. But the idea of a two day weekend. That is that is way way more recent than that short. So the first glimmers of the weekend came in something called Saint Monday, which is, which is basically the 17th century version of a sickie. that didn't have sick days, but it's
Rod 14:26
I feel like the circuit 17th century most days were sick days anyway, probably for most people probably well, I can tell you a sick day. That means I'll never go anywhere, basically always rotten
Will 14:36
but they call me at St Monday. So basically, this was the idea that they just take Monday off and get drunk in the pub. And they say I'm I'm worshiping st Monday or I'm venerating st Monday. Right? And I
Rod 14:50
Get pissed?
Will 14:51
Yes, yeah. So so most of the time a lot of people got paid on the end of the week, Saturday, you know, they've, they've done their seven days of work with so five days. Six days of work, they do whatever numbers numbers, they go to church. And then they want to do some drinking. And so So Monday is really good.
Rod 15:10
So I've already seen potential. Yeah.
Will 15:13
It seems like this was a pretty well established pattern. Not that people all did it all the time. This is French. This is English. But I think there is definitely an English tradition here. But I think there is definitely other countries doing this as well. It's not like everyone was doing it. Like there's, there's this quote from Benjamin Franklin. He would not be pro a day off. What do you know? No, he there's this little thing. I never took a saint Monday when I was a young worker. And it's like, alright, friends. Wangka. Exactly. series. It was one never. But it was definitely a common thing that people would do they go. Now doesn't have any more work. Obviously, workers like this. Boss is not so much. Two reasons. Obviously. They're losing all of Monday. Yeah, but it means there's a whole bunch of hungover people on Tuesday. So they're like, we don't get good workers here until Wednesday. So it seems like things started to change for the weekend. Towards the end of the 19th century, it seems to have been in the industrial north of Britain. So you've got a bunch of places where they've, they've industrialized, and they're working six days a week, they're doing Monday through to Saturday, they take Sunday off church. But you've got this problem with the saint Monday. So what bosses thought is okay, what we can do is give them half the day off on Saturday. Yeah, so they get paid at like lunchtime or something like that. Then they can go and get paid or get slaughtered as much as you want. Then double bonus. They hung out for church. Perfect. And then they come to work perfectly on Monday refreshed and ready to slip through the what is it evening Vespers. So this is when the sort of first idea of the Saturday, Sunday sort of weekend started to come about the the first mention of the term weekend was in a British magazine in 1879, where they're sort of starting to say, the the end of the working week, when you get a call. Yeah, exactly. In the week, it was a it was a day and a half. It was Saturday afternoon and Sunday. But the idea was that this was this was a bracketing out more than one day where people can go, okay, oh, that?
Rod 17:17
Well, I gotta say, at this point, I am a fan of the idea that the reason that they started to give at least a half day off was because people drank these people into submission, or drink the bosses into submission, we just drank that often and hung over that much that they find them in our screw take half an extra half day.
Will 17:32
it seems something like that. It seems like there is there's clearly agitation from unions here. But But I think there is we're just gonna get drunk. And either you give us the day off and make it easy, or will turn up shit face still and do what we do. So the next development was 1908 when the first actual five day workweek or two day weekend, was instituted by a company in America. So it wasn't Ford. Coming to Ford in a second for all four dozen Univa. Yeah, totally. Now, this was a New England cotton mill. So they had I can't tell here if it was the workers fighting for this, or the bosses saying let's just do it. Or if it was a combination, it seemed to have been the agreement. They had a bunch of Christian and a bunch of Jewish workers. And they said, Alright, we got Sabbath, and you've got Sunday for church. So how do we how do we Let's just all of you have the time off. And then the factory can just work five days more solidly. So we got to get the first motion of a two day weekend. So the next 119 26 was, as you suggested, Henry Ford, okay. In some ways, Henry Ford is called the father of the weekend, not because he was because it clearly was happening a little bit in the UK, and clearly at this other mill and a few other places. But in 1926, Henry Ford ushered in just by fit, I don't know how much his workers were fighting for it or whatever. But he was, you know, he had it. He had a huge workforce. I just said, Alright, you'll get a pay bump. So you're getting paid pretty good wages now that were a fair bit above. He brought in a $5 workday. Exactly. And they said and five days a week, so he kept the pay bump. And so they ended up being paid more, while they're being working fewer hours, send
Rod 19:18
someone to think about that these days.
