Last week, the largest set of data from companies who have been trialling a four-day week in the UK was released and the results were compelling.
Participants agreed to produce the same output for the same pay, while only working for four days. In the 61 firms who took part, revenues stayed the same, or even increased against expectations.
No, revenues rose by 1.5%, inflation (over the 6 months) was 6% or so, real revenues fell.
We do actually have to get the facts right when evaluating a scientific experiment, no?
Pursuit Marketing in Scotland found meetings and internal communications took up too much time for a shortened week. They decided to switch to shorter, more focused meetings. They got rid of unnecessary paperwork and digitised more processes, before changing hours. This meant they were operating as efficiently as possible before the change.
We also need to analyse or results properly. Here the revelation is that the company was pissing about in useless meetings. Get rid of them and productivity improves. Great, so let’s stop pissing about in useless meetings. Ee could, indeed, take that increased productivity as more time off. We could also take it in higher profits, greater wages, m,ore output for consumers to enjoy. It’s not, that is, a proof that four day weeks work. It’s a proof that not pissing about in meetings works.
Pursuit Marketing in Scotland found meetings and internal communications took up too much time for a shortened week
I reckon productivity has plummeted since the lockdown experiments partly because of the techno gizmos we used to work through the lockdowns. Not everything needs to be a Microsoft Teams meeting, but here we are.
We got a lot more done with emails and feature phones.
Why not just stop “pissing about in useless meetings” and keep working 5 days? That way you can improve productivity AND serve your customers throughout the week…
Dave – given the mad rush British corporates are currently on to offshore every job they possibly can, anybody dumb enough to agitate for a 4 day week probably deserves to be replaced by Indians.
Steve: the jobs do come back after a while, at least the ones where quality is critical.
So they were taking five days to do four days’ work before, and now, instead of doing five days’ work, they’re knocking off on Thursdays? Well done, everyone.
“I reckon productivity has plummeted since the lockdown experiments partly because of the techno gizmos we used to work through the lockdowns. Not everything needs to be a Microsoft Teams meeting, but here we are.”
It’s really Teams that is the blight because people try and replicate the in-office experience of having everyone together.
The 3 bits of tech that make a big difference to remote work are a) ticket systems like Jira b) email and c) wikis. And once you get into the flow with them you realise that all the old office ways were rubbish by comparison.
Jira: here’s your list of tasks, written down. If you get stuck on one, you write a comment on it, and you pass it back to the manager and do the next thing. It means you don’t have to wait and find a manager to talk about a thing. It’s just in their list, and they can look at it and reply to you. The communication is clearer because it’s written. You retain history of things like say, why a piece of work was put on hold for 3 months.
Wikis: you get all your team knowledge written down. No more having to wait for Dave because he knows how to set up a thing. Dave writes a wiki page about setting it up.
Email: I’m stuck on X, do you know how to fix it?
Once you get into the flow of it, you realise that all that physical stuff is actually worse.
If I spend more than 3 hours in meetings a week it’s an odd week. Like maybe something critical has happened.
@TG
Steve: the jobs do come back after a while, at least the ones where quality is critical.
As many, including the banks, have come to realise. Sadly, the ‘owd codgers’ who knew how to do things right are mostly enjoying their retirement and would require a lot of financial incentive to return.