The four day working week

In this podcast, Dr Helen Fitzhugh speaks with Professor Daiga Kamerāde (University of Salford) and Professor Brendan Burchell (University of Cambridge) about their research on the four day working week and other types of working time reduction. Daiga and Brendan share insight into the research trial carried out recently at South Cambridgeshire District Council which showed how the council was able to maintain or improve performance, according to many of its key performance indicators, during the four day week trial.  

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:29:05

Helen Fitzhugh

Welcome to the Evolve Workplace Wellbeing podcast. This podcast is part of a toolkit of free, evidence informed workplace wellbeing resources provided by the Workplace Wellbeing Research team at the University of East Anglia in the UK. You can find the resources on www.evolveworkplacewellbeing.org .

00:00:29:07 - 00:00:56:23

Helen Fitzhugh

Hello and welcome to this edition of the Evolve Workplace Wellbeing podcast. My name is Dr Helen Fitzhugh and I'm here today to talk about the four day week with two special guests. I'm going to be speaking with Daiga Kamerade, Professor of Work and Wellbeing, and Research Centre Director at the University of Salford, and I'm going to be speaking with Brendan Burchell, professor in the social sciences at University of Cambridge and fellow of Magdalene College.

00:00:57:00 - 00:00:59:00

Helen Fitzhugh

Thank you both for joining us today.

00:00:59:02 - 00:00:59:23

Brendan Burchell

Hello. 

Daiga Kamerade

Hello.

00:01:00:00 - 00:01:20:08

Helen Fitzhugh

I was, really glad that you were going to come and talk to us today because the topic we're going to be talking about, the four day week and working time reduction is really interesting, at the moment, lots of work going on. But before we launch into that, could you tell me a little bit about yourselves and your interest in workplace wellbeing research?

00:01:20:10 - 00:01:47:11

Daiga Kamerade

I have been doing a work and wellbeing research for, over 20 years, and my, particular interest is how people's working lives affect their mental health and wellbeing. For example, what kind of jobs we do or how many hours we spend at work? How does it affect how well we feel about ourselves and about, our lives and how we can use this knowledge to improve people's lives?

00:01:47:13 - 00:01:48:24

Helen Fitzhugh

Great. Thank you.

00:01:49:01 - 00:02:11:04

Brendan Burchell

I've also been working in this area for decades, but in the last ten years or so, I particularly focused around working time. Before that, I was looking at topics such as job insecurity and work intensification, but now looking at what happens when people reduce their hours of work and what are the optimal hours of work for wellbeing. Those sorts of questions.

00:02:11:06 - 00:02:23:05

Helen Fitzhugh

Right. Thank you. Before we move on, with talking about any of this, I suppose I should give you the chance to tell us a little bit what what having a four day week means or working time reduction means.

00:02:23:07 - 00:02:43:19

Brendan Burchell

The thing that we've been particularly studying in the last few years is what we call the four day week. Now, it sounds a punchy thing. But it needs a bit of explanation. What we're really interested is when people reduce the hours they work each week by a substantial amount. Say, 20%, which would be the equivalent to going from five days to four days?

00:02:43:21 - 00:03:03:19

Brendan Burchell

And in some cases it is just that that in some organizations it closes down completely on Friday. In some they alternate between Monday and Friday. But there's other ways of achieving it too. It could be still working five days, but a shorter day, about a six hour day instead of an eight hour day. Or it could be spread over the year.

00:03:03:19 - 00:03:25:12

Brendan Burchell

So there are some times in the year when you're working a much shorter week. Well, it isn't. And this is, a source of confusion sometimes, we're not talking about when people work for days, but work for long days. They're doing the same hours as they were previously. We're really interested in a substantial, say, 20% reduction in total working time.

00:03:25:14 - 00:03:29:13

Helen Fitzhugh

That's great. So you're talking about reduction, not compression essentially.

00:03:29:15 - 00:03:30:23

Daiga Kamerade

Absolutely.