Will 19:20
just like almost just you hold on. That's that's, that's why I was being very nebulous. Now. It's, you know, the reasons for this. Some people are saying this is altruistic. And I think altruism is a dumb term here. But But what he was thinking, of course, is that he thought his workers would be the middle class citizens who would be able to buy his cars he wanted, he wanted them and absolutely to buy his cars. But he also said, Alright, if they have more time to use it to go away on weekend trips, things like that, then they will be more enthusiastic. So they'll also I'll get better workers by having, you know, working five days a week and you get a two day weekend. By paying more, but also they can consume more. So he was, he was fucking clever. There's no question or coming maybe is a better way? I totally, totally, I think his he's clearly super anti Union. But he did a bunch of things that are in a union oriented direction. So better pay better conditions, I think but also better time is clearly a goal of the
Rod 20:23
to his credit, I suppose he really was like a mathematician about it wasn't whether he didn't give a shit either way, how it affected people? And if it was good, fine. Yeah, as long as it worked for the bottom line, but at least he was kind of, in some ways less bias than other people
Will 20:35
I think he was pretty enlightened about what the bottom line meant. And you know, and this is this will come through this a little bit, that a worker who is more refreshed can do more than a worker who is you know, how many hours we've gotten a week 168, who was working all of those hours, supposedly, so then suddenly, the depression happened. So that was brought in 1926, then by 1929, the depression is in and a bunch of people, bosses, politicians, unions, workers are saying, hang on, maybe we can do something here about reducing hours for everyone will keep more people employed. So distribute the hours reduced the hours, so so suddenly, instead of working like 60 or 70 hours a week, if we work maybe 40 hours a week, that's, that's, you know, give that half of a job to someone else. So suddenly, the sense of weekend just really takes off. In the UK in 1933. One guy from the boss of the boots Corporation, chemist, yeah, I think the chemists now I think the chemists, he'd built a factory. I don't notice it was just too efficient. Like it was pumping out so many of whatever his things were, that it would reduce the value. So it's like, oh, what can I do here? I can I can just give people fewer hours, keep them at the same pace, because I've got that efficiency. And, and suddenly, yeah, efficient. So so suddenly, 1933 you get the UK, you get America, you get companies that are going, okay, the best solution to this is to reduce hours, keep the pay the same, and everyone gets a weekend we can, and we can enjoy life
Rod 22:06
That's like modeling it too efficient. That's why too efficient was definitely a problem for us. Now for I've been accused of many things.
Will 22:14
No, but if you if you've got a tractor factory, yeah. And I do in America, not not a Soviet tractor, John Deere, because there is no problem with unlimited chapters in the Soviet Union. I mean, if you've got a tractor factory, and you're putting out so many tractors that tractors suddenly become worth, like $1 Each instead of $5 $10,000. Yes, then there's no point it's you're reducing your own profit margin. Oh, I get it. So by 1940, this was signed into legislation in America, and then around the world between 1940 and 1960. Countries, just everyone just goes, I get it cool. You know, it does a whole bunch of things at the company level at the individual level at the economy level. So companies get increased productivity and reduced absenteeism. Because, you know, there's workers actually get renewed so Monday, because we've been given exactly, at the individual level workers, you know, that they're happier, they're more relaxed, and at the wider economic level, more people are kept in work, and they're spending that money. So everyone around the world just went weekend. Goddamnit.
