When it comes to the 4 day work week, many businesses make the mistake of thinking that employees simply need a day off to relax. This could not be further from the truth! If you want to see a real return on investment (ROI) from implementing a 4 day work week, then you need to use that day specifically for employees to focus on their wellbeing and future-proofing their careers. In this blog post, we will discuss what that looks like and how you can make it happen in your own business!
When it comes to employee wellbeing, there are a few key areas that you should focus on. First, employees need to have time to exercise and take care of their physical health. This could include things like going to the gym or playing sports. What they don’t realise is that by getting active, they are producing more of the right hormones in their bodies that contribute to peak performance.
Second, employees need to focus on intentional upskilling and learning about the impacts of technology. This isn’t just listening to some random podcast or reading the book that has been sitting on their bookcase for ages. Instead, they need to be actively seeking out new learning opportunities that will help them be future-proofing their careers.
Being intentional about the two above aspects of implementing a 4 day work week will have a beneficial impact on the business’ productivity uplift. Employees have the best possible chance to be in peak mental and physical state when working. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this being in flow.
The increased productivity also helps with creating time for employees to focus on increasing the value of their contribution to the business. Too many businesses are still overly focused on helping their employees fix their weaknesses and invest too much money on courses to do so. Instead, they should be constantly looking at how the job function of each employee could be changing over the next 5 years and considering what each need to learn to be able to be future jobs ready.
If you want to make the 4 day work week work in your business, then you need to focus on using that extra day to invest in employee wellbeing and future-proofing their careers. Only then will you see a real ROI from implementing this change!
What investment have you made in your business that is improving wellbeing and helping employees become future jobs ready?