00:03:31:00 - 00:03:53:14

Daiga Kamerade

I would like to add we are also not talking about part time work when people work four days a week and receive salary for four days a week, maintaining five days salary for four days work is essential ingredient of four day working week concept, and it's also important to emphasize a four day working week is an arrangement at organizational level.

00:03:53:16 - 00:04:05:09

Daiga Kamerade

It's not arrangement when somebody decides to work four days a week in a particular role or particular department, they talk at organizational level working time adjustment.

00:04:05:11 - 00:04:17:10

Helen Fitzhugh

That's really important, I think. It's not an individual change. It's very much that the whole organization is adopting a different way of remunerating people for the work that they do.

00:04:17:12 - 00:04:44:05

Brendan Burchell

And that's very important, particularly from a gender perspective, because we know when people are given the choice of working shorter hours, it tends to be women that take up that choice and then that has very long, important, long term consequences for women salaries for women's promotions. And it's a massive source of gender inequality. Here, everybody in the organization having that reduction equally is really central to what we're doing.

00:04:44:07 - 00:05:07:09

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, that's a really interesting distinction. Thank you. And a really important point for those people out there who are working on tackling inequalities in organizations. So today we're going to be talking about the four day week and working time reduction in general, but also a specific project at South Cambridgeshire District Council. I was wondering how you became involved in that project as independent evaluators.

00:05:07:11 - 00:05:29:12

Brendan Burchell

The council knew that the results they had could be controversial. Both Daiga and myself were founding members of a new network of researchers, University researchers around working time reduction. So when they were looking for people to evaluate their research but be independent of it, I think we were two of the natural choices that they had.

00:05:29:14 - 00:05:35:05

Helen Fitzhugh

Could you tell us a little bit about the projects you've been involved in researching the four day week?

00:05:35:07 - 00:06:03:21

Brendan Burchell

Up until now, we've been particularly interested in looking at large studies of organizations. They tend to be small and medium sized organizations in the private sector where they do go in for this 20% reduction in working time, but with the aim of not only maintaining pay so nobody gets a pay cut, but also they attempt to and by and large, succeed in maintaining the same level of performance or productivity.

00:06:03:23 - 00:06:29:16

Brendan Burchell

What we've been doing more recently, though, is much more detailed investigation into one particular organization. And again, that's different because it's in the public sector, South Cambridgeshire District Council, who've implemented this in the council across, first of all, all the office workers and then extending it to the refuse collection as well, and looking at not only the wellbeing impacts on employees, but lots of other things as well.

00:06:29:19 - 00:06:37:09

Brendan Burchell

And crucially, in this case, what the performance of the Council was, how well that met their key performance indicators.

00:06:37:11 - 00:06:46:24

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, that's a really interesting project and there's been some media coverage of it, so we'd be really interested in hearing more in detail from you about what what has happened in that project. Thank you.

00:06:47:01 - 00:07:11:20

Brendan Burchell

We knew from other organizations that when we look at individual wellbeing, we see really quite dramatic improvements. People really enjoy having a three day weekend. They sleep better, their mental health improves, they find more time to exercise, to be parents. All sorts of benefits that individuals get. And we've had much less detailed information about the performance of organizations in the past.

00:07:11:22 - 00:07:40:18

Brendan Burchell

The thing that stood out for South Cambs was the very detailed way we could look at the performance of that council, not only during the 15 months when they were working on this four day week basis, but also comparing to the several years before that, to see what extent there were changes, whether things did deteriorate when they were maintained at the same level, or possibly if there were improvements, actually improvements in performance when people were working with shorter days.

00:07:40:20 - 00:08:14:05

Daiga Kamerade

And it's important to emphasize that these key performance indicators that were, measured are the key performance indicators that are important not only to the council itself, but also for the customers of the council. For example, they had very detailed data on, the proportion of the calls answered in call centre on time and emergency housing repairs that are done on 24 hours, and other indicators that people care about when they think about local authority work.

