A life of interesting conversations
It has been an incredible first half of this year. With pilot programs running in Ireland, the United Kingdom, North America and Australasia, our team has grown to 6 full time people led by the very capable Joe O'Connor.
Andrew and I now have the chance to take a step back and work on more strategic plans, it allows us to have the time to imagine a world with reduced hours working for all.
We have been in the UK and Europe for the last 6 weeks and having some very interesting conversations with government bodies and other policy advocates who want help to find a way to meaningfully reduce work time, without impacting pay or productivity.
This week we have been in Brussels watching one of our team - Jan-Emmanuel de Neve - debate the 4 Day week at the Brussels Economic Forum. Needless-to-say the vote was in favour of the 4 Day Week but we recognise that debate is important.
One of the main criticisms seems to focus on the name - the 4 Day Week - which those of you who follow us know is only a name. We in fact advocate for businesses to find their own way of reducing work time and that might look more flexible than just taking Fridays off.
We also met with policy advisors and the MEP from Hungary and had discussions with them about how to take a country from Zero to Hero. We also had chatted with the Scottish officials looking to launch their pilot. Next week we are off to Valencia for the first 4 Day Week conference, kindly hosted by the Valencian regional government.
People often ask me what I do, my answer is that I spend my life having interesting conversations. This is even more true than ever.
The conversation I seem to be having a lot is how we support businesses and organisations who are not the early adopters. Obviously, it's easy to see that the people who are already doing the 4 Day Week, or some other reduction in work time, are the ones who feel it would be not be hard for them. The conversation is quite mainstream now and so our focus is on how we support the next stage.
This is an exciting opportunity because while there is a lot of evidence that the 4 Day Week works, there is not much published on it working in more challenging environments. We want to help change this with a focus on new research focus that looks at these sort of businesses and organisations in more detail. What makes these ones able to be successful too.
Another interesting conversation is the development of a macro economic study which helps define the larger scale benefits to our society, economy and our families.
We look forward to bringing you more details about these interesting conversations in upcoming news.
