Latest news with #fourDayWorkweek
CNN
03-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- CNN
American food trivia, four-day workweek, how much to exercise: Catch up on the day's stories
5 Things Work lifeFacebookTweetLink Follow 👋 Welcome to 5 Things PM! The Fourth of July is officially upon us, and no country knows how to celebrate its birthday quite like the US. Whether you're feasting on barbecue fixings, watching fireworks by the lake or taking a road trip, find out just how much — or little — your holiday weekend could cost. Here's what else you might have missed during your busy day. Switching to a four-day workweek can be good for the bottom line — and it isn't only workers who reap the benefits, according to the results of a new trial in the UK. Some organizations recorded an increase in revenue and fewer sick days compared with the same year-ago period. Mass evacuations are underway after an out-of-control wildfire in Crete — Greece's largest island and a popular tourist spot — broke out following high temperatures and strong winds. More than 200 firefighters, along with 46 vehicles and 10 helicopters, have been deployed to fight the blaze, according to officials. The US job market continues to strengthen despite heightened uncertainty following President Donald Trump's tariff policies. 147,000 jobs were added in June, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%. But this job growth is only within a few industries. Regular exercise has long been known to help reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease — and a new study suggests working out could help people fighting cancer. CNN wellness expert Dr. Leana Wen explains what you need to know. The Fourth of July is a time to celebrate our country's diversity of people, perspectives and palettes — but how well do Americans know their food? Put your knowledge to the test by matching these 50 regional dishes with the US states that love them. Get '5 things' in your inbox If your day doesn't start until you're up to speed on the latest headlines, then let us introduce you to your new favorite morning fix. Sign up here for the '5 Things' newsletter.☕ A new 'third place': Starbucks is trying to win back customers looking to sit down for a cup of coffee by renovating select stores with comfy chairs, couches, tables and power outlets in the next year — a stark change from its grab-and-go concept. Will it work? Liverpool star Diogo Jota dies at 28 in car crash in Spain A tropical storm is brewing just in time to ruin July 4th weekend Congress passes Trump's sweeping domestic policy bill 🪖 That's how many troops North Korea may be sending to Russia in the coming months to bolster its front line with Ukraine, adding to the 11,000 deployed last November in a shroud of secrecy. 🏭 Finding surreal beauty: The same photographer who captured China's factories with seemingly inexhaustible human labor revisited the country 20 years later to an eerily different workplace: no people. 'Ultimately, I knew that I didn't want to say on my deathbed, 'I always wanted to move to France but didn't.'' Mary Jane Wilkie, an octogenarian expat 🥐 Oui can do it: George Gershwin's score is the only thing that's missing from this modern fairytale. After falling in love with Paris in her 20s, the American finally relocated to the French capital at the age of 79 — and has absolutely no regrets. 🍕 New York may have America's top pizza, but which city is at its heels, according to Italian judges?A. ChicagoB. NewarkC. Los AngelesD. New Orleans⬇️ Scroll down for the answer. 🌭 Relishing tradition: Champion eater Joey Chestnut will soon grace the Coney Island stage again at its annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. The quintessential American tradition is expected to attract thousands, as Chestnut works to break his world record of 76 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. 🧠 Quiz answer: C. Pizzeria Sei, the No. 2 pizzeria in the US, is run by William Joo in Los Angeles.📧 Check out all of CNN's newsletters. Today's edition of 5 Things PM was edited and produced by CNN's Kimberly Richardson and Chris Good.