00:08:14:07 - 00:08:29:24

Helen Fitzhugh

And although there have been a number of studies that have linked improved well-being to improve performance, I think that you are measuring it directly in this case, that it's not just via wellbeing will be of interest to people. So could you tell us a little bit more about what you found?

00:08:30:01 - 00:09:04:15

Daiga Kamerade

So when we looked at the very comprehensive set of key performance indicators for South Cambridgeshire Council, we found that these indicators either remained the same during the trial period or or improved, for example, they found that the outcomes that were better for the trial period compared to a pre trial period where like for example, percentage of calls to the contact centre that were answered, within the timescales, the number of complaints, responded within certain time scale.

00:09:04:17 - 00:09:37:03

Daiga Kamerade

Also staff turnover reduced which was very important for council. But the rest of outcomes did not change substantively, which means that council performance was maintained during the trial. Despite moving to four day week. So this, this either improvement or stability in key performance indicators, suggested that four day, working week was working on the quality of the council services provided was either maintained or improved.

00:09:37:05 - 00:10:06:15

Brendan Burchell

And to complete the picture, we should also say there were two indicators of the 24 where they seemed to get worse. They were worse during that period. For instance, one of them was the amount of rent that they could collect from housing. But when we looked at it in more detail and this went beyond the analysis that we were contracted to do, you could see across the country, almost all of the councils were having difficulty in collecting rent because we went through such a dramatic cost of living crisis, and actually not only during the trial but before the trial.

00:10:06:15 - 00:10:27:00

Brendan Burchell

South Cambs were one of the best performers, so it wasn't a perfect trial. It wasn't a randomized control trial. There was lots of other things going on cost of living crisis, the war in Ukraine and so on. So even in those two out of 24 indicators where things got worse, there's good reason to believe that it wasn't the trial itself that made them worse.

00:10:27:00 - 00:10:30:19

Brendan Burchell

It was outside factors that are affecting all councils up and down the country.

00:10:30:21 - 00:10:48:19

Helen Fitzhugh

That's really interesting. And what is it that means that, an organization can go to a four day week and either have maintained performance or even sometimes better performance from doing that. What do you think the the mechanisms or the ways of getting there are?

00:10:48:21 - 00:11:17:16

Brendan Burchell

There are probably lots of contributory factors, why we see this pattern again and again. One is that people are very motivated, all the individual employees and now very motivated to find better ways of performing. And they know if they do that in other situations, they're often fearful that it might put their jobs at risk. If the employers don't need so many people working there after restructuring. Or they're going to be working harder to the benefit of the owners, the shareholders, but not to themselves.

00:11:17:18 - 00:11:48:09

Brendan Burchell

In this case, it was very clear if they could make it work, it was the employees themselves would benefit by having a three day weekend in most cases. And that's a huge motivator. So then suddenly people find and really it concentrates their minds on finding better ways of working. For instance, we find having shorter meetings, smaller meetings without so many people there, better ways of communicating with each other, realizing that some of the things that we're doing really aren't achieving the things that are important to the organization.

00:11:48:09 - 00:12:05:22

Brendan Burchell

So focusing more on the important things at work, and it varies a lot between organizations, but just, just everybody is now motivated to getting the work done. And it seems again and again to work. And here we have the clearest example of all the trials so far of how well it worked.

00:12:05:24 - 00:12:35:22

Daiga Kamerade

Another mechanism that might be explaining why we see such a positive results in four day week trials is higher energy levels. That employees have after having three full days off, which means I come back to work with higher energy levels, that helps them to focus better on a work that has to be done. And for example, we found from the interviews that the employees told us that they come now into work and saying, what is my top priority?

