Today's world of work is up against a number of challenges and crises. Fresh issues have emerged in recent years. Among them is the question of our relationship with working time and productivity.
“What if we adopted the four-day week?” That is the question posed by Jeanne Deplus, creator and host of the TAF podcast, which explores the ways work and companies are changing. Each episode is built around 3 key themes:
- The HR issues, which examine flexibility, autonomy and how to resolve the crisis in employee engagement,
- The wellbeing and health issues, around which work-life balance revolves,
- The societal issues, which aim to put the freed-up spare time to work for social and environmental causes.
The series of episodes has a twofold aim. On one hand, to help companies that want to loosen up working time and hours, and on the other, to prompt managers to reflect on our relationship with working time.
Episode 1: The issues and concepts that are reopening the question of working time,
With Laëtitia Vitaud, author and speaker on the future of work
Jeanne Deplus and her guest Laëtitia Vitaud, author of “En finir avec la productivité”, speaker on the future of work and expert at Welcome to the Jungle's HR lab, trace how the regulation of working time first came about. The earliest signs date back to the Industrial Age. Output was pushed to the maximum. That is when the notion of shifts (the three-eight rota) appeared. Bit by bit, workers eventually secured new rights: rest days, paid leave, a set number of weekly working hours, and so on. Over the years, a legal framework formalised all of these gains. Today, workers face two major problems.
On one hand, the search for meaning at work is growing, both personally and organisationally. On the other, the proliferation of employment statuses (employee, freelancer, entrepreneur, part-timer, and so on) widens the gulf between the letter of the law and the reality of working time. In light of these 2 variables, Jeanne Deplus and Laëtitia Vitaud question the notion of productivity and how it relates to flexible working time. Is it still meaningful to measure the productivity of an hour of work? Might the productivity of a team and the bonds that hold it together be more worth assessing than the productivity of each individual? Could we talk about “workload” rather than “working time”?
Episode 2: The largest company in the world to run a four-day, 32-hour week,
With Laurent de La Clergerie of the LDLC group, a pioneer of e-commerce
LDLC is the largest group to have loosened its employees' working hours. The new measures also cover the time spent in meetings. To cut down on meetings, LDLC chose to do away with meeting rooms altogether to counter meeting overload. For Laurent de La Clergerie, the group's founder, bringing flexibility into his employees' working time sets off a virtuous circle of growth. “The better employees feel, the more they rest, and the better they perform at work. Work-life balance is better respected, and everyone is delighted with it. Only 1% of my staff would want to go back to the old ways! And yet our turnover just keeps rising. A fine promise for the future,” says the guest.
In this episode, the notion of urgency comes up for discussion. “Everyone picks their own day off. With communication being less instant, the supposedly urgent nature of certain tasks is then called into question. In fact, you come to realise that even with a 24-hour response time, the results are still there. Ultimately, we work over fewer days but free up more time to get things done,” Laurent de La Clergerie explains.
Episode 3: Flexible rhythms, the four-day week and our relationship with time in the light of neuroscience,
With Albert Moukheiber, doctor of neuroscience
It is alongside Albert Moukheiber, doctor of neuroscience and clinical psychologist, that Jeanne Deplus examines the impact of a flexible rhythm on the cognitive sphere. For the guest, “the pressure to perform, in our working lives as much as our personal lives, undermines our capacity to recover. We are forever trying to make the most of our time, whether that's working time or spare time on holiday, for example”. For the psychologist, it is all about setting your dial somewhere between the locked-in 9-to-5 system and total flexibility of hours.
For the guest, it is clear that the flexible model has positive consequences, not least for self-confidence. But it also has its limits. “For one thing, it doesn't apply to every job. For another, good collaboration relies on a degree of predictability in when people are available. To what extent, then, is it possible to bring in this system, and on what terms?”.
Episode 4: Taking stock after 3 years at a company that pioneered the four-day week,
With Camille Fauran, Managing Director of Welcome to the Jungle
Camille Fauran appears in this episode to give some very positive feedback. She confides in Jeanne about the reasons that prompted Welcome to the Jungle to bring in the four-day week: “We had no trouble at all holding on to our talent and our staff were engaged. It was Jérémy Clédat, the company's founder and CEO, who decided to introduce the four-day week. Not at the teams' request, but to stay true to his vision for Welcome”. But unlike LDLC, which rolled it out straight away, Welcome opted for a trial phase. “The trial lasted 5 months. Before a wider roll-out, above all we wanted to gauge the impact that such a change might have on the teams,” Camille explains.
This trial phase raised any number of questions: what impact does the measure have on working hours? On results? Does this new rhythm call for new hires to work (better)? For the guest, this measure notably made it possible to bring in new talent: “The sales team kept the same number of meetings but no longer had the time to take on new prospects. So we had to create a ‘pre-sales’ team,” Camille explains. A creation of roles that promotes a better division of tasks.
Episode 5: Exploring our relationship with working time: the practices of visionary companies,
With Samuel Durand, producer and director of Work in Progress
For this fifth episode, Jeanne Deplus welcomes Samuel Durand, author and producer of the Work in Progress documentaries and, for several years now, an explorer of the future of work. The third instalment of Work in Progress looks at our relationship with working time. Several themes are explored in it.
First, the concept of work. How do we define what work is, and therefore the time that goes with it? Is it meaningful to talk about work-life balance? And where do we draw the line between work and our personal pursuits?
Next, the notion of asynchronous working. Working at different hours from your colleagues drastically cuts meeting time and, as a result, the time given over to meetings of little use and little productivity. But what are the best practices to adopt? Samuel Durand introduces Buffer, an organisation of fewer than roughly 100 employees that operates entirely on international remote work, and therefore asynchronously.
