Speaker 1: Imagine at six am on a Friday morning, you wake
Speaker 1: up about to get ready for work, but then you
Speaker 1: remember you don't have to go to work. Instead, you
Speaker 1: have a blissful three day weekend ahead.
Speaker 2: Now imagine that you get.
Speaker 1: To experience this feeling every single Friday morning. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: still on a full time salary. This is what life
Speaker 1: is now like at my consultancy, Inventium. Back in July
Speaker 1: last year, we ran an experiment to see if we
Speaker 1: could improve our productivity and fit our work into four
Speaker 1: normal eight hour days yet still get paid for five
Speaker 1: seven months on I can tell you that the experiment
Speaker 1: was a huge success. And on today's episode and also
Speaker 1: on next Thursday's episode, I'm unpacking how on earth we
Speaker 1: managed to make this work. My name is doctor Amantha Imba.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational scologist and the founder of behavioral science
Speaker 1: consultancy Inventium. And this is how I work, a show
Speaker 1: about how to help.
Speaker 2: You do your best work.
Speaker 1: On today's show, I speak to Inventium's head of Learning,
Speaker 1: Charlotte Rush, because shar led Inventium's approach to implementing the
Speaker 1: four day week. And I imagine that you probably have
Speaker 1: a bunch of questions on your mind, because although Inventium
Speaker 1: is definitely not the first company to do this, we
Speaker 1: are still only.
Speaker 2: One of a handful globally.
Speaker 1: So how did this idea for having a four day
Speaker 1: week even come up, how did we make it happen?
Speaker 1: And how did shar manage to fit all her work
Speaker 1: into just four days. We cover all these questions and more,
Speaker 1: and on next week's show, I'll be speaking to Inventium
Speaker 1: CEO to uncover how you actually run a business when
Speaker 1: staff only work four standard days, yet we pay them
Speaker 1: for five. So we are talking about the new that
Speaker 1: we started an experiment with in the middle of last year,
Speaker 1: the four day week. And for listeners that are not
Speaker 1: familiar with the four day week or simply think that
Speaker 1: it's trying to fit five days of work into four
Speaker 1: really long, exhausting, arduous day is Shaq, can you just
Speaker 1: explain to listeners what the four day week actually is.
Speaker 3: So the four day week is based on this concept
Speaker 3: of taking one hundred percent productivity, reducing the time down
Speaker 3: to eighty percent whilst maintaining one hundred percent pay. So
Speaker 3: it's not about reducing your pay by eighty percent. The
Speaker 3: intention is not to do super long days and fit
Speaker 3: that into four days. It really is about how you
Speaker 3: can change your behavior so that you can do what
Speaker 3: is essentially five days work in four days and maintain
Speaker 3: the same pay.
Speaker 1: Yes, and it was pioneered by Andrew Barnes from Perpetual
Speaker 1: Guardian And I'll put a link in the show notes
Speaker 1: if you want to dig a bit deeper for listeners
Speaker 1: wanting to hear more about it. That's a really good
Speaker 1: interview to go to. Now I want to talk about
Speaker 1: how we even came up with the idea for trialing
Speaker 1: this four day week, because it was something that we
Speaker 1: generated pretty soon after COVID had hit, and COVID hit
Speaker 1: Inventium pretty hard. Within a few weeks, pretty much all
Speaker 1: our work was canceled or postponed.
Speaker 2: We very sadly.
Speaker 1: Had to let go of four staff members and so
Speaker 1: that was the environment and Inventium things were pretty full on.
Speaker 2: So, Shaq, can you talk us through how.
Speaker 1: This idea even came about in amongst this crisis.
Speaker 3: So we decided that seeing as we had this reduced
Speaker 3: team and we were all going to be working remotely
Speaker 3: whilst we still had previous to COVID, whilst we were
Speaker 3: working quite flex and a lot of us working from home,
Speaker 3: we did still go to the office. We would often
Speaker 3: see each other a few times a week. So there
Speaker 3: were a lot of changes, and there were also a
Speaker 3: lot of challenges external to Invent Him, obviously because of COVID,
Speaker 3: and so we decided to run a little internal idea
Speaker 3: generation workshop which was solving the challenge of how can
Speaker 3: we make eight great? So our team was reduced down
Speaker 3: to eight people, but we really were passionate about, okay,
Speaker 3: even though we have a reduced team, how can we
Speaker 3: still have great impact? And also how can we work
Speaker 3: better together with this reduced team in a really hard time?
