This Friday at 1500 GMT (0700 US Pacific, 1000 US Eastern), I’m giving a talk to the Design Business Association’s London chapter about “The 4-day week in a pandemic world: resilience, work-life balance, and the future of work.” Here’s the abstract:
The pandemic and lockdown have challenged organisations to quickly adapt to a new economy and world of work. All this has happened at a moment when growing income inequality, rising job insecurity, epidemic levels of overwork and burnout, and enduring problems with gender inequality and work-life balance were already forcing us to rethink how people and companies work.
In this talk, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Author and Founder of Strategy + Rest, will explain how the 4-day week, which had been adopted at farsighted design firms, can help us deal with all of these challenges, while also making companies more resilient and safer places. Alex will detail how companies have shortened working hours without sacrificing productivity or profitability, and present the science that explains why well-designed time off makes people and firms more creative and productive.
When I was doing the research for SHORTER (US | UK), some of the best and most insightful interviews I had were with people at design firms in London.
People there were really thoughtful about why they had moved to 4-day weeks, the benefits they saw, and of course how design ideas could be applied to how we use time.
So it’s a real pleasure to be able to talk to designers there about my work, and about how the 4-day week can help them.
While it can’t be an in-person talk (alas) it’ll be broadcast on Zoom, which means anyone anywhere can see it. You can register here.
See you on Friday!