Exploring the 4-Day Work Week With Sasha Laghonh, Founder of Sasha Talks

Credit: Sasha Laghonh, Founder Sasha Talks | POV 4-Day Work Week

What are the advantages of a four-day working week?
The four-day work week demands businesses and employees to refine their focus on how they manage their time, resources and relationships to produce results. This will remove the extraneous time invested in speech and activities that challenge bandwidth nor does it contribute to nurturing a work culture nor morale building. Ultimately such circumstances can encourage employees to revisit their personal and professional priorities so they can leverage the three days out of the office. Whether it’s a four day work week or set hours defining a work week, this can contribute to performance enhancement and creativity. Everyone works differently under constraints, these constraints are sometimes needed to force people to think outside the box to yield results as a company.

What are the disadvantages?
Not everyone is well versed with time management and knowing how to work within confined parameters to produce better results. There is a learning curve for people who lack self-management skills in the office, hybrid or remote working environment. A four day work week doesn’t translate to all work activities being ‘crunched’ within a time frame. It’s an opportunity for people to perform better in all areas of life without permitting work to become a hindrance. People need to make an effort to embrace their learning curve which often is accompanied with growing pains. If you believe in results and benefiting from personal time, it’s worth the investment. Ultimately, workers are responsible for defining their priorities by becoming accountable of their professional choices. It’s not the employer’s role to accommodate an operational privilege of such nature without a justifiable cause by positioning the business’s bottom line at financial risk — context matters.
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From a business standpoint, client relationships are managed 24/7 therefore healthy expectations need to be set, contingent upon the nature of the business, how client requests & correspondence will be managed outside of the core work week. Life happens when we’re too busy planning. Being available when clients need you is critical to sustain a viable relationship. It’s important to set boundaries for emergency and non-emergency correspondence and follow up during off hours. Typically, 80% of these scenarios are addressed through proper operations planning and pre-existing company protocol that a brief work week should not impact this (if) the company is already managed well.
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How will it affect productivity?
Productivity in most cases will go up therefore quality assurance will benefit from this measure. This is possible if the talent pool hired to work these roles are competent contributors because proud achievers know how to manage their time and energies to extract the most from their work day. For those who are new to the concept of investing less hours to produce the same, if not more, they may struggle if they’re satisfactory or sub-standard contributors. As long as there are strong communication channels present to maintain the flow of productivity among the staff and management, including clients, then most concerns can be addressed. If the bottleneck is within management, it’s important to vet the management to know whether all executives are supporting a four day work week through their intentful messaging within the company.

How will the week be structured?
This is dictated by the company management and the sub-groups that oversee the employees. They need to assess what percentage of the time should be invested in team work, individual contributions, company wide meetings, conference calls and group engagements. Capitalize upon the time by having the right people working the roles as well as the right people attending these meetings. Optional attendees shouldn’t become regulars in these engagements because their time to produce is taken away. Production is key. Existing in a role is not enough.
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Will employees really be able to work four days?
Yes, employees can work four days in certain companies. This is dictated by the nature of the company and industry because in reality -- companies need to still engage with their environment throughout the work week if they are managing regional and global businesses. Business is a lifestyle, it’s not a light switch which aligns perfectly with each of our lifestyles. We may have boundaries as individuals, it doesn’t mean the business operations will perfectly align with the staff’s needs. We need to remember that businesses exists to serve a need. Majority of needs function throughout the seven days of the week. This comes down to how the business sets its hard and soft boundaries within the market, with its clients and within the organization. Setting real expectations can make a four day work week possible in qualifying environments.
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Meet Our Contributor — Sasha Laghonh
Sasha is a Founder and Entrepreneur of an educational and entertainment platform that integrates self & professional development into nurturing meaningful outcomes. As a speaker, mentor and author, she partners alongside global clients to capitalize upon their talent. She is the host in residence for KreativeCircle.com and Global Ambassador for Style My Soul, a Lifestyle & Interests Community. To learn more, please visit www.sashatalks.com.