Speaker 3: So I ran that workshop and we have our challenge,
Speaker 3: how can we make eight great? We had a bunch
Speaker 3: of stimulus and we all got together remotely and came
Speaker 3: up with lots of different ideas. And our CEO, Mish,
Speaker 3: she actually came up with the idea for the four
Speaker 3: day week at Invent Him.
Speaker 2: She did, didn't she?
Speaker 1: And it was so funny when I saw that idea,
Speaker 1: because I remember when I'd.
Speaker 2: Interviewed and Drew on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Just in the back of my head, I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be great to try that out, and then
Speaker 1: I just thought, no, no, just focus on getting through
Speaker 1: COVID before you get all experimental with your ideas.
Speaker 2: Amount So I actually really loved that.
Speaker 1: Miss suggested that that was very cool, and do you
Speaker 1: remember what the team's reaction to that idea was.
Speaker 2: Initially?
Speaker 3: I think it was really funny because I remember after
Speaker 3: we shortlisted our ideas down and so everyone gets a
Speaker 3: chance to vote on which ideas we actually want to
Speaker 3: try out an experiment with and how can we Sorry,
Speaker 3: the four day week was one that obviously got through,
Speaker 3: so people were voting and saying, this is something I
Speaker 3: want to try. But once we'd actually decided, okay, this
Speaker 3: is something we want to try, I remember Mish calling
Speaker 3: me afterwards and saying, you know, it seems Charlotte that
Speaker 3: everyone wasn't that excited about it. And I think the
Speaker 3: reaction within the team was excited, but also like, you know,
Speaker 3: this is something that we're going to just have to
Speaker 3: try out. And this is we already had a lot
Speaker 3: of practices around flexibility, and so for example, we had
Speaker 3: our rebalanced leave process, which was what some people might
Speaker 3: call unlimited paid leave, and so this was just a
Speaker 3: new thing that we were going to try out, and
Speaker 3: I think people were excited, but people were also like,
Speaker 3: how on earth is this going to work for us?
Speaker 3: How are we going to get five days work done
Speaker 3: in four days?
Speaker 1: So do you think there was trepidation from the team
Speaker 1: based on what you're saying there?
Speaker 3: I think yeah, like if we are already we were
Speaker 3: a consultancy, and so absolutely there's times of the year
Speaker 3: when we have downs in terms of not as much work,
Speaker 3: and then there are other times the year when we
Speaker 3: are working really hard. And over the history of inventing,
Speaker 3: we've struggled to find that sweet spot where we can
Speaker 3: consistently ensure that people can get great work done and
Speaker 3: not feel overwhelmed. And we've tried lots of different things
Speaker 3: around resourcing models and hiring new people and things like that,
Speaker 3: but it is a challenge that we keep coming back to.
Speaker 3: And so this to me felt like, whilst it would
Speaker 3: be great in the perfect world, I even thought, how
Speaker 3: are we going to make that work in the long run.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that you were a bit cynical about it, Shah,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting.
Speaker 3: What do I call myself a cynic? You know? We
Speaker 3: you know, you and you, Amantha and Mish. It's great
Speaker 3: that Mish was able to bring that to the table
Speaker 3: and she was really excited about that, and that's really awesome.
Speaker 3: But I guess sometimes it's like, well, we're the ones
Speaker 3: that have to get out there and be managing our
Speaker 3: relationships to our clients and still making sales and doing
Speaker 3: all these things to be affective employees. So there is
Speaker 3: that thing in the back of your mind of how
Speaker 3: am I going to make this work and still be
Speaker 3: able to perform?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, definitely, Okay, i'll rephrase that, I'll call you
Speaker 1: a realist rather than So with that in mind, we
Speaker 1: did as a team decide that we would give it
Speaker 1: a go. And with pretty much everything at Inventium, we
Speaker 1: always frame a new thing as an experiment so that
Speaker 1: we can measure it, track it, see how it goes.