CNN
03-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- CNN
American food trivia, four-day workweek, how much to exercise: Catch up on the day's stories
5 Things Work lifeFacebookTweetLink Follow 👋 Welcome to 5 Things PM! The Fourth of July is officially upon us, and no country knows how to celebrate its birthday quite like the US. Whether you're feasting on barbecue fixings, watching fireworks by the lake or taking a road trip, find out just how much — or little — your holiday weekend could cost. Here's what else you might have missed during your busy day. Switching to a four-day workweek can be good for the bottom line — and it isn't only workers who reap the benefits, according to the results of a new trial in the UK. Some organizations recorded an increase in revenue and fewer sick days compared with the same year-ago period. Mass evacuations are underway after an out-of-control wildfire in Crete — Greece's largest island and a popular tourist spot — broke out following high temperatures and strong winds. More than 200 firefighters, along with 46 vehicles and 10 helicopters, have been deployed to fight the blaze, according to officials. The US job market continues to strengthen despite heightened uncertainty following President Donald Trump's tariff policies. 147,000 jobs were added in June, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%. But this job growth is only within a few industries. Regular exercise has long been known to help reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease — and a new study suggests working out could help people fighting cancer. CNN wellness expert Dr. Leana Wen explains what you need to know. The Fourth of July is a time to celebrate our country's diversity of people, perspectives and palettes — but how well do Americans know their food? Put your knowledge to the test by matching these 50 regional dishes with the US states that love them. Get '5 things' in your inbox If your day doesn't start until you're up to speed on the latest headlines, then let us introduce you to your new favorite morning fix. Sign up here for the '5 Things' newsletter.☕ A new 'third place': Starbucks is trying to win back customers looking to sit down for a cup of coffee by renovating select stores with comfy chairs, couches, tables and power outlets in the next year — a stark change from its grab-and-go concept. Will it work? Liverpool star Diogo Jota dies at 28 in car crash in Spain A tropical storm is brewing just in time to ruin July 4th weekend Congress passes Trump's sweeping domestic policy bill 🪖 That's how many troops North Korea may be sending to Russia in the coming months to bolster its front line with Ukraine, adding to the 11,000 deployed last November in a shroud of secrecy. 🏭 Finding surreal beauty: The same photographer who captured China's factories with seemingly inexhaustible human labor revisited the country 20 years later to an eerily different workplace: no people. 'Ultimately, I knew that I didn't want to say on my deathbed, 'I always wanted to move to France but didn't.'' Mary Jane Wilkie, an octogenarian expat 🥐 Oui can do it: George Gershwin's score is the only thing that's missing from this modern fairytale. After falling in love with Paris in her 20s, the American finally relocated to the French capital at the age of 79 — and has absolutely no regrets. 🍕 New York may have America's top pizza, but which city is at its heels, according to Italian judges?A. ChicagoB. NewarkC. Los AngelesD. New Orleans⬇️ Scroll down for the answer. 🌭 Relishing tradition: Champion eater Joey Chestnut will soon grace the Coney Island stage again at its annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. The quintessential American tradition is expected to attract thousands, as Chestnut works to break his world record of 76 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. 🧠 Quiz answer: C. Pizzeria Sei, the No. 2 pizzeria in the US, is run by William Joo in Los Angeles.📧 Check out all of CNN's newsletters. Today's edition of 5 Things PM was edited and produced by CNN's Kimberly Richardson and Chris Good.
Fast Company
29-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
5 reasons why the 4-day workweek is a win for everyone
Juliet Schor is an economist and sociologist who specializes in the study of work. She is a professor of sociology at Boston College, having previously taught at Harvard for 17 years. Her previous books include the national bestseller The Overworked American. Juliet has received numerous awards for her research and writing and has had her work published in scores of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and People magazine. She has also made several appearances on popular newscasts. What's the big idea? For a while, the concept of a four-day workweek seemed aspirational—utopian, even. However, it is now more realistic than ever. Research increasingly shows that switching from five to four days is a win for employees and their entire company. Well-being increases (and stays that way), retention issues are solved, and heightened productivity replaces fatigue and stress. The benefits are so impressive that governments are getting involved in legislating fewer working hours. Times are changing, and modern life and modern business are better off on a four-day work schedule. Below, Juliet shares five key insights from her new book, Four Days a Week: The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-Being, and Working Smarter. Listen to the audio version—read by Juliet herself—in the Next Big Idea App. 1. The four-day week is life-changing for employees Between dual-earner households, the faster pace and complexity of modern life, and intensifying job demands, we've heard over and over that 'two days is not enough' to manage life admin, see family and friends, and recover from the workweek. Around the world, levels of stress, burnout, and disengagement remain historically high. That's a big part of why we find that a third day off is transformational. Physical and mental health, sleep, fatigue, and anxiety all improve, according to survey and biometric data. Stress and burnout are reduced. People are happier and more engaged in their work. The obvious reason a four-day week is transformational is the ability to work less. In our statistical modeling, we found that the larger the working time reduction, the bigger the well-being impacts. People who manage to reduce their time by a full eight hours per week experience about twice the improvement in well-being. When we drill down to see what it is about working