Rod 23:17
So it's clear, then I know you're gonna get to the obvious thing is, the more days we have off the better for industry. That's, that's, that's unlimited all the way. I agree. So just to the state of the weekend now with pay
Will 23:30
from about the 1960s most countries in the world had adopted a weekend that is pretty much like we know here in Australia, or you know, in America, it's the it's the Saturday Sunday weekend. So Western Europe, North America, most of South America, Africa, China, Japan, everyone, a lot of people are working working on the Saturday Sunday, we diverse kinds of cultures, very diverse kinds of cultures. I think some may not have had a tradition of unified day off before. And then with international markets, they just went alright, let's just do the major the major different blocks. So Muslim countries typically do a slightly different weekend. So a lot of them are doing a Friday, Saturday weekend. So Friday, they lose the benefit that
Rod 24:20
Friday starts to feel like a weekend but Thursday that they go that would be a thing. Thank thank Allah it's it's Thursday. That would be the the equivalent
Will 24:29
I know but Friday feels different. I know it does. I mean, I know Friday is a special day. So on that way, Iran has got a Thursday Friday weekend so they're back at work by by Saturday. There are still a few holdout countries that just have a one day weekend. India, Mexico, I think it's Philippine North Korea, North Korea, that's just just a Saturday weekend. And there is one one, where is it? Brunei? Brunei Darussalam which does a Friday Sunday weekend, which is use
Rod 24:59
You sons of a bitches seriously, gotta get working. We're gonna give you two days, but we're gonna make it worse and harder.
Will 25:05
You can't go camping on that line. That is poo. I'm sorry, but dumb. If you're listening, you just, as I said before, I think just waiting for the sacred, I think it is absolutely sacred. But 2023 is, of course not where history ends. And so you don't know that I told you might it might be I told you before I was excited because I was reading some research just the other day that I looked at all the data and it's not perfect, but says to me, that we can could get better. I'm going to read a little bit from this report. I'll tell you about the group that put it out in a second. So this is from the introduction over the past five years, the four day week, or living that around a three day weekend, they're not exactly the same thing. has seen an incredible journey from the fringes to the main extreme, we're going to explain that I will thank all day working week, from the fringes to the mainstream emerging is one of the most exciting workplace policies to be adopted by organizations worldwide. I know that most exciting and workplace policy, not a common thing, but I like it.
Rod 26:06
As far as workplace policies go this is the one I could probably be most excited about the ones about photocopiers or, okay, they're pretty good. I like laminators and shredders more, but that'll be fine. Now use of the getting out of hours or sitting outside my office for no apparent reason. I use it even when I don't need to like I've got scissors next to me, I can stand up go, I always want to try and see if I can get my fingers under the little thing we need to do shave them away first using the guillotine so they will finally fit beautiful episodes on Friday.
Will 26:38
The central idea shortening working hours for no loss in pay. Might one moment ya know might want to class with the received wisdom that working more equals working better. But following the success of pilot schemes around the world, and this is going to tell you in a sec. Yeah, overwhelmingly positive research and societal shifts driven by COVID Working time reduction appears an increasingly common sense approach to the world of work.
Rod 27:01
That'd be right now, are you gonna kill this? You're gonna hurt me at the end of this year. I've never hurt you. Not deliberately, but the data will never hurt, you know, you know, you're nice.
Will 27:11
So the group, the group putting this out is called four day week global. They're working with a bunch of researchers, labor market researchers from University of Cambridge, Boston College, University College, Dublin. And what they've done is they've organized a series of pilot studies. Oh, yeah, I've heard of some of these. Yeah, pilot studies in countries around the world, doing a four day working week. So they're up to now I have to pause at the end of every time you say that, I'm just gonna need a little moment to swoon they're up to they're up to 91 organizations covering over 3500 workers. So it's clearly not everyone, but then from a range of countries. We've got Ireland, Iceland, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK. There's, there's other pilots in a few other places, but similar industries, we're gonna get to that. Well. So a lot of this data I'm going to talk about is from one particular pilot study they did in the UK because that is the biggest synchronized study that they've done. Obviously, I agree with it. And yet so you know, industries that they've got here marketing advertising, professional services, charity, nonprofit admin it and telecoms, educational services, finance insurance. So we've got a lot of white collar stuff. Yeah. Health care and social assistance, arts and entertainment, manufacturing, construction and housing engineering. So we do have a few different types of industries. And that's, that's a good question. Yeah. Is this a thing that affects different industries.
Rod 28:40
It smells like it would be most amenable and easily amenable to white collar work. However, that's probably because it would suit me.
Will 28:48
So they what they wanted to do is run pilots with these organizations. They would they started with two months of preparation work with each of the organization's Yeah, well, here's here's what I love. Well, some of them rehearsed taking Friday's off.
