Benefits of Shorter Work Hours for Mental Health

Having spent decades in the Talent industry where the expectation has been 55+ hours weekly, often celebrating it as a badge of honor, the idea of a 32-hour workweek as a tangible reality should have us all embracing the innovation driving us there. 🚀 One recent study of British companies adopting a 32-hour workweek highlighted employees arriving less stressed and more focused, with revenues stable or increased. A trial involving 61 companies and 2,900 workers resulted in 71% reporting reduced burnout, and nearly half were more job-satisfied. Remarkably, 24 companies saw revenue growth exceeding 34%. The advancements in robotics, automation, and AI, while often met with fear, present undeniable opportunities. Despite concerns about market instability, history shows us that embracing innovation typically leads to growth and resilience. The move towards shorter workweeks is not just about hours; it's a broader shift towards efficiency and well-being, promising another positive lesson in the power of innovation. #WorkLifeBalance #FutureOfWork #TalentAcquisition #HRInnovation #RecruitingTrends

Data from one of the largest trials in North America conclusively concluded that the longer people worked in new efficient ways, the more their workweek shrank over time. A series of four-day workweek trials conducted in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland over the past 18 months support this conclusion and more organizations are adopting it. Dozens of companies ranging from design agencies to manufacturers and nonprofits tested the four-day concept, an approach that is gaining traction as employers and employees rethink the traditional ways of work. After 6 months, workers said they had less burnout, improved health, and more job satisfaction, and had cut their average work time by about four hours to 34 hours a week. Those who continued the schedule a full 12 months reduced working times even further, to about 33 hours a week, researchers say. Meanwhile, they continued to report better mental and physical health and work-life balance. Denise Uehara, CEO and co-owner of Search Engine Journal proposed moving to a four-day workweek last year as the company wrestled with growing pains. Within six months, the company’s turnover had dropped, productivity held up, and clients didn’t notice the business had moved to a four-day week, Uehara said. The company plans to continue operating on the four-day week, with staff taking Fridays off. 

The first five days of the week are the hardest. Could a four-day work week actually boost worker efficiency? An experiment found the longer people worked in new, more efficient ways, the shorter their work weeks became. And it also improved work-life balance as well as mental health. Now before you think it's simply about cramming five days of work into four, it's much more than that. Actually, one word: meetings...too many of them. Regardless of whether your company adopts a shorter work week, the key takeaway says less about workers wasting time and more about the general state of work. Have you ever put off a project until the last minute even though you knew it would only take a few hours to complete? We all know about the powers and detriments of procrastination. Parkinson's Law is the adage that work will expand to fill the time allotted for its completion. So if you take that notion and apply it to the typical 40 or 50 hour work week, people will fill their time with trivial matters. And in the process, create additional stress by putting off a project. Conversely, the four-day work week seems to have the opposite effect. After six months under the revised schedule, workers cut their average work time by about four hours to 34 hours a week. Those who continued the schedule a full 12 months reduced working times even further, to about 33 hours a week. So what happened? It turns out companies reduced meetings, and workers dedicated more time to uninterrupted focus work. Put another way, they didn't have time anymore for unnecessary meetings or at the least, found other ways without them. While the bane of meetings isn't exactly a new revelation, it certainly highlights how they can take up so much of time in a day and week that they're pushing off our ability and time to do actual work. In other words, we're spending so much time in meetings that we're working longer hours to make up for that lost time. To be clear, a four-day work week isn't for everyone. Some jobs and roles simply aren't flexible by the nature and scope of their responsibilities. But cutting down on meetings is one solution that could boost productivity while improving mental health. In this era of texts, instant messaging, shared documents and of course, emails, we already have the tools in place that only reinforce the notion that the best meeting is the meeting that doesn't happen at all https://lnkd.in/eFApvewg #work #worklifebalance #mentalhealth #workforce #workers #culture #productivity

Exciting new research out today with some groundbreaking insights thanks to our team at Work Time Reduction Center of Excellence in partnership with The Josh Bersin Company highlighting the transformative potential of work time reduction. Today’s employees are motivated to work in a different way, and worktime reduction is proving to be a powerful option. Adapting to new expectations within your organization takes planning and preparation. The payoff is in the improved business outcomes and increased employee retention. 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀: 1️⃣ 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀: Successful shorter work week implementations prioritize outcomes over traditional time metrics. 📊 2️⃣ 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆: Introduce practices that enhance concentration and efficiency. 🚀 3️⃣ 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗙𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Leaders play a pivotal role in fostering a culture of flexibility, trust and employee autonomy. 🌟 This isn't just theory and academics. Check out these real-world success stories from organizations who have embraced work time reduction: 🤝 Awin Global: 92% of employees reported increased productivity, 94% noted improved work-life balance, and the company experienced a 33% drop in turnover. 💼 Inventium: 26% increase in productivity, 21% rise in energy levels, and 18% decrease in stress. 🌈 @PraxisPR: 26% improvement in mental health, 42% improvement in work-life balance, and 15% reduction in admin tasks. 🌍 Tyler Grange | B Corp™: Achieved a 22% productivity boost and produced 109% of previous outputs. ⚖️ The Ross Firm Professional Corporation: Exceeded business targets with a near elimination of sick days. What led them so success? 🚀 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲: Embrace a cultural shift towards continuous improvement. 🤹 𝗗𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗢𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: Understand each employee's passion and career goals, allowing them to "self-optimize" for peak productivity. 🌐 𝗔𝘀𝘆𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Embrace tools and norms for effective communication in a shorter work week. 📈 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Reduced hours with work redesign outperforms condensed #4DayWeek models. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 👉 For in-depth insights, check out our report linked in the comments or ping me a message and I'll send you a copy. Joe O'Connor, CEO/Co-Founder at Work Time Reduction Center of Excellence Julia Bersin, Industry Analyst at The Josh Bersin Company and Research Lead of The Four-Day Work Week report John Trougakos, Professor at University of Toronto Josh Bersin, Global Industry Analyst and Co-Founder, The Josh Bersin Company #productivity #culture #AI #4dw

Finally out! The 4 day week team at Boston College has published our first major paper from the research we've been doing with hundreds of organizations and more than 10K employees. We submitted it to Nature Human Behavior and after a few years of revisions it was released today (to a lot of press interest). We did very sophisticated statistical modeling with both the individual and the company data. This paper is on the large well-being improvements that people experience on the 32 hour, 4DW schedule (w/no reduction in pay). Major findings are: the people who manage to get a full 8 hour reduction in hours have bigger well-being improvements (compared to those with smaller reductions or none--we have control companies who have no reductions in working hours). What about working less leads to higher well-being? Less fatigue and better sleep is one pathway. The second is the less expected one--people score a lot higher on self-reported productivity metrics. They feel more capable and on top of their workloads, and that yields well-being improvements. Here's a link to the paper. Wen Fan is the first author, and Guolin Gu and Orla Kelly are also co-authors! https://lnkd.in/e6Tn9RNv