A Little Bit Richer

Iona: We all know striking the balance between work and life is hard. With hybrid working, it can be tricky to create boundaries where your professional time ends and your personal time begins. The way we're working is undoubtedly changing and with flexible working and the four- day week on the rise, there are lots of ways we can increase our productivity while avoiding burnout.

I'm Iona Bain and welcome to A Little Bit Richer, brought to you by Legal & General. Here to chat with me today about getting the right work- life balance is Joe Ryle from the Four Day Week Foundation, the UK's National Independent Campaigning Organisation that advocates for a reduction in the maximum working week from 48 to 32 hours by 2030, and for people to request a four- day working week with no loss of pay. That's quite an ask.

So to give us a bit more information about how that might work, welcome, Joe. So we hear this term work- life balance a lot. What does it mean and how do you think the definition has evolved over time?

Joe: We used to work six- day working week a hundred years ago.

Iona: So working on a Saturday?

Joe: It took the best part of two decades. They were like progressive business leaders like Ford Motor Company in America, also trade unions pushing for this and they won the weekend. My personal take on it as someone who was working five days a week, six days a week for a number of years, it didn't feel like a good balance.

Iona: Why do you think this whole topic of work- life balance has come to the fore in recent times? When I was younger, when I was starting out in my career, I did hear about a work- life balance, but it felt like quite a distant concept. It didn't feel like something that was really available to me because the idea was you work hard, you get on and you get your head down. So why do you think work- life balance has become a more, if you like, popular concept?

Joe: So I think the Covid pandemic has been a catalyst for totally rethinking the way that we work. I think that's because we do have an unhealthy culture, which is a culture of being addicted to really long working hours. The data does speak for itself. We work some of the longest full- time working hours across Europe, but at the same time we have one of the least productive economies. So what that suggests is that all these long working hours we're not producing good results for the economy and also not producing good results for workers.

Iona: I've definitely been coming across more burnout in my career and in my life. Why do you think we are seeing more cases of burnout?

Joe: On a serious point, it is worrying that we do have millions of workers that are getting burnt out on a more regular basis. We have three million workers who are out of work long- term sick. I think there is a relationship there with this long working hours culture we have.

It's not good for our wellbeing. I also think we've had this explosion of technology, smartphones, which has created this always on culture where you never switch off. You take your work to bed with you, you take it back home. If you're on your phone, you can respond at any point.

Iona: Yeah, so I mean, how would we define burnout?

Joe: I think the official definition of burnout is stress when you're just physically, emotionally exhausted. When we ran the biggest pilot of a four- day working week in the world so far, so it was 2022, we had 61 companies that took part. So it was about 3000 employees. There was a 71% overall reduction in burnout, so people feeling a lot less stressed.

I think there was a recent survey which came out which was across Europe, I think 20 to 30, 000 workers were asked about their motivations for what they're looking for from their job. For the first time work- life balance is higher than better pay. So actually for the first time workers across Europe are, when they're going into the workplace, they're looking for a work- life balance.

Now that's a significant shift and I do think that's largely been driven by conversations that have happened since the pandemic that have forced us to change. It has been a hundred years of nine to five, five- day working week, and the world of work has obviously transformed since then. It's very different from that more agricultural or industrial era.

Iona: It's fascinating that people would put that work- life balance ahead of income, which you would imagine would solve a lot of people's problems, especially in the cost of living crisis in this general economic environment. The feeling is that more money would be really, really helpful and yet work- life balance comes ahead.

Joe: Yeah. Well, I mean if you've got loads of money but no time, then you can't really enjoy your life, can you?

Iona: I think a really big question that's on people's minds at the moment. Are we going to see at some point a return to the full- time, five day a week, in the office working model?

Joe: I don't think we're going back. If you look at the polling and survey data on this, no one wants to go back to five days a week in the office. I do think we are moving forward to a culture of work where workers have a bit more freedom, a bit more autonomy from work.

Iona: When I think back to the early part of my career, if I asked to work from home one day a week, it was like I was asking to be paid a million pounds a year. It just seemed absolutely impossible. Now it does feel like that has become more normalized. I guess the concern is that there are those big employers that can basically say, well, if you want a job with us, you've got to come in five days a week and that's all there is to it.

Joe: Perhaps for now, they can still get away with that in some cases, but to normalize that workers can request a better balance in their lives where they've got more time for childcare, friends, hobbies, whatever it is in their life. We are in a place where we've had decades and decades of a culture that's been addicted to work and that's been put front and centre. We're at the very beginning of that shift.

If you look at also some of the survey data, it is the young generation coming through now who are saying, I don't want work to dominate my life in the same way that maybe it has done for their grandparents' generation, their parents' generation. So there is that cultural shift taking place, but it will take time. These things don't change overnight.

Iona: That's a very interesting shift because as I said, in the early part of my career, it was all about hard work and there will be people who will say that work is a joy. If you can find a job that you really love you'll want to go in and do it five days a week and you'll want to work as hard as you possibly can, what would you say to that?

Joe: You can actually work harder in four days rather than five. Spreading the working week over 40 hours when workers are better rested, when they have a better work- life balance, you come back in a Monday morning refreshed, more motivated and you can perform better. A rested worker is a better worker.

