Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

On the face of it the 4-day working week sounds like a good thing, but the devil is in the detail. Recently in the UK the government has indicated they may strengthen workers' rights to request this – however, it’s the right to request 40 hours compressed into 4 10 hour days, rather than 5 8-hour days. Although it might sound attractive at first, I’m not sure this is sustainable in the longer term, particularly for those who have family. If you include travel time, it could be that you end up being away from home from 7am – 7pm. Which would leave you Friday to recover and could ultimately lead to burnout.  A better option could be the 100/80/100 4-day working week: 100% of pay, 80% of time, 100% of productivity. Initially pioneered by NZ firm Perpetual Guardian and taken up by hundreds of organisations around the world – although interestingly very few in NZ.  It’s based on the idea that during a typical 5-day week there are only limited periods when we are productive – some estimate that it’s only about 30%