less that makes people so much better off, two factors emerge. About half the increase in well-being is due to behavioral changes outside of work, such as better sleep, more exercise, and less fatigue. The other half is that people register much higher levels of effectiveness and performance at work. 2. Working less boosts productivity We discovered that people are much more productive on a four-day week. They report being able to find more efficient ways to do things. People report that they're no longer experiencing the Sunday Scaries, and they show up on Monday mornings feeling refreshed, rather than anxious. They feel more on top of their workloads and score higher on a 'work smart' scale. They do a better job prioritizing what's important, spend less time spinning their wheels, and are more motivated to get through their to-do lists. These individual impacts collectively contribute to the organization's overall success. Companies tell us they are maintaining or increasing overall productivity when they switch to a four-day workweek. That's counterintuitive if we assume that productivity mainly depends on how long we work. But there are several reasons for better performance. Staff are healthier, more energetic, and more loyal. Organizations become more intentional and invest in the upfront work that saves time in the long run. Customer-service-facing organizations in the tech world tell us they have finally gotten serious about documentation. Other companies report eliminating unnecessary forms or bottlenecks in approval processes. These are all examples of the 'forcing function of the four day week (4DW).' It makes organizations do things they know will save time but have been too busy to accomplish. 'Organizations become more intentional and invest in the upfront work that saves time in the long run.' The other major effect is that the four-day week stops resignations dead in their tracks. In one of our most successful cases, the manager explained that, on her team, turnover went from 30% a year to zero. That 30% turnover figure is common in her industry, and solving it avoided the wasted time of onboarding and training new people, which yielded a better product and higher sales. At a hospital we studied, the opportunity for overworked nurse managers to get a third day off led to many rescinded resignation letters. At a restaurant (another high-turnover industry) people also stopped quitting. A four-day-a-week job is much more valuable to people. About 15% of our sample says that no amount of money could induce them to return to a five-day schedule. Many more would require a significant pay increase to return. That's why when people get a four-day week, they don't leave. 3. A whole organization transformation For years, companies have tried to address employee stress and burnout with individual solutions. They've tried flex time, scheduling accommodations, wellness classes, yoga, and mindfulness. The academic research shows that none of these works. Stress and disengagement have only gone up. Those on shorter schedules often suffer stigma or get paid less, but end up doing as much work as before. In contrast, reducing hours across the entire organization is a real solution. In the trials we studied, companies received two months of training on how to implement the 4DW before they began. How is 'making it work' defined? Well, there is some variation across companies, but generally, it's defined as doing five days' work in four. Companies were coached on ways to get inefficient meeting cultures under control and to create focus time. They learned about new time-saving software or how to analyze their processes to eliminate wasted steps. They achieved success because it wasn't just on individuals, but everyone was pulling together to change the culture. That results in a true shift in work norms, shifting from the facetime/productivity theater model to one that's focused on results. 4. Almost all the companies who try it stick with it Our team wanted to know if the great results we saw would persist. So, we went back to the companies at one and two years in. We found that improvements in employee well-being were remarkably stable. 'Almost all the companies stayed on the four-day schedule.' Perhaps more surprisingly, almost all the companies stayed on the four-day schedule. Some instituted a few tweaks to their programs, but only about 10% reverted to five days after a year. If we exclude those who never really gave it a try, it's closer to 5%. Maintaining or raising productivity, improving product quality, reducing turnovers, and getting happier, more satisfied employees is a recipe for success. 5. The four-day week is coming It has been 85 years since the workweek was last reduced. Since the pandemic, pressure has been building, especially in the U.S., where working hours have been increasing. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Fridays are evolving away from a standard workday. Working from home is accelerating this process. But it's not just an organic evolution to the four-day week that we're seeing. Governments are beginning to encourage or even legislate worktime reduction. The Polish government has just announced a pilot program similar to the ones we've been studying. This follows similar pilots by the governments of Spain, Scotland, Belgium, Portugal, and the Dominican Republic. The government of Tokyo has recently implemented a four-day workweek for all its employees. Spain has just legislated a reduction in the workweek for the entire country to 37.5 hours per week. Recently, two bills to run pilots were filed in New York state, making it the 11th state considering legislation. And a growing number of local governments are shifting to a four-day week for their employees, with some saving money in the process. AI will accelerate the shift to four days. As companies incorporate AI at a rapid clip, society is faced with a stark choice: Are we going to lay off millions of people? That's a possible outcome with a technology that can replace so much human labor. But it's not our only option. We could follow the path we took with the first industrial revolution. We can use that labor-saving technology to reduce working hours and keep employment high. That's the path we should—and I think will—take. I started researching worktime reduction many years ago. At the time, it was seen as aspirational, even utopian. But that has flipped, and now the four-day week has become common sense. It is also the smart option if we want to protect our economy, democracy, and society.
