Is AI the Answer to Achieving the 4-Day Week?
There are causes for optimism in using AI to reduce the days we spend at work but there is a lack of rigor in the discussion
There’s a suggestion that artificial intelligence (AI) could be the factor that makes the long-desired four-day workweek a reality.
Numerous indications and trends are pointing in this direction. On social media, there’s the Lazy Girls’ Jobs phenomenon, which started as a version of “quiet quitting” but is now much more about the smart use of technology to automate tasks and optimize time at work.
The inventor of the phenomenon, Gen Z “anti-work girlboss” Tik Tocker Gabrielle Judge is advising her 200,000 followers to explore AI's potential. She said: “Thanks to the rise of AI and augmented reality (AR), your full-time job will look completely different; this will cause a revolution in how we view the full-time career”. Last year, JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon confidently predicted that the next generation of workers will work not just a four-day, but a 3.5-day work week. Bill Gates thinks we can get to three and billionaire hedge fund owner Steve Cohen agrees.
A recent Tech.co survey of 1,000 business leaders found that 93% of businesses where AI is critical to business function are considering a four-day work week compared to 41% who aren't using AI at all. Every senior leader contacted who stated that they had extensively implemented AI was open to considering it, suggesting companies using AI are more likely to be open to a four-day workweek than those that aren't.
We agree. We are passionate advocates for more use of AI in the workplace, aimed at not just streamlining routine operations but also bolstering HR's ability to deliver a better employee experience.
But simply positioning AI as a panacea that brings all the benefits of a four-day workweek, like increased worker well-being, is an oversimplification. One consideration, for instance, is the centaur/reverse centaur AI productivity conundrum. We might end up not being helped by AI to do our jobs better, in the ideal “centaur” model, but trying to keep up with AI's relentless pace in the “reverse centaur” model. Look at YouTube videos of Amazon workers in automated factories to see how problematic this can be. Would you tolerate strict eight-minute bathroom breaks?
The reality is that getting to a four-day workweek is more complex, subtle and multi-faceted than just pressing the “AI switch.” A four-day workweek is possible and can work well if, in addition to tech-driven optimization, CHROs and leadership teams ask employees to embrace productivity and time-saving techniques. It also takes conscious steps around work redesign, setting and answering the right questions, plus a lot of hand-holding and expectation setting throughout the transition.
AI could free us to focus on the more complex, strategic elements of their roles. How do we know this? We have intimate experience in designing and leading real-world four-day workweek pilots and gathering feedback from participants. We studied nine mid-range organizations that have successfully adopted four-day work weeks to identify the critical unifying factors to their success.
Our recently published joint study determined that the success of four-day workweek pilot programs could largely be attributed to three major factors: transitioning away from time-based performance metrics to an outcomes-focused approach, instituting practices designed to enhance employee focus, productivity and accountability levels and commitment from leadership to cultivating a mindset rooted in trust, flexibility and employee autonomy.
While the adoption of AI did not explicitly emerge as one of the critical success factors in the four-day workweek pilot studies, tech tools did prove to be an important supportive aid to automate low-value tasks and streamline administrative processes. Take the experience of one pioneering early adopter, The Ross Firm Professional Corporation.
An industry-leading law firm in Southern Ontario, this Canadian firm’s CEO, Quinn Ross, confirms that AI and particularly (generative AI are not just tools but are coming to be seen as integral partners, enhancing the quality and efficiency of his team’s work.
That’s because, “AI allows us to distill vast quantities of data into actionable insights, automate routine tasks and thus frees The Ross Firm Professional Corporation team to focus on more complex, strategic elements of their roles,” and is a shift that enables it to deliver more sophisticated, client-centered solutions.
Our research revealed that enabling employees to work at their full potential and scope of responsibilities (referred to as operating "top of license") was a crucial factor in achieving success with a four-day workweek. In addition to reducing the number of meetings, it was deemed essential to eliminate, automate, or outsource non-priority tasks—allowing employees to concentrate their efforts on priority work that aligns with their core responsibilities and expertise.