Speaker 1: So the next thing was actually designing the logistics and
Speaker 1: the guidelines and the rules even around how this four
Speaker 1: day week concept would work. Because while it sounds simple, oh,
Speaker 1: just to your work in four days, there are actually
Speaker 1: quite a lot of different decisions to make. So can
Speaker 1: you talk through what that process that we went through
Speaker 1: was in terms of designing what the four day week
Speaker 1: would look like for Inventium, yes, And.
Speaker 3: So I kind of broke it down in my mind
Speaker 3: into two different objectives, and one of them was to
Speaker 3: think about the experiment and how we were going to
Speaker 3: run the trial and what we were going to measure
Speaker 3: and the hypothesis to test. But the other side of
Speaker 3: this was really thinking about how are we going to
Speaker 3: make this work at Inventium and how are we going
Speaker 3: to bring this new work practice to life and essentially
Speaker 3: manage this change because we've seen this happen before where
Speaker 3: you bring in a new work practice, and because we
Speaker 3: are as humans are, you never know what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: Sometimes there's negative outcomes that you don't expect, and so
Speaker 3: I was thinking, I really want to make sure that
Speaker 3: we are thinking ahead of you know, if this was
Speaker 3: to be a complete failure for us, what would that
Speaker 3: look like. Obviously we want it to be a success,
Speaker 3: but if we could have some foresight and think in advance,
Speaker 3: what are those risks as well as those opportunities, how
Speaker 3: can we mitigate them now instead of getting ourselves into
Speaker 3: this situation of six months or a year from now
Speaker 3: where we've got people that are feeling maybe burnt out.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're feeling disconnected, maybe they're feeling like they're not
Speaker 3: part of a team anymore. So what I decided to
Speaker 3: do was run with the team a pre mortem, and
Speaker 3: a pre mortem is something I learned about from at
Speaker 3: Lassian and that's basically where you kind of think in
Speaker 3: advance what could go wrong with this initiative and all
Speaker 3: of the things that could go wrong, work out those risks,
Speaker 3: and then essentially work backwards to try and think, Okay,
Speaker 3: how do we mitigate those risks? So I ran a
Speaker 3: workshop with the team. I put half of the team
Speaker 3: into the success team, So what would this look like
Speaker 3: if it was an absolute success for us? And half
Speaker 3: of the team into a failure team, which is what
Speaker 3: would this look like if it was a complete failure
Speaker 3: for us? And we just basically worked through putting together
Speaker 3: a list of ideas around well, this is the potential
Speaker 3: risks and opportunities.
Speaker 1: And I remember I was on the failure team, which
Speaker 1: I hated that you did that to me.
Speaker 3: I did that deliberately.
Speaker 1: I know you did, because I'm naturally very optimistic and
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about most things. And it was funny because there
Speaker 1: were so many things that we identified, like I want
Speaker 1: to say, fifteen or sixteen genuine things that could really
Speaker 1: go wrong and make this a huge failure. Do you
Speaker 1: remember some of those failures that we came up with.
Speaker 3: Yes, So the risks of where it could go wrong
Speaker 3: were we were thinking, Okay, what if communication decreases because
Speaker 3: everyone's so focused on being individually productive, maybe we won't
Speaker 3: be willing to work together anymore. So obviously then that
Speaker 3: would loot lead to a reduction in collaboration, and collaboration
Speaker 3: is so important for us to help us to innovate
Speaker 3: and deliver great outcomes for our clients. There were risks
Speaker 3: around things like divisions within the team. So part of
Speaker 3: our team is the digital team, and part of our
Speaker 3: team does a lot of client consulting, and so we
Speaker 3: were worried, what if the digital team can't make this
Speaker 3: work but the consulting team can make it work. Is
Speaker 3: that going to lead to divisions?
Speaker 1: And obviously we identified a whole bunch of successes which
Speaker 1: are probably quite obvious to listeners.
Speaker 2: I mean, what's not to love about a four day week? Really?
Speaker 1: But what did we then do with those failures in
Speaker 1: this pre mortem process?