The final subject covered is how meaningful the notion of “working time” really is. Is time spent working the best measure for assessing performance? What other indicator, or indicators, should we use to gauge an employee's performance? How can we rethink these indicators and adapt them to each person's role and activity?
Special edition: The future of work: crossed perspectives to approach 2023 with enthusiasm,
A six-voice episode
For this special edition, Jeanne exceptionally welcomes 5 guests: Léa Audrain from the podcast Le Tilt, Delphine Zanelli from the podcast L’entreprise de demain, Sophie Plumer from the podcast Chef[fe], Myriam Multigner from the podcast Conversation inattendue and Valentine Gatard from the podcast New Prana.
Through their respective podcasts, the 6 guests regularly meet managers, leaders, employees and experts who constantly question the limits of the world of work. As the year draws to a close, each one takes stock: which key points stood out? What vision, or visions, and what HR issues should we anticipate for 2023?
Several headline subjects came up across the board. Top of the list were the issues of transparency and communication within companies, and the room left there for vulnerability. For all of them, being vulnerable is an outstretched hand to the other person, a way to build a relationship of trust. “A manager's role is not to know everything. Saying ‘I don't know’ means making yourself vulnerable enough to give strength to your team, and to create a genuine bond of trust and transparent communication”.
Another major issue is the relationship with the body at work. The new generation of workers is in constant search of meaning at work, of energy, of activity. How are today's companies rising to these new needs? Is there an ideal model (the four-day week, asynchronous working, fully remote work, and so on) that encourages employees to give their all to their role? For the guests, the reality is more complex. Every model has its virtues and its shortcomings; what matters is that it suits the organisation. There is no ideal model – press ahead with optimism and listen to your teams!
Episode 6: Bold leadership: moving to the four-day week in consulting,
Pascaline Larose, founder of the Ideme firm
It is Pascaline Larose, president of the consulting firm Ideme, whom Jeanne Deplus welcomes for the final episode of the TAF series. Ideme is a consulting firm specialising in employee engagement. By bringing in the four-day week, Pascaline breaks with the conventions of a sector reputed to be rigid and traditional: consulting.
What motivations drove the founder to switch to four days when the business model is hardly suited to it? What rules were put in place internally and with clients? What is the impact on the employer brand? “Encouraging employee engagement is our core business. The four-day week is, to my mind, an excellent lever for engaging staff”, Pascaline asserts.
But on top of being aligned with the company's vision, the move to the four-day week has attracted talent and kept it loyal. “The consulting sector is facing a shortage of candidates. At Ideme, bringing in the four-day week has considerably reduced turnover. It runs at 30% on average across the sector as a whole, but we are aiming for turnover below 10% over the long term.
The new measure also makes the company hugely appealing to young talent, which prompts them to apply in droves. With the firm striving for excellence, the choice of a recruit is becoming ever more selective”.
Episode 7: Flexibility of working time and place, put into practice for 10 years,
Clément Alteresco, founder and CEO of Morning
This 7th episode of the podcast welcomes Clément Alteresco, founder and CEO of Morning. Morning is a French company specialising in the creation and fitting-out of shared workspaces. Since it was founded in 2012, Morning has placed transparency and flexibility – geographical as well as temporal – at the heart of its company culture.
How do the Morning teams organise themselves around this flexibility? How do you (re)define your culture as headcount grows? How do the teams manage this ultra-flexible way of working? “The teams organise themselves through project-based working. Internally, we use Asana, a project management tool that lets us operate with complete transparency. The staff assigned to a given project are free to organise themselves as they see fit to see the project through. This way of working proves particularly useful for the teams assigned to building works and fitting-out,” Clément explains.
On average, 1 in 3 employees at Morning holds a role that requires a physical presence in the workplace. For the remaining two-thirds, the vast majority of tasks can be carried out remotely. “We grant our staff a great deal of flexibility, geographical as well as temporal. This flexibility goes hand in hand with the trust we place in employees. Our relationship with working time is a matter of personality, and I remain convinced that an employee is most productive when they find their ideal rhythm,” Clément asserts.
That said, the old presenteeism persists among younger recruits. The leader has witnessed this trend. “The old hands are used to this flexible system and have adapted to it perfectly. The newcomers tend to stick to a more classic model, with typical hours of 9.30am to 5.30pm. Our culture tends to shake up that model from the ground up.” New measures are planned for the near future to improve staff work-life balance. “Balance lies in the everyday. To let employees catch their breath more regularly, we have planned – together with HR – to introduce a half-day of respite every month. It is optional and will let staff recharge their batteries,” Clément explains.
Episode 8: Rethinking working rhythms in a hyper-growth start-up,
Virgile Raingeard, founder and CEO of Figures
How do you rethink working rhythms in a hyper-growth start-up? It is alongside Virgile Raingeard, founder and CEO of Figures, that Jeanne Deplus sets out to pick apart these mechanisms. Figures is the app that compares pay levels across a market to ensure greater fairness. Made up of 40 employees, this fast-growing start-up has put in place an innovative working rhythm.
Bringing in the four-day week was a no-brainer for the leader. From the outset, the company has promoted a highly empowering culture built on autonomy. “The teams organised themselves, on their own, to keep the company running smoothly. Little by little, a clear trend took shape. Employees were actually working four and a half days rather than four. The shorter day was nonetheless seen as a real perk,” explains Virgile.
The company's culture – of which asynchronous working is one of the pillars – greatly eased the introduction of the four-day week. “In the team, we mainly have senior profiles, who are therefore very autonomous and used to asynchronous working. In theory, the four-day week was a success. To adapt it as well as possible to my staff, we brought in the four-day week every other week. So far, it is a resounding success,” the founder asserts.
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