Yahoo
08-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary blasts the 4-day week as the ‘stupidest idea' because the digital economy means we're always working
Millionaire judge Kevin O'Leary isn't a fan of the shift to a four-day workweek, laughing off the idea in a recent Fox News appearance. Instead, he said in today's modern workplace, everything is project-based, and tasks need to be completed by their deadline: 'There's no such thing as a workweek anymore.' If you have dreams of never working Fridays again, you may want to lower your expectations—at least if you work for Mr. Wonderful. Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary, who's known for his blunt communication style, was asked about a growing trend among workers for a four-day workweek. It's something that France, in particular, is exploring, on top of already capping work at 35 hours. 'That's the stupidest idea I have ever heard,' O'Leary told Fox News. 'I think we should let the French go to a two-day workweek and then kick their ass internationally.' At the same time, the 70-year-old acknowledged that the traditional 9-to-5, five days a week work schedule is not what it used to be. In fact, with 40% of his staff working remotely around the world, he admitted he doesn't care when his staff does their work—as long as it gets done on time. 'There's no such thing as a workweek anymore anyway on a digital economy, post-pandemic,' he added. Fortune reached out to O'Leary for comment. For workers, a four-day workweek is more than just about having a longer weekend; it's about providing extra flexibility and work–life balance, while also minimizing burnout. In fact, some 77% of workers say a four-day workweek, even if it still means working 40 hours, would have a favorable impact on their wellbeing, according to a survey by Gallup. At Exos, a performance coaching company with over 3,500 employees, a four-day workweek was implemented, and the results were largely positive. Teams were allowed to take one day as a 'You Do You' day, and productivity increased by some 24%. Burnout was cut in half. Other business leaders have started paying attention, too. About 30% of CEOs are now considering new organization-wide work schedule shifts, like a four or four-and-a-half-workweek, according to a KPMG survey of 100 CEOs of U.S. companies with over $500 million in revenue. Earlier this year, the Tokyo Metropolitan government began allowing its employees to work only four days a week in an attempt to help alleviate its growing population crisis and allow parents to better balance childcare and work. The governor of Tokyo, H.E. Yuriko Koike, told Fortune at the Most Powerful Women International summit in Riyadh that a four-day work is key to building a modern workplace. 'We must build a society where everyone can balance work and family life, and one step forward is the four-day workweek,' she said. 'Flexible systems like this allow both women and men to choose a work style that reflects their circumstances.' O'Leary isn't the only shark eager to share his opinions on hot-button topics affecting the workplace. Daymond John recently posted to TikTok to express his thoughts on a growing trend of 'loud quitting.' 'You see a bunch of people loud quitting, you better pay attention to what's going on with your staff and your team, because you awoke so much emotion that these people have collectively started saying 'I don't care what happens to me, [and] out publicly, this place sucks,'' John said, adding that he thinks 'that's absolutely amazing.' For workers simply looking for a raise, self-made millionaire Barbara Corcoran shared her thoughts earlier this year. 'You want to prepare for the meeting by making a list of everything you are hired for and then everything you are actually doing right now and share that with your boss,' Corcoran said in an Instagram post. 'Don't go in there and say you want a raise,' she added. 'Say you want a 10% raise and you're in a much better negotiation position to maybe get 8%. Name the number.' This story was originally featured on
Entrepreneur
02-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
4-Day Workweeks Lead to More Revenue, Less Burnout: Study
Working one day less per week improved revenue, retention, and employee health, according to a new study. Adopting a four-day workweek can improve employees' mental health and boost a business's bottom line, according to a new study. After studying over 245 businesses and nonprofits that have piloted a four-day workweek in their organizations over the past three years, Boston College economist Juliet B. Schor, also a lead researcher at 4Day Week Global, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that working one day less a week resulted in health benefits for employees. Nearly 70% of workers reported reduced burnout, over 40% experienced better mental health, and 37% saw better physical health. Related: 'Love It!': A Town in Connecticut Is Experimenting with a 4-Day Workweek — and It Seems to Be Working The pilot programs have reached 8,700 employees around the world, including the U.S., U.K., Brazil, and Ireland, and have lasted for at least six months at each company. On the employer side, the majority of organizations that piloted a four-day workweek noticed improved bottom-line metrics, including increased revenue and dwindling resignations. The results were so clear that over 90% of the more than 200 companies that started a six-month trial by June 2023 were still on a four-day workweek schedule a year later. Cloud computing provider Civo, which has 84 employees according to PitchBook, piloted the four-day week in 2020 and implemented it as company policy in January 2021. Civo CEO Mark Boost told The Register in April that the company has continued a four-day workweek for the past four years after positive feedback from staff and no decline in productivity. "Every employee is on a four-day week and most employees opted for Fridays off, which gives them a three-day weekend," Boost told The Register. Kickstarter also works on a four-day week, which started as a pilot program in 2021. Employee engagement is up 50% as a result. Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor told Kevin O'Leary in July that employees are "very productive" within their four days of work per week. Related: This Country Just Implemented a 6-Day Workweek for Employees However, a four-day week can have disadvantages. According to the BBC, reducing the workweek by a day can lead to a more intense workload on the remaining four days, potentially causing more employee stress. In 2019, Microsoft Japan gave its 2,300-person workforce five Fridays off in a row in August without cutting their pay. The four-day workweeks led to 40% more productivity, with employees taking off 25% less time during the trial, according to the study. Despite the promising findings, Microsoft ended the program after trialing it without giving a reason for not implementing the four-day workweek as a permanent policy. Still, a recent survey shows that more than three in five U.S. employees want a four-day workweek, even if they have to work longer hours. The survey, released by LiveCareer in January, polled 1,130 Americans about their thoughts on a four-day workweek, working 10-hour days. Nearly 70% of employees supported a four-day week, predicting that it would make them more productive and lead to better work-life balance.