Rod 29:04
Do they need a coach? You can do this? You can do this. No, don't look at your email, you can do this title. No, I can make so much money if you got paid to help people do that. That would be my gift.
Will 29:15
I love I love I love the idea that everyone sitting the meeting is like okay, we're getting to we're gonna do a practice a pilot of four day week, let's all sit here and not be working. And someone says I feel like I need a little bit of practice during this first cert so my I won't know how to do this I might stop up unless I get some practice first today I'm just off now.
Rod 29:35
I'm trying to sit here at work not working. And if I start to work, could you stop me.
Will 29:40
sit here at work not working come to come to come to that one. No, they actually did aside from rehearsal, which I think it's funny they also there was a little bit of work definitely in deciding how they would do the day off and and communicating with you know, working with the workers. It was not a how well. There's there's options, eyes and structural. So the key key thing that to be part of the pilot, they had this thing called 180 100 Rule, which is it translates pretty simply 100% of the pie. Yep. Thumbs up for them. For 80% of the time. Yep. 100 Certain productivity, yes, deliver 100% of the output. So, so in exchange for a commitment to deliver 100% of the output. So basically the cup, the company says, Okay, we're gonna get the same volume of stuff produced. And or thought words, Yep, exactly. We just thought words, that kind of thing. And I will pay you for 100% Exactly what I paid you before. You just do it in 80% of the time.
Rod 30:37
The cool thing about that? Industry is like ours, can't measure it.
Will 30:41
I produce a lot of thought widgets, did I, what I'm producing right now, this is a thought widget here producing the most thought widget he podcast, you could hear what's going on in my noggin right now. Oh, my God, he should be getting paid. And as I said before, organizations, this is a key key rule that they said, You got to choose how you're going to do this, because we can't just tell you, there were a variety of options for doing this four day week. One is directly the three day weekend. So basically a fifth day stoppage. They're not going to say what you take Wednesdays, Mondays, and Fridays, it might be an option. So so some do like a whole whole company. Fifth Day stoppage. So basically, everyone takes Friday off as a video game company that chose that they polled staff on the preferences. And they just said, Not we work Monday to Thursday, Friday is a weekend. Others chose what's called a staggered model, where they split split the company into two teams, okay, and one would get Friday, half the half, the team would get fired at Friday off and half the team would get Monday off. Basically, if you're in some sort of, like enterprise where you've got to be, you've got to be open. Yeah, that makes sense. Whatever it is, then, okay, we need to move this to making sure there's someone to ask the company to be open five days a week, if not all of you exactly what's the exact other others and this is typically some bigger organizations did what's called a decentralized model, where different departments choose their own versions. So if you're a department, you'll feel the video game making department you can you can have Friday off, but if you're the video game box designers, you will you must be there on a phone answering department, whatever it is, it could be both of them. They might they might split it around. Yep. Then there's a couple of ones that just bullshit. There's there's the annualized version, which, so that reduced from Saturday, working 40 hours a week, they reduced to 32 hours a week, but they just they work a little bit less each day, five
Rod 32:42
points, let's make a split shift as well.
Will 32:44
Or they might do like an annualized Winter, summer thing. Like if summer is busier, you don't like your restaurant or something like that. And it's like, and they can you can work three days a week in winter and five days in summer.
Rod 32:56
I see more sense in that if the industry works that way. Like I get that. The fucking bullshit doing it an hour or less a day. So this is one of the things, the benefits that you get from this.
Will 33:09
They vary depending on what model you choose. But not all models are available. I have I will have a lot of trouble believing that. So that's not fair.
Rod 33:15
I'd be very surprised if the a couple of extra hours off here and there doesn't make much difference to anybody. Well, that's my suspicion.
