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Why Going to a Four-Day Workweek Might Not Matter
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THOMAS R. LECHLEITER/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Share your experience: What are your thoughts on the four-day workweek? What options for scheduling flexibility have you offered or considered? We will highlight responses in a future issue of The Workplace Report. Please email responses to yogita.patel@wsj.com.
Welcome Back. As a workforce futurist with my own business, I often work a seven-day workweek. But depending on what needs to get done, some days I’ll work only a few hours and there are weeks when I might work only a few days.
Technological advances, an increased focus on employee well-being and a demand for flexibility has big corporations experimenting with flexible work arrangements like hybrid and asynchronous schedules. Pushing the idea further, some are advocating for a four-day workweek. A current proposal in California’s state Assembly would reduce the standard workweek to 32 hours from 40 hours for companies with more than 500 employees.
However, many in the HR community doubt that a four-day workweek will take hold on a wide scale. “There would need to be a massive overhaul in business and work/life philosophy in our country for this to work as a general concept,” said Karen Niovitch Davis, chief HR officer at integrated marketing agency Prosek Partners. She thinks a five-day workweek is still essential since business is traditionally conducted Monday through Friday.
Christy Pruitt-Haynes, an HR consultant at NeuroLeadership Institute, thinks that many organizations wouldn’t be able to move to a four-day workweek (or fully asynchronous work) because of the customers they service. “While internal interactions can happen at various times, external client expectations have not caught up and a bit more structure is required,” she said.
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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: DAISY KORPICS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, GETTY IMAGES(1)
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Instead of moving to a four-day workweek, some companies have adopted a model where workers are encouraged to find an eight-hour shift that works best for them from within a 14-hour window. “There are core hours–10 a.m. to 3 p.m., usually–where employees need to be available for meetings and clients and won’t be interrupted,” said David Lewis, CEO of HR consultancy OperationsInc and the founder of the think tank HR Roundtable.
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But flexible models like this still total 40 hours of work a week, which begs the question: Is a four-day workweek even considered full-time?
For some industries with a high number of overtime exempt positions, the notion that it will take exactly 40 hours in a week to do your job is arbitrary. Mr. Lewis said that full-time work today in these organizations is more related to output than time. “As the competition for talent increases, these companies can allow people to work at a pace that supports workflow.” Depending on your organization and industry, this pace may be closer to 32 hours–or could be up to 60 hours.
To make non-traditional arrangements like the four-day workweek doable, HR leaders should be prepared for inevitable issues. For instance, when everyone is working at the same time for a more extended period, it is easier to chase a colleague down for an answer. Ms. Pruitt-Haynes said the No. 1 resource people forget when moving to non-traditional work schedules is a clear decision-making process or responsibility assignment chart.
Managers should also ensure that employees who work onsite or during “preferred” hours aren’t given priority on more desirable assignments to demonstrate that all work styles are OK and encouraged, according to Ms. Pruitt-Haynes. And, it’s important not to assume that employees think that less in-person time is always better.
Will a four-day workweek catch on in America, or will it go the way of the now obsolete open office trend? It is difficult to envision how this work structure could be widely mandated without broad pushback from business, and in any case, its viability greatly depends on an individual organization’s circumstances.
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Continued Below: Preparing for New York's Pay Transparency Law; Reader Feedback on Diversity, Compensation Strategies
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CONTENT FROM OUR SPONSOR: Indeed
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We've been asking readers of The Workplace Report to tell us about their diversity, equity and inclusion strategies and creative compensation tactics. Here are some of the responses, which have been condensed and edited.
