Less is more
Andrew Barnes makes a compelling case for increasing productivity by cutting the working week, writes Emma Newlands
In the course of my day job as a business reporter, I recently interviewed one company leader who mentioned, while discussing strategy, that their firm works a four-day week, to help staff achieve a good work-life balance. Another said his organisation cut its weekly working hours by a fifth, with its team embracing the policy whole-heartedly and with no dip in productivity.
A third, who had lived in China, cited the country moving from a sixto a five-day week. “And you know what?” he said. “Nothing happened. Productivity stayed the same or increased, and if you think about it, that’s quite remarkable.”
No doubt this would all be music to the ears of business leader and philanthropist Andrew Barnes, who became “something of an informal four-day week consultant” after implementing such a policy at his estate planning firm Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand.
He had a lightbulb moment after reading that employees were only productive for between one-and-ahalf and two-and-a-half hours of a typical eight-hour day – and realising that if he only increased this slightly, he could get the same output from his 240-strong team in a shorter week.
It became permanent after a trial monitored by academics. International headlines were “the last thing on my mind,” he says, but his decision did cause ripples – attracting global attention from companies and organisations such as the World Economic Forum. That said, not everyone favours the concept, with criticisms including the claim that it piles extra pressure on staff.
Barnes, a financial services veteran whose achievements include leading the sale of UK wealth manager Bestinvest, was further spurred on by his first-hand witnessing of several cases of burnout.
In this guide, written with business writer Stephanie Jones, Barnes makes the case that the five-day week is an anachronism – a “19th-century construct” as the “ramifications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution play out in unpredictable ways.”
While Barnes obviously didn’t come up with the idea of the four day week himself, he is truly evangelical (overly so on occasion) about the benefits, not just the positive impacts on wellbeing you might expect, but also the environmental benefits (fewer commuter journeys) and the effects on the gender pay gap.
He highlights compelling evidence around the positive financial impact too, claiming his own firm saw profitability increase by 12.5 per cent since the trial period, and citing studies revealing the tens of billions of pounds in collective annual
savings already totted up by UK firms pursuing the four-day-week path.
Barnes, to his credit, also highlights the headaches involved in implementing the scheme, and it’s not too surprising to learn that working a fifth day was sometimes required. He also stresses that introducing a four-day week requires meticulous planning to avoid being seen as a “cheap public relations win.”
Barnes also turns his attentions to a four-day week potentially helping combat issues around the gig economy and zero-hours contracts, although this seems like quite a leap.
Chapters close with a handy summary of points made, the writing is punchy and, while this book is very much a guide for companies looking to implement a four-day week as a broad policy, rather than for individuals looking to make their own case, it does offer plenty of evidence for anyone seeking to do so.