Will 33:22
No there might be there might be like being home for pickup kids or something like that, like that, that that might go that's pragmatic that's not really time off and you know, rest and rejuvenation. But yes, I guess there is also some bosses were assholes and said, it's conditional, you have to meet KPIs as we go. So 32% of of the companies that were in this recent pilot chose Friday's off. So that was that was the most common. Next, I think was 25% did a staggered Monday or Friday, some did a Wednesday or Friday. So the company choosing, then there's some that are doing a little bit like the Soviet model, which is not the same day off. You can choose a day during the week. Whatever, you just choose one, as long as it suits your area or whatever. Yeah, as long as it suits your area. So So you might be Monday, someone next to us Tuesday, someone next to us Wednesday.
Rod 34:11
Well if everyone's happy with that point. Do you want? Yeah, yeah.
Will 34:15
So how did they go? I just want to hear really well. Well, well, well, I gotta I gotta two things. I didn't declare my bias that overboard. I frickin love weekends. I I think let's stop for a moment. I think more weekends is an inherent good. I tried to read this report with a skeptical eye.
Rod 34:37
How'd that go?
Will 34:39
No, I tried. I thought I'd get it all too good to be true. Is it? Isn't it me when I read pot studies? I'm like, wait, wait, wait. There's one line and there's 9000 page document that says it could be marginally good for some people under certain circumstances like it's fucking rough. So I will confess from the beginning there's a couple of limitations. One is
Rod 34:58
91 countries three and 3500 people It is widely distributed amongst cultured
Will 35:01
Well, now these are well, one, these are all developed, developed countries. So we're not seeing this in, in developing parts of the world. So surely. Number two, there is a skew whilst not complete to white collar industries, and they have different approaches to I'm not sure I mean, I get that's a skew but also you. To be fair, different industries are different. They're different in some significant ways. Big one, though, aside from the size, they're all volunteer. So these are these are these are all companies that are saying, Hey, we're interested enough anyway. Yeah, we're already a bit progressive. And we're already thinking this way. So is it likely that people will join in
Rod 35:40
what they should have done is made like the more stuffy uptight government departments who would be absolutely against a trade as well, this is the thing. I mean, should we go next? And for some companies, by randomly pick up? Yes, you must, you must not. Yeah, that's good. That's true ethics.
Will 35:58
Forced day, we would like to force nine companies. So that's, that's tricky. And in a similar way, all of the not all of the data. But a lot of the data that we've got here is self reported data. Yeah. Although a lot of data did Yes. In many, many, many rooms. So absolutely, absolutely. I just wanted to put some limitations. We know you've done the right thing.
Rod 36:19
And I've done my best to, you know, also support your bias, because it's fair to say I share it.
Will 36:23
But the data is just, it's just so positive. It's positive. For individuals that are doing this, it's positive for companies and there is even no, there's there's a bunch of things indicating although it's only a small, this is good for society as a whole. You've made me so happy. So firstly, let's say that the companies and here's the take home line, what does it company care about? Productivity and or money, money, money that you get it, you get it number two. So despite the reduction in hours, so they're all working all the workers and now 80% of the time, revenue was up on average 1.4% from the start to the end of the trial period? Well, look, that's not huge, but it's not down. It's not huge, but it's not down, it's definitely you could say if we're working in the old model, if we're working 80% of the time, then we make 80% of the widgets, but they definitely didn't. So actually, I'm wrong, that is up there, that's productivity is up, they made that a lot more than up, they made 101.4% of the widgets on so personable. So they did not only the amount they were meant to do, they did more than the amount that they were meant to do. And interestingly, they compared the growth in product to growth in revenue between that period and the period of the same period the previous year, just to get an idea for how the growth was up. 35 34%. So no, no, really. Yeah, the company like and if you if your boss guy, boss guy, our boss girl, revenue is something that you do care about. So that is that is a key step for companies. But but but there's also a few that companies actually do like as well. Decrease in resignation. Sure. So there's like two employees per 100. To you and make it Yeah, one to two per 100 in the year before it down. 2.8. So really, yeah, so half the amount of resignations, decline in absenteeism as well.
Rod 38:06
Oh, that matters. God that matters?
Will 38:08
Well, look, I mean, I don't really know is Tuesday from two second personal days per employee per month. That's a really that's a really nerd stat. They're down 2.7. So still less than half so people lose the metrics, metrics at all. But these are the metrics and make a difference to these sorts of analyses. We're trying to persuade the people who need to make the decisions 100%. So that's 65% down on that. So another another interesting sort of wrap up stat from them, is what are you planning to do at the end of the trial? 92% of the company said, we're continuing 30 said it was already put 30% said it was already permanent policy like we've we've locked this in, it's not going back
Rod 38:45
Who the fuck of the 8%?