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"We have really integrated DEI into everything we do–from corporate strategy and leadership messages from the top, to how we measure objectives and priorities for the year as well as behaviors of leaders and individuals, to how it’s woven into reward decisions. Transparency is another key way we’ve worked to advance our DEI strategies. Accenture has set diversity goals which we measure, and publicly report progress on, regularly. We have been doing trainings on systemic racism and microaggressions, and we know that to make them effective you need to follow up with nudges that matter, and clearly communicate what’s expected behavior." Amanda Leacy, global Inclusion & Diversity lead at consulting firm Accenture
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"When it comes to recruiting or closing key talent, we lead with our mission and team—not with huge pay or stock bumps that would leave tenured employees being paid inequitably. We blitz candidates with leadership—our Board and C-suite spend time with candidates, showing them just how valuable they would be to us. We make sure they understand our culture and how we value our employees. We don't leave recruiting to the recruiters: Getting the best people is a team sport." Rob Porcarelli, chief operating officer and chief legal officer at human resources software company Syndio
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"We transitioned to being a fully distributed company, which has allowed us to expand hiring throughout the U.S. and Canada and bring more diverse voices to the table. We also implemented a leveling system, which ties to compensation, and sets out the skills, competencies, and experience needed to move through a career path for both technical and business careers." Amir Nathoo, CEO, co-founder edtech startup Outschool Inc.
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Dropbox's Alastair Simpson on How to Thrive While Working from Home
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Age of Reinvention: How Seasoned Workers Can Add Spice to a Team
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🎧 LISTEN: In the latest episode of WSJ's "As We Work" podcast: Pivoting careers as an experienced worker? Ageism might stand in your way. Career coach and Oura Ring's Global Head of Talent, Ginny Cheng, explains how to overcome the bias against older workers, and how to use experience to your advantage.
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New York City Companies Prepare to Put Pay Ranges on Job Listings
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A sweeping pay-disclosure law requiring nearly all companies operating in New York City to include pay ranges on job postings is set to take effect May 15. Though business groups have pushed for changes and a proposed amendment to the law calls for implementation to be delayed until Nov. 1, employers have been consulting attorneys on how to comply, setting compensation ranges for each job title and coaching managers on how to explain the numbers to existing workers.
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PHOTO: JOSE A. ALVARADO JR. FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Employers prepare: At the enterprise software company Workato Inc., human-resources executives expect to spend the coming weeks meeting with employment attorneys for advice on things like what the law means for remote roles, said Kerry Moore, vice president of global talent and diversity at the company, which employs 850 workers globally, including roughly 30 staffers who live in the New York area.
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Ms. Moore said if Workato discloses pay while advertising jobs, it will likely aim to explain in postings that a base salary is just one part of the company’s total compensation, which also includes bonuses and equity.
Building on previous pay equity initiatives: Some employers say previous work to address pay equity has helped them to get ahead of the law. The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based online marketplace Etsy Inc. earlier this year shared pay bands with every employee in what it said was an attempt to help staffers understand their earning potential, said Toni Thompson, vice president of people at Etsy. In advance of that move, Etsy also rolled out educational materials last year to inform managers and employees on how pay ranges are structured.
A chance to see what competitors are paying: Hari Prasad, founder and CEO of Yosi Health, a New York-based healthcare software company that employs four workers with plans to hire another 10 this year, said he looks forward to being able to compare salaries at the company’s competitors. He added there might be a potential upside to including salaries upfront: fewer surprises at the end of an interview process, when an applicant is typically told the pay.
“This is going to make the hiring process more efficient,” Mr. Prasad said.
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Thousands of Employees are Testing a Four-Day Workweek Starting Today (CNBC)
Could California Mandate a Four-Day Workweek? A State Bill is Pushing for the Change (San Francisco Chronicle)
Is Friday the New Saturday? Europe Eyes a Four-Day Week (Politico)
We Made a Four-Day Workweek Standard in 2020. Here’s Why We’re Sticking with It. (Fast Company)
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Alexandra Levit is a business and workplace author and speaker. She is the weekly columnist anchoring The Workplace Report. Yogita Patel curated and edited this newsletter.
✍️ Feedback on this newsletter? We would love to hear from you, so please get in touch. And be sure to visit us at The WORKPLACE REPORT
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