00:12:35:22 - 00:12:57:21

Daiga Kamerade

What I have to do first, what is, good to be done needs to be done or must must be done. And higher energy level means that there's less, time maybe spent on making some decisions, what to do next or how to do some, something, something better. And this is the reason why sometimes we get asked the question

00:12:57:21 - 00:13:20:19

Daiga Kamerade

if we can work more efficiently four days a week, why don't we work as efficiently five days a week? But this mechanism would be a reason why five days a working week wouldn't work at more intensive level, because workers would not be as relaxed as energized. Coming back from only two days week, it wouldn't work as efficiently.

00:13:20:21 - 00:13:21:15

Helen Fitzhugh

That’s really interesting. 

00:13:21:16 - 00:13:44:01

Brendan Burchell

And that was that was one other thing that it's worth mentioning. This is something that was particular to South Cambs District Council. They were having real problems very severe problems recruiting for some of the roles, as in some other parts of the South east of England. The public sector pay just wasn't competitive with the private sector. And so it's very high turnover in some roles.

00:13:44:03 - 00:14:06:16

Brendan Burchell

They'll spend a lot of time recruiting, often unsuccessfully recruiting, but also a huge amount on agency staff because they just couldn't employ permanent staff. And so they saved hundreds of thousands of pounds over the course of the trial, because suddenly when they were working four day week, people wanted to work there. Suddenly they could fill vacancies. Again, it's not unusual that employers do that.

00:14:06:16 - 00:14:21:05

Brendan Burchell

Go to a four day week so that they can attract staff or more talented staff. But in this case, that was very crucial. Why? The council really felt like it was something they had to do. Those they had, such as a serious problem with a recruitment.

00:14:21:07 - 00:14:39:13

Helen Fitzhugh

And that's a really interesting thing with regard to what we know about workload around either virtuous or vicious cycles, isn't it, that, you know, if you have a team that is constantly losing people, it's experience people and the pressures going up, then it makes other people think they might leave as well. And so you get into that cycle of a spiral downwards whereas

00:14:39:13 - 00:15:01:15

Helen Fitzhugh

It sounds like putting in this four day week has kind of arrested that and put it in reverse, that people might want to stay build their experience and as they are experienced they'll also do their work more efficiently and sort of stay longer and build that team dynamic. So, a really effective intervention there of kind of getting in and changing something that can be quite difficult to change otherwise.

00:15:01:17 - 00:15:09:19

Brendan Burchell

Absolutely. And so they've been able to retain the talent, the organizational memory and those things which can be so important.

00:15:09:21 - 00:15:20:17

Helen Fitzhugh

So what do you think are the implications of your findings for HR practitioners, senior managers, anyone interested in improving workplace wellbeing in their organization?

00:15:20:19 - 00:15:44:09

Daiga Kamerade

From organizational perspective this evidence suggests that four day working week is one way how to improve organizational effectiveness and address many problems that organizations, particularly public sector organizations, face. We know that local councils have been underfunded for many years now. And many like South Cambs struggle with attracting new talent and keeping that new talent.

00:15:44:11 - 00:16:07:06

Daiga Kamerade

So this evidence suggests that this might be a way forward, especially in the current situation where we know there is limited money in public budget. So we might see more and more local councils and public sector organizations using four day week as a way of addressing these organizational challenges.

00:16:07:08 - 00:16:41:05

Brendan Burchell

Through the earlier trials we did, there's already been a lot of enthusiasm from the private sector. And every week we're hearing of new organizations, not just in the UK. This is a global phenomenon, where they're going to four day weeks or other forms of working time reduction. The conservative government, the previous conservative government in the UK, had been really quite hostile to these moves and made that very clear and put punitive measures in place for South Cambs and threatened any other local authority that followed them down that route would suffer consequences, financial consequences.

00:16:41:07 - 00:17:05:04

Brendan Burchell

Money would be withheld from them. We've got a new government now. We don't know. They haven't explicitly said that they have a policy on four day week. But there's I think, every expectation they're not going to have the same hostility. And I'm hoping would be open to employers in the public sector as well, experimenting and finding better ways of working, better ways of using taxpayers money, saving taxpayers money and having better public services.