Will 38:46
They're still trialing it. Mostly, I think 5% We're still trialing and at the time, the data, you know, maybe they started like 3% had paused to think about it. So there was none that said, Fuck, no, we're not doing that. On it almost. Again, these are volunteer organizations. So this is cool for it to go with the whole p of point 05 less than 5%. At that just pause to think about it. Yeah, that sounds significant. That is the most negative they were in terms of Will you do it or not. So this is the thing. Companies, volunteer companies, yes. Companies that are jazzed about this, this is this is doing good things for them. Employees. Now I'm gonna go through through a bunch of stats here, that they're not very human and relatable. There's a bunch of numbers. But anyway, imagine that stats being not very human. Obviously, as we said before, they're already resigning less and taking fewer sick days. So you got an idea here. Yeah. Stress levels down.
Rod 39:41
How many percent?
Will 39:42
Well, okay, so it's a five point scale down from 3.07 to 2.74. So it's like that number doesn't really matter, but stress is down. What are your stress levels? 1.93 I joined I get above a 1.5 Occasionally. Fuck you're calm. I don't know how you do it. Like I get below a forecast. I'm not, I'm not, you should get stressed. I'm not I don't, I'm not calm. There's a different there's a different burnout, like stress, but it's like way just like, oh, it's why what screw this to all of this I don't want to burn, burnout is bad, ugly and terrible 71% of feeling lower levels of burnout, like a fair bit down, which is, which is cool. I mean, it's it's definitely burnout is what leads to quitting a job, way less of that and health effects and social effects on 48% of employees were more satisfied with their jobs 40 48%. So it's 40 hours more. And then that it was a small fraction, I don't have the numbers here who are the same, some are down. But it's like, overwhelmingly, it's either more or the same, but mostly more who the people who just want to spend more time at the office, I'll get to one of them frickin Mr. Burns is dying, I wish I'd spent more time at the office. So here's something that bosses don't necessarily care about, but it does impact them. Average mental health improved solidly, again, on a five point scale, you don't need the numbers, similar improvements of physical health and sleep quality, like 40% of people saw a reduction in sleep difficulties. So suddenly you get people I actually sleep better. They're finding it easier to balance work and household chores. Men are looking after childcare more 44% found their finances better. So most people are the same. But some people even though they're paid the same amount. A chunk of these I think are in particularly parents who go through a day that you don't have to pay for childcare. So I wonder if it's also how long do they run for these trials? Six months? I wonder if part of it was mean, they wouldn't measure this, but like you're doing less compensatory or coping mechanism spending, I think drinking more or you know, shopping to calm your nerves, or just outsourcing different bits of work. So it's like, I can't quite, I don't know, go and pick up a whole load of woodchips on my own. Instead of ordering it. Yeah, something that was that was the example. But But definitely, there are compensatory spending where you're paying someone to do your ironing? We do right also, possibly. You haven't you haven't? Uh, should we drink more? Yeah, I'm totally, totally, or whatever your indulgence may be nicely a whole bunch more leisure travel, which I don't know how that solves your finances? Well, not all leisure, leisure travel costs a lot of money.
Rod 42:22
Some of it could just be walking.
