Hands up if you’re a working mom that reduced your work time for less pay but with the same responsibilities!

If we want to close the gender pay gap, we have to start looking at ways to even the playing field.

The #4DayWeek offers a real chance to move the needle on gender equality at work and at home.

We know that women are much more likely to opt for reduced-hour or part-time roles – moving to a shorter working week in a structured, systemic way across the organization can take a giant step towards closing the #genderpaygap and achieving true #genderequality.

It’s not only working parents that struggle to juggle caring responsibilities and work commitments. More and more people these days are caring for elderly parents or relatives, with many families having more complex care needs.

We at the Work Time Reduction can help you start the conversation with your boss or board.

Although they often go by unnoticed, rest notes are a vital part of musical structure in the same way that rest is essential to our productivity and happiness.

If we forget the rests, the music doesn’t sound the same.

The same applies to us – we don’t sound the same if we forget to rest. We lack:

👍 Enthusiasm

💠 Clarity

🤗 Empathy

😑 Patience

🔋Energy

Shorter working weeks provide the time needed for family and friends, your hobby, personal admin, household maintenance, and simply resting.

If you’re curious about how to start the journey to reduced work time, please get in touch to explore how we at Work Time Reduction can support you and your business.

Finding balance in our lives is a challenge few feel they have mastered. Juggling family, friends, work, caring responsibilities and hobbies needs more than a swanky app. What it really takes is courage. Courage to say no and courage to say “we can do this differently”. 

Remote work, despite its many benefits, has further perpetuated the “always on” culture when your workplace is your home. Flexible work is a catchphrase rather than a reality if we’re not in control of our own boundaries.  

The Harvard Business Review found that employees can spend up to 80% of their workdays communicating with colleagues in emails, meetings, and instant messaging apps on and off the clock.

But, what if?

Shorter working weeks have proven to increase balance in our lives and job satisfaction. 

The biggest skeptics when it comes to the #4DayWeek are some of the most ambitious people I know. They remain unconvinced that by reducing the working week, this won’t negatively impact their output and in turn their success. 

Research by Dr Juliet B. Schor on global four-day week pilots showed overwhelmingly positive results on work-life balance and productivity. “At the beginning of the trial, we asked them to rate their current work ability compared to their lifetime best as a measure of self-rated productivity, and that went up significantly. People felt at the end of the trial that they were more productive, they just were performing significantly better.

And then we asked, ‘Do you want to continue the trial?’ Some 97% said yes. We then asked how much they valued a four-day week by asking them how much more money they would require to work a five-day week at their next job. Some 42% said they’d require between 26% and 50% more pay,13% said they’d require more than 50% more pay, and 13% said no amount of money could make them go back to how things were before.”

Interestingly, it is also often ambitious, high achieving leaders who have the foresight to see that employees living balanced lives are more likely to stay with the company, be engaged with their work and in turn to achieve a high level of productivity. 

The difference between these two groups is courage. Courage to lead and not be afraid of failure, and also recognition that we can do anything, but we cannot do everything. 

Do less to get more

A shorter working week creates the time and space needed to prioritize things other than work and not feel guilty. Guilt is a feeling that has  become more and more prevalent in our lives, particularly for working parents. The struggle to work hard and achieve your career goals while also dedicating yourself to your family can be extremely difficult. 

After switching to a four-day workweek to address retention challenges in August 2021, 95% of the 250 employees at Boise-based non-profit Healthwise felt the policy positively impacted their work-life balance.

Some of the stories that we hear at Work Time Reduction about what reduced work time means for people are just incredibly powerful, whether that’s being able to do the school pickups, spending more time with elderly relatives, learning a new skill, or having time for a hobby. This is something that makes a truly transformative difference in people’s lives.

In every political campaign headquarters all over the world, special advisors and strategists are working to find new and innovative ways to increase voter turnout. But where do the voters go then? Do they stay involved in the campaign? Do they know the battles fought to deliver what was promised, or the details of why it wasn’t possible this time? 

People’s association with organizations that purport to represent their interests – political parties, trade unions, religious institutions, and community-based organizations are at historic lows, as is their trust in government institutions. 

Political engagement is a principle, not a hobby

A robust democracy depends on a strong turn-out at elections. However, without participation beyond election time by citizens in political decisions, through consultation, citizens’ panels and forums, and extended deliberative dialogue, the electorate feel totally detached. Low levels of participation have a lot to do with cynicism about the political process, but long hours in paid employment add to the disincentives and help to create a vicious cycle of disengagement.

A report prepared for the Ford Foundation by Hahrie Han a political science professor at the University of California, sets out a framework for how people can participate in the political process in ways that build their sense of agency and encourage further participation:

Means to engage. People must be able to participate. We need to remove barriers to participation and implement policies and procedures that make it easier for people to vote. 

Motivated to engage. People must want to participate. It’s not enough for voting to be easy; people have to want to take part.

Meaningful engagement. People must feel their participation actually matters. It must have a tangible impact on policy decisions, and improve people’s lives.

Democracy takes time

Learning about political issues, getting involved in decision-making, joining and supporting political parties, campaigning and voting all take time. 

Those who work 40+ hour weeks, participate in family life, social life and take part in a hobby, simply do not have time to engage in their communities in a meaningful way without feeling like they have to sacrifice something else.

Freeing up time for participation will enrich civil society, strengthen democratic processes, and make it easier for voters to hold politicians to account.