Speaker 3: So we then voted on what we saw together collectively
Speaker 3: as a team, what we saw as the biggest risks
Speaker 3: and opportunities, because we came up with this full extensive
Speaker 3: list of risks and opportunities, but we needed to tone
Speaker 3: in and understand what we as a collective group thought
Speaker 3: were the biggest risks and opportunities. So we voted and
Speaker 3: then once we'd landed on the top ones, which were
Speaker 3: things like that division between the teams, people taking this
Speaker 3: as something for granted and treating it as a right
Speaker 3: not a gift, or people saying well, I just can't
Speaker 3: get this done because I'm too busy, I've got too
Speaker 3: much of a workload. Once we'd identified that short list,
Speaker 3: we then used that to co create our guidelines for
Speaker 3: the four day week. Now, what we do it in
Speaker 3: mentum is we try first to focus on intentions of
Speaker 3: the initiative rather than first getting to guidelines. So we
Speaker 3: want to understand, well, what is the intention behind this,
Speaker 3: why are we doing the four day week? What are
Speaker 3: our primary objective? Because then that helps us to come
Speaker 3: up with guidelines and make decisions throughout the journey that
Speaker 3: aligned to those intentions. So then we basically got the
Speaker 3: team to sit down with all those risks and really
Speaker 3: think through, Okay, well, how do we mitigate this and
Speaker 3: for the opportunities, how do we make sure we take
Speaker 3: advantage of those opportunities. So, for example, when it comes
Speaker 3: to people thinking well I can't make this work or
Speaker 3: I've got too much of a workload, we really talked
Speaker 3: about the fact that actually the onus is on each
Speaker 3: individual to make it work, and Inventum will support you,
Speaker 3: we will provide training and support on that, but it's
Speaker 3: up to you to change your habits. You need to
Speaker 3: change the way you work to make this work. And
Speaker 3: we need to make sure that we're clear on how
Speaker 3: much work that we want to get done each week
Speaker 3: so that we're not feeling guilty if we do choose
Speaker 3: to take that fifth day off. So it was really
Speaker 3: just about having that open conversation and setting the right
Speaker 3: intentions for the four day.
Speaker 1: Week and Inventum and what were some of the key
Speaker 1: decisions that we made.
Speaker 3: So once we'd run that exercise with the team, I
Speaker 3: went away and through conversations with our general manager and
Speaker 3: Mish for example, I just had to make some decisions
Speaker 3: and say, well, this is the way that it's going
Speaker 3: to look. So First of all, we wanted to align
Speaker 3: on the primary objective of the four day week for Inventium.
Speaker 3: So when Andrew Barnes talks about the four day week,
Speaker 3: he really talks a lot about the productivity gains, and
Speaker 3: that's because he's obviously having to play a really big
Speaker 3: role in convincing big corporates that are very much focused
Speaker 3: on the bottom line in terms of the benefit of
Speaker 3: the four day week. But for us at invent Him,
Speaker 3: this was really about The primary objective was to reduce
Speaker 3: intention to leave at Inventuum, so to ensure that we
Speaker 3: could maintain our team of age given that we had
Speaker 3: a smaller team now, and to ultimately make people want
Speaker 3: to stay at Inventum longer, so give them a more
Speaker 3: engaging workplace, a more satisfying workplace, a place where they
Speaker 3: could do really great work. Now, obviously we still needed
Speaker 3: to be able to make a profit and achieve our goals,
Speaker 3: but increasing individual productivity and getting people to produce greater
Speaker 3: output wasn't the primary objective. Do you agree with that
Speaker 3: amount one?
Speaker 1: I do agree with that, and it's interesting because I
Speaker 1: think it was a big ass because our engagement scores
Speaker 1: were very high when we started the experiment, I think
Speaker 1: they were in the ninetieth percentile, which means they're in
Speaker 1: the top ten percent for our industry of management consulting.
Speaker 1: So it's not like we were starting from a low base.
Speaker 1: And I think intention to leave it's not something that
Speaker 1: we'd measured before, but I think it's quite low just
Speaker 1: based on our average tenure when I last looked at
Speaker 1: it was three point seven years, which is pretty high
Speaker 1: in this day and age. And yeah, absolutely there's the
Speaker 1: human experience of things. But if that was all going
Speaker 1: brilliantly but we were unprofitable, then obviously there would be
Speaker 1: a problem. So it was maintaining all our company goals
Speaker 1: and certainly the financial ones as well and customer satisfaction,
Speaker 1: but also seeing if we could increase from a very
Speaker 1: high base get it even higher in terms of that
Speaker 1: employee experience of working at inventing it.