Will 42:26
It could be it could be general life satisfaction. Here, they've jumped to a 10 point scale. Because Because if lysate is big, they went from 6.69 to 7.56. So generally, oh my God, those numbers are so big. And again, 90% of people. So it was actually slightly higher in companies that 92% of companies continuing 90% of people said, we definitely want to continue the four day when I said to have a general life satisfaction of less than eight or nine anyway. Well, everyone should have a life some of these people. I figure mines in the nines, like almost all the time you have adoring listeners. I love this. They did a little addition here. How much money would it take to go back to the five day week? Oh, so if you go back to five days, how much? How much more money would you take? Would you take the same money? Would you take 10% Pay 20% 30%. I don't have all of the numbers. But I did like that there was the 15% they would take no money to nothing could make there is nothing that would make them go back to the five day week. They're like, no screw that. So that makes sense to me too, because I've often thought about this, but you know, I'm old now. And I've had a long career, sort of kind of and stuff. But the idea of that now, the idea of more money above a certain third benefit and threshold? No, because I don't want to work more directly, it's obviously you're gonna get you're gonna get Shitloads more money. That is not everyone. Of course. Now, of course, depends on age and stage and blah, blah, blah, I get all that and your commitments and whatnot. But it's not impossible that we can have an economy that's set up to giving people what they need. And then you can go and do nice things. One in three Australians would leave their current job for a company that offered a four day week. So I think I think there's probably not very many that are saying no, I wouldn't take that but it's to show the level. Yeah, that's a big deal. So there are environmental benefits straightaway, like companies, you know, they using less power by not being on one day energy and heating, there is less commuting. If you're doing an actual day off. If you're doing the five days squeezed a little bit then if you're if you're recreation is you know racing at Bathurst maybe that's not great because spend an extra day doing it. But yes, I still wonder Are there some pro business elements of this like having a longer longer weekend we already know that people spend most of their money on Friday Saturday Sunday like we just all that the highest spending days of the week are Friday and Saturday I think and the lowest Monday and Tuesday. Everyone ever you go to the shops you do you go to dinner and things like that. I wonder if there is an effect where with that leisure travel, there is more spending which movement of the money or the money because yeah, sorry, okay, downsides.
Rod 45:00
lalalalalala
Will 45:03
it's hard to put your fingers in use when wearing headphones. Now, just as I was saying before, while I'm nearly back, in fact, all of those measures were on average up or in the in the positive direction. So lower stress or higher life satisfaction. Of course, there are some people who did experience the opposite. Like crazy people. 71% of employees said, they're feeling less burned out. 22% did register higher burnout. So my theory there is there are people who kept on working for those days anyway and have anxieties about such things. Well, there was there was some qualitative interviews. One staff member had significant concerns about the personal impacts of the four day week, said that she thrived on the mental challenge of her work. And her personal preference was for a soft four day week, where the fifth day is used to pursue personal projects in the office. So just come into work anyway. And it's like a, it's a four day week, but I'm just in the office doing some work. I did, I did wonder a little livestream if you don't want to tell industry don't like your family. And it's like, no, I love the days away from away from my family. All I want is to not be at home, then then a four day week is like this is terrible. is a nightmare. Can we make it an IDI week? That person to me, I'm gonna go out on a limb, if I know that we're including the pilot. But if you hadn't told me that academic, it smells something. It's like, work out solve your problems here, maybe maybe do something different here. All right, join a yacht club. There were they asked the the bosses, their opinion on what workers did on their day off. Most of them were like, discussed on it's the weekend. There were a small percentage of bosses, who tried to actively shape how staff use their time on slack off. Just just slow down, and stop and go, if it's a day off.
Rod 46:59
Who these freaks these monsters, these crazy people?
Will 47:03
the CEOs of two organizations, for example, were disappointed with the low uptake of voluntary work among staff during the pilot, and we're exploring ways to nudge staff towards spending their free time on pro social contributions. I like some people have have difficulty letting go. You just need to let go. If if you're not the boss for that day, don't be the boss.
Rod 47:25
No, I get it too. Like if your identity is all wrapped up in your role at work. And for many people. That is that's not easy. But why should others suffer?
Will 47:35
One other, you know, and you can probably guess this one. It did make people a little bit less convivial. And certainly some of the marketing and advertising agencies were like, people a little bit more heads down bumps up. And so when they're at work, they're at work. Yeah. So one staff member felt that it had become taboo to interrupt colleagues.
Rod 47:57
Look, I can I can imagine that at first.