Ross said that the four-day workweek “has been significantly underpinned by our strategic use of technology, including AI”. But that’s because the organization wasn’t working with it blindly.
“From the outset, AI was [always] envisaged as a cornerstone of the work redesign necessary to support this transition,” said Ross. “It's not just about doing the same work in less time, it's about doing better work more efficiently.”
AI has enabled The Ross Firm Professional Corporation to reimagine workflows, reduce inefficiencies and prioritize high-value tasks. AI is also just one instrument in an orchestra building a new four-day workweek symphony that also includes:
Re-evaluating project management methodologies.
Implementing more flexible work policies to enhance work-life balance.
Fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.
Investing in training and development so that the team not only understands how to use AI effectively but also remains at the forefront of other legal and technological advancements.
Ross explained that in terms of his delivery of a four-day workweek to his people, technology and AI form the backbone. Still, the holistic changes to the firm’s operational culture, processes and people strategies were equally vital. It’s a similar story at another four-day workweek pioneer, a firm called Web Strategies Inc.
Chris Leone is the CEO of this busy digital marketing agency. For Leone, a four-day workweek first came onto the radar back in 2022, roughly a year before he began to consider seriously implementing it.
In early 2023, WebStrategies became more intrigued by the potential benefits and wanted to learn from the experiences of others who had made the switch and finally launched its four-day work week in July of 2023.
“We had several goals in mind with this pilot,” said Leone. “First, we saw it as a great opportunity to further enhance the employee experience [but] we also saw it as a way to innovate our work processes and find new ways to become more efficient. Finally, we believed we could improve our ability to both attract and retain great talent.”
AI is an important factor here.
“There are countless ways we expect to leverage AI,” he said, “but right now I’m most interested in how it can save the team time and how it can make us more informed. Anyone can ask a large language model (LLM) to write a blog post for them, so there’s nothing special or competitive about that—but if we can train these tools using data and information no one else has, we can produce really special things and that gets me really excited.”
But it’s not the sole driver of change being applied. First, Leone decided he and his colleagues needed to take a long, hard look at how things were being done in the round at the firm. “I don't think a four-day work week is possible unless organizations are willing to get very honest about how they do things and decide what is essential and what is nonessential,” he said. “This is the magic of a four-day workweek experiment; it’s not about giving your employees more time in their week—it’s the process of scrutinizing what you do, asking hard questions and a commitment to get better about how things get done.
“Piloting a four-day workweek puts everything under the microscope. We looked at the necessity, frequency and length of meetings, evaluated which deliverables were worth continuing and which were not and which processes could be made more efficient. Essentially, no stone was left unturned and our new four-day workweek becomes the by-product of that exercise.”
Embracing AI Could Free Up Time
The four-day workweek success story isn’t magically easier because of AI, but it is a huge factor nonetheless. As Leone said: “Regardless of the specific tools used, technology innovation has always brought improvements in efficiency. The simple math is that we can all save time in our day if we adopt these tools. The question then becomes, do we backfill that extra time with more work or do we bank it and apply it to other parts of our life instead? At WebStrategies, we are choosing the latter.”
Sharing the benefit of AI-enabled productivity gains with employees in the form of reduced work time for everyone in the company is a powerful incentive for employees to adopt new productivity tools like AI.
“Our workday has become more intense, with less flex time available. Our team likes the four-day workweek model, rating it an 8.2 out of 10 overall and we’ve tracked an 18% increase in satisfaction with people’s leisure time. Overall, it’s a harder work week, but their time away from work is better,” Leone added.
Leone is convinced that by continuing to improve efficiencies, the intensity of the workweek could lessen. AI will play a role, as will the much richer, holistic, work redesign allied to the use of productivity tools that is the key to making a four-day work week materialize. Just firing up an LLM won't spur the desired transformation on its own.
About the Authors
You May Also Like