Speaker 3: And I think also like we were just really curious
Speaker 3: as well about could we improve our productivity because we'd
Speaker 3: already been on a journey for about two years where
Speaker 3: we'd done training internally as well as consulting work to
Speaker 3: help people improve their productivity, and so this was just
Speaker 3: another way to actually take a really curious approach to
Speaker 3: could we actually do more with less time? Which was exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely was.
Speaker 3: So coming back to those other decisions, we also had
Speaker 3: to decide, Okay, so the mechanics of this, is this
Speaker 3: going to be a day that everyone takes off so
Speaker 3: one day, or is it going to be you can
Speaker 3: choose whatever day you want to take off. So we
Speaker 3: decided that it was going to be one day for
Speaker 3: the entire team and we would do that for the
Speaker 3: trial of six months. And the reason we decided that
Speaker 3: was that we're a small team. We wanted to make
Speaker 3: sure we still had those opportunities to connect via for example,
Speaker 3: internal meetings, and we also had to think about our
Speaker 3: clients and making sure that we weren't putting too much
Speaker 3: strain on resourcing, making sure that we could still deliver
Speaker 3: for our clients, and that would be a bit challenging
Speaker 3: if we had people constantly taking off different days and
Speaker 3: then what day and so At Inventium, our mondays are
Speaker 3: generally where we run a few internal meetings, like our
Speaker 3: team meeting. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are what we call our
Speaker 3: delivery days, so we were working with clients and then
Speaker 3: Friday is a day when we don't do client work
Speaker 3: and we tend to do some of those additional internal meetings.
Speaker 3: So we decided that we would make it Friday, and
Speaker 3: that just seemed intuitive that people would want a long weekend,
Speaker 3: and that meant that we could still connect at the
Speaker 3: start of the week.
Speaker 1: And I think in retrospect they were both really important
Speaker 1: and really good decisions, and particularly now we've been doing
Speaker 1: it for six months now a little bit longer, and
Speaker 1: that rhythm feels really good and it certainly hasn't had
Speaker 1: an impact on client satisfaction.
Speaker 2: So I want to.
Speaker 1: Get into measurement because, as we said, it was an experiment,
Speaker 1: and so as with all good experiments, you need good measures.
Speaker 1: So can you talk about what we decided that we
Speaker 1: would measure and how we went about doing that.
Speaker 3: So based on that pre mortem and that identification of
Speaker 3: the risks and opportunities, we worked out our hypotheses to test.
Speaker 3: So a few of those hypotheses were, first of all,
Speaker 3: that employees can participate in the four day week, So
Speaker 3: we didn't want to just do this and then find
Speaker 3: out at the end, oh, no one even used it. Maybe,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe a month was just take Fridays off
Speaker 3: every week. Everyone else was still working. So a fundamental
Speaker 3: assumption was that people can participate, so we wanted to
Speaker 3: measure that. We also wanted to measure intention to leave,
Speaker 3: so the hypothesis was that the four day week will
Speaker 3: reduce intention to leave. We measured things like all of
Speaker 3: these kind of people centric measures like productivity, so self
Speaker 3: reported productivity, energy levels, job satisfaction, engagement, stress control, and
Speaker 3: well being. So obviously we wanted all of those to improve.
Speaker 3: And then just some of those additional hypotheses around things
Speaker 3: like the four day week will not have a negative
Speaker 3: impact on inventing achieving our company goals. So we were okay,
Speaker 3: if we maintained our company goals, it'd be great if
Speaker 3: we surpassed those goals, but we didn't want it to
Speaker 3: negatively impact our ability to achieve our goals and obviously
Speaker 3: remain profitable. And then we also wanted to make sure
Speaker 3: that it was not going to decrease team connectedness, collaboration
Speaker 3: and cohesiveness. And finally, we didn't want it to have
Speaker 3: a negative impact on our ability to respond to clients. So,
Speaker 3: you know, one of those big assumptions was what happens
Speaker 3: if a client needs something urgently on Friday, So we
Speaker 3: wanted to measure this and ensure that we didn't get
Speaker 3: to the end of the trial and suddenly our clients
Speaker 3: are saying, oh, well, you never respond to me on Fridays.