Will 47:59
Yeah. And noticeably less socializing in communal spaces, because people feel Alright, we've got a squeeze got to get it done. We've got to squeeze 100 into less time. So we are a bit more task focused. But I'll come to some stuff on that in a second. Yeah, I suspect that's a and if you like you know, you're an ideas agency, like marketing or something like that. You imagine we do need those bits around the kitchen wherever sort of go, but a bing bada boom, and it will paper let's do it. Nice. So some lessons from this pilot, which I'm employing in my life. Well, firstly, there's no one size fits all for a four day week. Not at the moment anyway. Yep. Each company in the pilot designed a policy to fit its own industry. Crazy. Yeah, exactly. It might change over time. Like if we did go a country wide Friday off, then it might be different, because we will be you wouldn't expect to do manning the phones in the same way, staffing the phones. Thank you, monster. Indeed. Also, they did say productivity gains aren't magic. Like you've kind of got to actually work on the productivity gains. It's not just by having an extra people come in. It's so excited for email, they just they just power through the more you've got to other than us. Yes. You know, it's weird. Their their suggestions were 100%, the opposite of the CIA sabotage manual. Like I literally said, if you want to make this work, you know what you can do. Don't block the toilets. Make all meetings shorter. And, and if you have to have a meeting, make just five people. So don't make it lots of long time, or make it an email, or don't do any of that and just just do the work. And it was fascinating to just hear people going, you know, do the opposite of those stupid workplace practices like this. Reduce the number of staff involved in a particular process. Just stop doing those stupid things and you'll be more efficient. Anything anyone with a 10th of a brain would probably suggest anyway and if it was adopted, be right. So here's the thing. This is this is my why I feel excited. Yep, working hours are going in this way anyway, over the last 150 years since like the late 19th century working hours, averages, not not extremes, you've told us about people working to death. Definitely. Average is dropping around the developed world and around the world entirely yet some developing world is behind. So you're looking at, say, a lot of developing world countries in the late 19th century. So 1880 8090 People are working 6770 hours a week. That is the average. Yeah, so huge, huge amount of time. Now, the averages for a lot of countries Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, are in the 30s or below the Netherlands and Germany. They're both below an average of 30 hours per week. So, yes, so Germany, in 1870, they were doing 63 hours a week, just save out, and now they're doing 26 hours per week. And if you think of the German economy, you think of, you know, efficiency and productivity, you think of this thing, and people living pretty decent lives. Yeah, they're working 26 hours a week, which, if you divided by 417, it would be impossible to know what that number would be six. Yes, six and a bit. Yeah. Which is, which is less than a day is a full day's work, you can squeeze that full self reported how many hours when I'm at the office, or wherever? I don't have to, I don't have to report data for that. I just know that working hours is decreasing. Okay, so So the point I wanted to make there is that we are all heading in the trajectory, potentially, of lower working hours. So we're just gonna, like, own it. I think so. I think so. So I mean, I was thinking, you know, there's there's been a big debate in, in economist circles of productivity has gone up, you know, so technological gains have allowed us to do more and more widgets per hour. But workers wages haven't gone up. Now. I think there's, there's three things that could happen if you if you're, if you make more widgets per hour, yep. One, either your boss can capture all of that money in profits. And that has definitely happened to the worker can get more of that money, wage gains. And that has occasionally happened that has occasionally happened not so much over the last 20 or 30 years. Or three, you can take it in, in timecard. Time. So it's those three things. And I think a few of them have already been happening. Yeah. And here's the thing. So I really I read this data, and I was like, some of these things are really lining up. You know that. It's in the company's favor. It's in the workers favor. Yeah. It's in the economy's favor. Yeah. And
Rod 52:32
but it's not in the Lord's favor, because work ethic. I wanted to there are moral argument like this is moral character bullshit argument that a lot of people would have implicitly. Yeah, but why did I love the weekend? The weekend is not not even 100 years old, because that's allowed. Because we because dad had it. So Oh, yeah. And I'm not taking the pistol you know, that there are these people I will know your work ethic, and you bring in young people today, but everybody, look, stop it.
Will 52:57
But this is why I feel actually really quite optimistic. Normally, you know, you have data, and the rest of the world says, I don't care and whatever. What are we going to do with that? But, you know, I thought I thought the weekend would be a fight between, you know, these these saintly, heroic union people and these evil bosses. But actually, the weekend came about when both sides realize it's just works better in our mutual benefit. We're already reducing hours. Think we're so close. I think it's gonna happen four day week, three day weekend.