00:17:05:04 - 00:17:25:00

Brendan Burchell

We know that's happening in Scotland. There's a big trial ongoing in Scotland with the Scottish Government, and the early signs is that that seems to be working very well. So I'm hopeful that before too long there'll be maybe dozens of other local authorities that are copying South Cambs and going down the same route.

00:17:25:02 - 00:17:31:09

Helen Fitzhugh

There's a lot of compelling evidence there. Are there any challenges or reasons why people might not do it?

00:17:31:11 - 00:18:00:09

Brendan Burchell

Often people are concerned. It sounds too good to be true that you couldn't have this four day week, have such happy employees and same level of performance, and you have to look at the evidence, and the evidence now is mounting. And it's not just from the UK trial, but, like I say, globally, we've got trials in the United States, in Ireland, in Germany, some ongoing at the moment, and they continually find the same pattern of the very high, about 90 - 95% success rates in organizations.

00:18:00:11 - 00:18:30:07

Brendan Burchell

But having, convincing other senior managers whenever in organizations can be a sticking point. And there's lots of teething problems that you have when you make these changes. That's why very often when they go into making these changes, they bring in consultancy or if you like, companies that give advice on how to do it, how to adjust people to have now you have to think differently about people's annual holiday, what you do with people existing on part time work, and all the sorts of, you know, you might have to change rotas.

00:18:30:07 - 00:18:50:16

Brendan Burchell

There's all sorts of ways in which there are teething problems, but they in our experience so far, they all tend to be minor. And as long as you're prepared to experiment and try new things when things don't work, I don't think I've ever come across any of those problems which are insurmountable. Very often organizations form into communities.

00:18:50:16 - 00:19:05:17

Brendan Burchell

When they go to a four day week, they're swapping information with each other. And if one HR manager has got a particular problem, then they can easily just ping a message to the group and say, what do you do when there's a bank holiday Monday, for instance, do people still get a four day week or do you go to a three day week?

00:19:05:19 - 00:19:23:08

Daiga Kamerade

So people compare their experiences. So sharing experiences, drawing upon expertise. And there's some very good handbooks out there as well now that managers can get to give advice to draw on that experience. So yeah, there are problems. I'm not saying there's no problems, but they all seem to be surmountable.

00:19:23:10 - 00:19:51:14

Daiga Kamerade

Perhaps, one of the significant challenges are assumptions about the relationship between time spent at work and productivity, because, there are managers that are reluctant to even consider four day working week because they work on assumptions the longer worker spending times, the more they will produce. However, evidence shows it's it's not true, as I said, a number of hours after which productivity does not increase anymore.

00:19:51:16 - 00:20:28:00

Daiga Kamerade

So, questioning these assumptions and reflecting on them and then trying new things is perhaps one of the biggest challenges that some organizations encounter. But then I would emphasize that while four day working week is relatively rare, organizations who introduce that have a competitive advantage because we have heard it repeatedly that for introducing four day workweek has, permitted organizations to attract talent that they could not attract before or could not afford to attract,

00:20:28:02 - 00:20:38:11

Daiga Kamerade

So, those organizations who will adopt four day working week, first are well ahead of others, in terms of competitiveness.

00:20:38:13 - 00:20:58:06

Brendan Burchell

I should point out as well that it doesn't work for everyone. In many of these trials, we find this a small number. It is maybe about 3% of employees who just want to go in five days a week. Even when they’re told that there's no advantage in doing that. For whatever reason, they're happier in the office than they would be at home.

00:20:58:08 - 00:21:18:23

Brendan Burchell

And the advice given is, if they want to carry on in that way, then let them. Some people take a little while to be convinced that this is the way to go. Sometimes people are worried that they're going to have to be working under much more time pressure. And that's one thing we have been concerned about. And because we know working under constant time pressure isn't good for you.

