Envisioning a four-day workweek with Job.com’s Arran Stewart.
Austin-based entrepreneur Arran Stewart is in the business of helping workers find jobs. His website, Job.com, is a recruitment platform that combines smart technology and real recruiters to match workers to thousands of jobs every day. While building his business required Stewart to maximize his productivity, it also prompted him to reconsider what optimum productivity looks like.
“The historic ways of work, work, work, work around the clock, that is rubbish,” Stewart said. “It’s about quality, not quantity.”
Stewart envisions an American workplace that looks more like a European one, with a focus on output, not punching a clock, and on decreasing workers’ time in the office through shorter, more flexible days, or, as he suggests, a four-day workweek. This idea has already been tried in Iceland on a large scale. Between 2015 and 2019, 1% of Iceland’s working population experimented with a shortened workweek, working fewer hours for the same pay and, to the shock of some employers.
“People used the time productively,” said Stewart. “They would work out, use it for educational purposes, spend more time with family, which would let them have more time to focus when they were working, so there were myriad benefits there.”
A shift in the weekly schedule doesn’t even have to come with a reduction in total hours. Some four-day plans have employees put in four ten-hour days, taking Friday off to have a three-day weekend, or perhaps adding a day off in the middle of the week. A typical schedule might go from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., not different from the schedules many workers already keep.
“I would bet most people would happily work from 8 ’til 6, Monday to Thursday, for the sake of getting Friday off,” said Stewart. “I would bet everything that they would. And they’d still have the same hours worked as if they’d done 9 to 5 from Monday to Friday.”
It’s the kind of talk that makes business owners flinch. Lose an entire day? Every week? What if something came up? What if a client called? While Stewart admits that there are some careers for which a four-day schedule truly isn’t possible, sales isn’t on that list.
“If I’m in a more senior relationship-building sales process, taking Friday off makes zero difference because it’s not a numbers game,” said Stewart. “If you truly can’t book a phone call with your customer between the hours of 8 and 6 for four straight days, there’s probably a problem.”
The document imaging technology industry is rooted in long-term sales relationships. Perhaps it’s time to reassess whether the frequency of contact matters most to clients. “That’s about nurturing and picking your moment and looking for quality time,” said Stewart. “I’ve built some of the most sophisticated sales relationships with huge seven-figure accounts, and they are not about me badgering them every Friday about having a call. These are conversations, typically, where the relationships are so deep, these become friends.”
The 10/4 schedule allows for accomplishing more in a single day as well, especially with the remote work revolution. Connecting with multiple clients might once have necessitated hours in the car driving between offices, but now clients are just a video call away, anytime. A sales rep’s hours might be reduced, but the productive time—time spent talking to clients and building sales—can increase because zero time is wasted on non-productive tasks like travel. A 10-hour day with, for example, six hours of engagement with clients and four hours of other tasks is a lot more productive than an eight-hour day with six hours of driving and two hours of client time.
“Having a culture where we all respect each other’s time makes people feel more motivated to do well and be committed to the company, but at the same time, it relieves the horrible pressure of dreading every day and being worked to the absolute bone,” said Stewart. “There are managers who have this really Jurassic view on work styles, and people just don’t respond to that anymore.”
Working a restructured schedule requires discipline on the clock and off. While more rest and working in fewer blocks of time can help workers plan their days more productively, equally important is sticking to the 10/4 plan by fully logging off when it’s time to leave work. This can help avoid the 10/4 schedule creeping up to a 12/6 workweek or, inevitably, working 24/7, a sure recipe for burnout.
“It comes down to self-management,” emphasized Stewart. “You must be as disciplined with yourself in the office as you are at home. If an email comes in at 9:30 p.m., say, ‘No, I’m not going to answer it.’ No one’s going to do anything with it between now and tomorrow morning.”
Knowing that colleagues are also taking time off helps a worker commit to their own free time without guilt or anxiety about falling behind. Like any transformative change to workplace culture, it requires buy-in from all levels, especially the top. A manager who’s peppering subordinates with emails on days off and expects prompt responses isn’t really on board with the four-day workweek. A workplace that supports that kind of behavior won’t see changes in productivity and morale.
It’s a given that crunch time will occur at a four-day workplace, and staff will have to work more hours. The advantage of a four-day workplace is that workers aren’t entering crunch time already burned out, and if management has done a good job of supporting the culture shift, they’re happy to pitch in for the short term because they trust that their schedule will go back to normal before long. That’s a trust that good workplaces know not to break, and with thoughtful management, it’s possible to retain the benefits of a four-day workweek, even during crunch time.
“We’ve all burnt the midnight oil,” said Stewart. “With a good level of common sense and a good level of emotional intelligence on your team, people will happily work a fifteen, sixteen-hour day. If they have done that, don’t start at 7:30 the next morning. Say, ‘I’m sure we can wait to talk until 11 a.m.’”
Stewart cautioned that even this much focus on hours worked, balancing a late night with a late morning is more timekeeping than he’d personally advise.
“In my opinion, hours are irrelevant. Productivity is what matters,” said Stewart. “The numbers won’t lie to you if you’re in sales. Did you hit your quota? No? Then, you need some more elbow grease. If I’m smashing my numbers out of the park, then guess what? I don’t start until 11 a.m. and I’m out at 4 p.m. because I can get the job done in those five hours.”
There’s an old business adage that “what’s measured is managed.” Workplaces that are hesitant to measure productivity by any metric other than time served should ask themselves what do they sell, time or products? What service do they provide, reps sitting at desks or helping clients? Efficiency in every other aspect of business is valued. Careers are made on finding innovative ways to do more with less.
“Finding that great equilibrium of use of time versus output is probably the ultimate goal for every company,” said Stewart. “We put more time back into people’s hands to do the things they love. What a fantastic success for a company.”
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