How should companies evaluate value of a four-day workweek? Ask Johnny

Johnny C. Taylor Jr. tackles your workplace questions each week for USA TODAY. Taylor is president and CEO of SHRM, the world's largest commercialized relation of quality resources professionals, and writer of "Reset: A Leader's Guide to Work successful an Age of Upheaval."

Have a question? Submit it here.

Question: My institution is considering moving to a four-day workweek. While the thought is fashionable with employees and seems similar it could boost productivity and retention, I'm acrophobic astir whether it's genuinely sustainable successful the agelong term. How should organizations measure whether a four-day workweek volition enactment for their circumstantial concern exemplary without harming performance, lawsuit service, oregon worker burnout? – River

Answer: A four-day workweek sounds appealing successful theory, but whether it works successful signifier depends wholly connected the business. There's nary cosmopolitan model. What works good for 1 enactment whitethorn make operational strain for another, and leaders request to beryllium honorable astir that from the start.

The archetypal question organizations should inquire is not, "Is a four-day workweek popular?" The question is, "What concern occupation are we trying to solve?" Is the extremity improved productivity? Better retention? A recruitment advantage? Reduced burnout? Operational efficiency? And the 2nd question is conscionable arsenic important: Do we person the information to beryllium a four-day workweek volition lick this problem? Flexibility should beryllium treated arsenic a concern strategy, not simply a workplace trend.

Organizations besides request clarity astir what "four-day workweek" really means. Are employees moving 4 10-hour days, oregon is the enactment reducing full play hours? Those are fundamentally antithetic models with precise antithetic operational, financial, and workforce implications.

And fto maine beryllium clear: Compressing enactment into less days without changing expectations, workflows, oregon staffing models tin really summation burnout alternatively than trim it. If employees are expected to nutrient the aforesaid output successful little clip without amended systems successful place, the unit simply intensifies.

Fairness astatine work: Are workplace policies reasonably enforced without favoritism? Ask Johnny

That's wherefore operational ratio matters truthful overmuch successful these conversations. Organizations that successfully instrumentality flexible enactment models are often the ones consenting to rethink however enactment gets done. They trim unnecessary meetings, streamline approvals, automate repetitive tasks, and destruct low-value enactment that consumes worker clip without improving outcomes.

Customer expectations besides person to stay beforehand and center. Employees whitethorn admit the flexibility, but if customers acquisition slower service, inconsistent support, oregon reduced responsiveness, the exemplary becomes hard to sustain. Any workplace strategy yet has to enactment some the workforce and the concern itself.