Speaker 3: I don't want to work with you ever. Again, that
Speaker 3: didn't happen.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen, and it wouldn't have been great if
Speaker 1: that did happen. Now we goodness, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of surveys that we did.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about.
Speaker 1: The like how frequently we measured those variables? And this
Speaker 1: is really getting down into the weeds, and there might
Speaker 1: be some listeners that are like, oh, come on, just
Speaker 1: get on with it. But I know that there'll be
Speaker 1: a lot of listeners that are thinking, how do I
Speaker 1: actually implement this? So I think it's important that we
Speaker 1: get into that detail around what are the variables that
Speaker 1: we measured at the baseline, what are the things that
Speaker 1: we measured literally every week, like every Monday morning, the
Speaker 1: whole team would complete a very quick one minute survey.
Speaker 1: But just some of the choices that we made there
Speaker 1: and why we made those choices.
Speaker 3: I will try to move quickly through it whilst providing
Speaker 3: the detail this was something you have to balance the
Speaker 3: ability to measure and capture good measures. And I really
Speaker 3: went into this warning to capture a lot of data
Speaker 3: because I was like, this is a great opportunity. We
Speaker 3: can gather so much data. I love running experiments on people,
Speaker 3: hence why I'm a psychologist, but I have to balance
Speaker 3: that with the people experience and not annoying people on
Speaker 3: the team. I'm sure I still did annoy the team, but.
Speaker 2: Hopefully it will we got yoused to it.
Speaker 1: I think those weekly surveys, yeah, every Monday. Ah N
Speaker 1: this survey again, but it was quick and easy, So
Speaker 1: it is finding that balance, I think, because like Yushah,
Speaker 1: I love getting data from surveys. I just don't like
Speaker 1: doing surveys and recognize that that is not a passion
Speaker 1: for most people.
Speaker 3: So in that weekly survey, it was a very quick one.
Speaker 3: It asked if you participated in the four day week
Speaker 3: in the previous week. So it was sent Monday morning
Speaker 3: and it just asked did you take the day off?
Speaker 3: And we broke that down into did you take the
Speaker 3: full day off a half day or did you work
Speaker 3: just about two maybe two hours? And our definition of
Speaker 3: having the four day week was you took either the
Speaker 3: full day off or you worked less than two hours.
Speaker 3: So then we also measured cohesiveness and collaboration, so we
Speaker 3: asked questions like were you able to reach out to
Speaker 3: people and your team for help last week? Did you
Speaker 3: receive help when you requested it? And then we also
Speaker 3: measured that client responsiveness, so we asked did you receive
Speaker 3: any urgent requests from clients on Friday or Thursday night?
Speaker 3: And if you did, how many of them were you
Speaker 3: able to respond to? So there was this We did
Speaker 3: talk about this in the sense that even though you
Speaker 3: take the Friday off, it was expected that if you
Speaker 3: had a that called you needed something urgently, you would
Speaker 3: still help them out. You would still do what you
Speaker 3: need to do and get that work done if they
Speaker 3: have that urgent request. Luckily, we very rarely received those
Speaker 3: urgent requests on Friday, and whenever we did, people told
Speaker 3: us that they were able to get back to those clients.
Speaker 3: So that was the weekly survey. Then throughout the six months,
Speaker 3: every two months we did another survey where we reported
Speaker 3: on self reported productivity, job satisfaction, engagement, energy level, stress control,
Speaker 3: and intention to leave. And then we also have another
Speaker 3: survey that we already do an eventing that comes out monthly,
Speaker 3: and so I just pulled the data from that, so
Speaker 3: people were already answering these questions, and that asked about cohesion,
Speaker 3: so how much you felt a sense of togetherness with
Speaker 3: the team, as well as flexibility, because we were hoping
Speaker 3: to see that this wouldn't make people feel like they
Speaker 3: were less flexible at work. We actually wanted to improve flexibility,
Speaker 3: but I thought, in the back of my mind, maybe
Speaker 3: this will make people feel more constrained. So I just
Speaker 3: also kept an eye on that measure.
Speaker 1: And that survey for those that are interested, is from
Speaker 1: p con p Eakon, which is a global tech company
Speaker 1: that does engagement surveys that we use and is a
Speaker 1: really good one a small business, so I'll link to
Speaker 1: that in the show notes. So a lot of measures
Speaker 1: and we did set baseline measures on all of those things.