00:21:18:23 - 00:21:44:04

Brendan Burchell

But when we monitor that feeling of time pressure that people have, there's little change. There's little evidence that it's a problem that people are - It's not that they're having to run around, all the time like headless chickens. Far from it. They're actually enjoying doing the work better. Often they're more mindful of thinking more carefully about their own work, more responsible for their own work, and enjoying it more than they were before.

00:21:44:06 - 00:21:53:00

Helen Fitzhugh

Okay. So what do you think the future of workplace wellbeing related research looks like?

00:21:53:02 - 00:22:11:09

Brendan Burchell

There has been a long history of gradual working time reduction. If you go back to the early days industrial revolution, people were working six days a week often and working six long days week, and that has shifted. It shifted in different ways in different countries. There isn't one simple history. Sometimes it's because of trade union pressure.

00:22:11:10 - 00:22:38:11

Brendan Burchell

Sometimes government regulation, sometimes benevolent or farsighted employers. But in many countries, including the UK, that long term trend has stagnated for several decades now. And we've got so much better technology now. We've got a better trained workforce. There's no reason why we can't take the benefits of that as reduced working week. So I think in maybe a decade or so, a four day workweek will be entirely normal.

00:22:38:13 - 00:23:01:13

Brendan Burchell

And in fact, employers that are still advertising five day weeks just won't be able to attract any staff at all. So I think that that's going to be a really important one of the big changes that I would predict. There's other changes that we know, still happening or settling down as we come out of Covid. Clearly the amount of hybrid working and working from home is never going to go back to the low levels we had before Covid.

00:23:01:17 - 00:23:21:20

Brendan Burchell

Predicting the future in this way is is always very difficult. Social scientists always get it wrong, but I think there's so much evidence now that employees really enjoy a four day week. At the ends of these trials, we often ask people what it will take for them to go back to working for an employer working five days a week.

00:23:21:22 - 00:23:38:20

Brendan Burchell

A lot of people say that they would only do that if they had a really massive pay rise, but lots of people say that they would never do it. They never want to go back to only having a two day weekend. They felt such pressure at the weekend, particularly parents with young children. They never want to go back to just having a two day weekend.

00:23:38:22 - 00:23:48:07

Brendan Burchell

So I think it's one of those things that once you've tasted it, experienced it, realize that it's not just a fantasy. It can be a reality. There's no going back.

00:23:48:09 - 00:24:15:09

Helen Fitzhugh

Thank you. And I suppose with with Covid, we saw that people confronted with the idea of the hybrid working or the remote working, they had to do that. So it would be whether people were forced into that position, employers by the fact they can't attract workers if other people are advertising the four day week, would be where they would reach that tipping point, I suppose, where it looks more likely because I don't think it's going to be legislated as far as we can see.

00:24:15:09 - 00:24:19:21

Helen Fitzhugh

But as you say, social scientists can never predict the future.

00:24:19:23 - 00:24:47:15

Brendan Burchell

I think certainly I can't see legislation coming in the UK in the near future, but once it becomes the norm, then I think what we may find is that four day working is there for most people, but there are some people excluded from that, for instance, in zero contract jobs or gig economy, platform economy jobs. And then we might see legislation that will provide the same benefits to those people being excluded.

00:24:47:17 - 00:25:09:21

Brendan Burchell

But my prediction is that's a way yet. I think it's going to have to become more of a norm first before governments take it on. But in other countries it will work differently. In other countries, I think there will be legislation. There will be, leading through the public sector employment. In Belgium, for instance, now there's an ongoing trial where there are actually tax breaks, financial benefits for employers that adopt a four day week.

00:25:09:21 - 00:25:27:17

Brendan Burchell

So that's another way in which it could be encouraged to come in. So, who knows. But again, there's lots of ways in which it might happen. But these trials where employers decide that's the way they want to go at the employment employer level, that's where we're seeing the big steps forward at the moment.

00:25:27:19 - 00:25:55:20

Daiga Kamerade

As there’s also hopes that, working time reduction, and including four day week, could potentially reduce inequalities that we have in society that are created by unequal distribution of opportunities for full time employment among different groups, for example, gender inequalities, many women take part time jobs because they cannot combine full time job with responsibilities for children and elderly care.