Iona: That makes a lot of sense. I guess there's always that concern that if you're trying to squeeze five days into four, then actually that puts a lot of pressure on those employees then to fit a pint into a quart bottle, if you see what I mean, and to try to fit more into less time. Could that cause more stress in the long term?

Joe: I think it's something we need to be wary of and they're not going to pretend everything about a four- day working week is perfect. There may be some downsides there if workers need to figure out the reframing of the work that they're doing.

Iona: So what are some of the downsides of a four- day working week and how could those be managed?

Joe: Definitely some of the downsides we hear about are there not being enough time for staff being together, that social time. We have seen that managed by companies being really strict about putting something in the diary like once every month to make sure that does happen. There's certainly industries and sectors where it is going to be more complex to implement.

It is also about working differently. We often inherit ways of working that go back decades and actually we've found the newer startup organization are much more agile and able to adjust to something like a four- day week much easier.

Iona: Is there a particular group of people or are there particular groups of people for whom this could be quite a good model?

Joe: We think in the long term, the vast majority of the economy could shift to a four- day working week, but we've been honest about the fact it is going to be more difficult in certain sectors, in certain areas of the economy. It will be more complex to implement and we might have to be more creative about how we implement it.

I mean, I do also want to stress that working a four- day week isn't just about doing everything that you should do in a five- day week, but packing it into four days. It is that opportunity to work differently. To really look at the work that everyone's doing, bring the team together, to work more strategically and work more effectively and to get the rewards of people being better rested and then being more effective.

Iona: So could we see a rise in things like job sharing for instance? Could that be a potential solution to some of those challenges that you might face with a four- day week?

Joe: I think we'll see more and more of that. I think ultimately this wider conversation about flexible working, four- day working week, what it's all about is that workers want more freedom and more autonomy from work, and that will probably happen in different ways. I think there will be job sharing, there'll be more part- time work.

We've also got the elephant in the room as well as artificial intelligence coming in, which is doing a lot of the tasks that we do in our day- to- day jobs. So our argument on that was, well, if we want workers and people to benefit from AI, then we should all be having a shorter working week because it's doing some of the tasks that we used to be able to do.

Iona: So if you are keen to work fewer hours, what are the options available for you? How can you bring that idea of working more flexibly or working less with your employer? I can imagine it might be quite a tricky conversation to have.

Joe: Yeah, the government have strengthened the flexible working rights in the last couple of years, so anyone as an employee can now request more flexible way of working. Now that's not a four day, 32- hour working week as we advocate for, but there's different versions of flexible working weeks that you can offer to get a week that is more balanced.

Iona: So let's chat through that because it may be that a four- day week would not be on the table for certain employees. A nurse, for instance. Could there be other things that they could ask for instead that would help them achieve that balance and those boundaries in their life?

Joe: You can ask for job sharing, part- time work, compressed hours where you're doing the same amount of hours, but over a four- day week, you can also ask for a nine- day fortnight. Actually increasingly, we're seeing hundreds of companies move to nine day fortnight rather than a four- day week, which is halfway there. So they'll reduce the working hours, but one week they're doing five days and the next week they're doing four.

Iona: That's interesting. I haven't come across the nine- day fortnight as much, but maybe that's a bit more of a halfway house.

Joe: Yes.

Iona: Another question I have is that what are people spending that day off doing? I'm quite curious because I've read about quite recently that there's been a big rise in the number of people going to the golf club or going to the hairdressers or doing things that they would otherwise do on the weekend midweek.

So a lot of these businesses within the economy are seeing a bit of a midweek boom. So I think that's quite interesting and it points to the fact that people maybe are making the most of that day off, but what are you seeing in terms of how people are using that day?

Joe: I think it's a real mix. Some of the anecdotal feedback we get back is people just doing their life admin, catching up on the things as you say, they haven't had time to do in the week. In Valencia, the government trialled a four- day week every Friday for a month. I think it was in April. It was interesting that that study found that actually the hospitality service sector really boomed on that Friday. So I do think there's real, real benefits of this for hospitality industry.

Iona: Mind you, I imagine in Valencia just sitting outside with a coffee or a beer, it's going to be a bit more attractive than here in the UK, right?

Joe: These days it's hot in July and August.

Iona: Well, true. Yeah, you can make the most of it, I'm sure. So, Joe, what are the three simple things that someone can do to maintain healthy boundaries at work whatever their working model is?

Joe: So I think a big one is being really aware of your screen time use and trying to set some clear boundaries to when work starts and ends. The danger of working from home is that actually those lines are so much more blurry.

Iona: Oh, absolutely.

Joe: Also having time where potentially you put your phone away from your desk. Maybe you're not even checking your emails, you're just really focusing on the work that you need to get done. Two, take your annual leave.

Take your bank holidays. Workers have fought for those over generations. Take them and enjoy that time off. Also take a lunch break. There's too many people, including myself sometimes, who will sit at your computer screen for an hour with a sandwich next to you and that's not good either.

Iona: No. Try to avoid aldesko.

Joe: Yeah, exactly. Get to the park, have a walk.

Iona: That's a great idea. Yeah. Really thought- provoking. Lots to consider. Thank you, Joe.

Next time, financial psychotherapist Vicky Reynal will be here to help us work out the psychology behind our spending. Sounds very intriguing. I'd love it if you could follow the podcast, leave us a review, and help others get a little bit richer too. You can keep up with the show on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram at Legal & General. Thanks for listening. Until next time, see you soon.