00:25:55:20 - 00:26:24:12

Daiga Kamerade

So there’s hopes that working time reduction might help women to progress in career, faster than they do now, or that men would take more responsibilities for childcare and other care responsibilities. For disabled people to be able to find an employment, if it's only four days a week, if they can't work five days a week and other, other inequalities as well.

00:26:24:14 - 00:26:39:10

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah. So a really important area to tackle there through this, this approach. Okay. Well that's been really interesting. Was there anything else we should know about the four day week or working time reduction before we finish up with you today?

00:26:39:12 - 00:27:05:15

Brendan Burchell

I think it's just that I would emphasize so often when we talk about this topic, a reaction, is it sounds like a great idea, but it would never work in my place workplace because we're all so busy. And actually, those are the places where just stopping and thinking about how things could be done more efficiently. Often they are the ones that works most successfully.

00:27:05:17 - 00:27:28:13

Brendan Burchell

It's not because there's not a slack in the system as it is at the moment, or that's not obvious. It's because you just get this, you know, whole shift of an organization's orientation. So, often people like to come up with examples of employers where it couldn't happen. So far, we haven't found those sorts of employers where it just can't happen.

00:27:28:15 - 00:27:41:17

Brendan Burchell

Some employers, it's more difficult than others. And we find probably is more difficult to implement in retail or manufacturing and construction, but we're still getting a very high success rate even in those cases.

00:27:41:19 - 00:27:50:01

Helen Fitzhugh

Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. So so the fact that they are physical on site jobs, but you can still adopt this approach 

00:27:50:01 - 00:27:50:19

Brendan Burchell

Very much so.

00:27:50:21 - 00:27:53:20

Helen Fitzhugh

Could you give me an example of a project where you found that?

00:27:54:01 - 00:28:11:11

Brendan Burchell

I was at a brewery, a few weeks ago, where now they had to think very carefully about the way they brewed the beer. They actually were timing themselves to make sure they were using optimal ways of doing each process in the brewing. But now they brew beer, and it's one of my favorite beers. They do a very good job of it.

00:28:11:17 - 00:28:31:18

Brendan Burchell

They managed to get all the brewing done in four days, not five days. So that was a success story of manufacturing. We've had a fish and chip shop. What they do is annualized hours because it's in a touristy area. They just didn't need to open the same number of hours in the winter as in the summer. So that's how they achieved it due to an annualized hours approach.

00:28:31:18 - 00:28:48:18

Brendan Burchell

So all these organizations go about it in a different way. But yeah, with that creativity and thinking about it and making sure all the employees are involved, and also thinking about how because they, the people understand their own jobs and could find these ways of working more efficiently.

00:28:48:20 - 00:29:05:20

Helen Fitzhugh

I think that's another thing that we often talk about in the the workplace wellbeing workshops we do is the need for inclusion and dialogue between people within an organization. So the fact that the four day week prompts that is, a really interesting part of how it improves both wellbeing and performance.

00:29:05:22 - 00:29:25:15

Daiga Kamerade

So one tip for managers, would be not to think about why they could not introduce a four day working week, but to think how we could introduce four day working week. And if you don't have an answer to this question yet, talk to your, employees. So I probably will ways to introduce a four day working week.

00:29:25:17 - 00:29:39:08

Helen Fitzhugh

Great. That's a brilliant place to finish. Thank you for that. Thank you both, Daiga and Brendan for speaking with me today. It's been lovely having you here. Yeah, we look forward to hearing more about, working time reduction in the future.

00:29:39:10 - 00:29:39:22

Brendan Burchell

Thanks.

00:29:40:02 - 00:29:45:12

Daiga Kamerade

Thank you very much for having us.

00:29:45:14 - 00:29:56:12

Helen Fitzhugh

Please do visit www.evolveworkplacewellbeing.org We look forward to seeing you next time.