Speaker 2: So what were the results? Yeah, what did the results
Speaker 2: tell us?
Speaker 3: So in terms of participation, we were measuring that weekly,
Speaker 3: but then once I looked at it across from the
Speaker 3: baseline to the end of the six months, So participation
Speaker 3: on average across the entire team was about seventy percent
Speaker 3: and so remember when I say participation, that meant that
Speaker 3: people were either taking the full day off or they
Speaker 3: were working less than two hours on that Friday. So
Speaker 3: that was great, and our metric for success was fifty percent.
Speaker 1: And does seventy percent mean that across the team on average,
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the team took the friday off. Is
Speaker 1: that what you mean by seventy percent.
Speaker 3: It means across the team, across each week, on average,
Speaker 3: you were able to take the four day week seventy
Speaker 3: percent of the time. What we found, basically, at a
Speaker 3: high level, all of our hypotheses were validated except for one. Okay,
Speaker 3: so I'll leave that last one to the end. But
Speaker 3: essentially what we saw was a and this is comparing
Speaker 3: baseline to six months. We saw a twenty six percent
Speaker 3: increase in productivity. We saw a twelve percent increase in
Speaker 3: job satisfaction, a nine percent increase in engagement, an eighteen
Speaker 3: percent reduction in stress, an eleven percent increase in a
Speaker 3: sense of control, and a twenty two percent increase in
Speaker 3: well being. So those were all statistically significant. We did
Speaker 3: see a twenty one percent increase in energy levels, but
Speaker 3: that was non significant, and so what that means is
Speaker 3: that there was probably just too much variability and not
Speaker 3: even though it sounds a lot twenty one percent, there
Speaker 3: must have just been too much variability for that to
Speaker 3: be statistically significant. Now, the one that was not validated
Speaker 3: was intention to leave, So we did have a nine
Speaker 3: percent reduction in intention to leave, so that is an improvement,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't statistically significant.
Speaker 1: And it's probably worth pointing out that sample size of eight,
Speaker 1: so small sample size. It's always tricky when it comes
Speaker 1: to statistical significance and reading too much into that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's pretty insane when you do get statistical significance in
Speaker 1: a small sample size, but it's probably not to be expected.
Speaker 2: So I know, for me, I was.
Speaker 1: Just hoping that the numbers were trending in the right direction,
Speaker 1: which is about as much as you can expect from
Speaker 1: a sample of eight. And then the other thing that
Speaker 1: we also looked at our company goals, and financially, we
Speaker 1: met our company goals two months early for the first
Speaker 1: half of this financial year that we're in, which is
Speaker 1: insane and I think from memory, this is the first
Speaker 1: time that we've actually met every single one of our
Speaker 1: company goals, which are around customer or client satisfaction and
Speaker 1: also around employee experience for the first half of the
Speaker 1: financial year. I think this is the first time that
Speaker 1: we've met all of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was amazing, and I guess you put that
Speaker 3: into context of the year that we had last year,
Speaker 3: and it was obviously a really tough year, and so
Speaker 3: the scientist in me is kind of like, you know,
Speaker 3: you would love to do this in a controlled environment
Speaker 3: where you don't have a global pandemic happening in the background,
Speaker 3: and to have, like you said, a larger sample size
Speaker 3: so that you could, you know, if I was to
Speaker 3: do this again, I would love to have a huge
Speaker 3: number of people and to be doing this without the
Speaker 3: global pandemic hanging over us, because it would be really
Speaker 3: amazing to see the results that we could have with
Speaker 3: that as well.
Speaker 2: It would be yes.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because we started the experiment just before
Speaker 1: the second Wave happened in Melbourne and we all I
Speaker 1: think in August it was or late July or went
Speaker 1: into stage four lockdown. So that was kind of interesting
Speaker 1: to have that going on in the background because a
Speaker 1: lot of our team are based in Melbourne. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the results were fantastic and it was really
Speaker 1: an easy decision to go, well, of course we will
Speaker 1: keep this going.
Speaker 2: So I want to move on.
Speaker 1: Now to hearing about what it was like for you,
Speaker 1: Shat and what your experience was. So to start with personally,
Speaker 1: what did you change about how you worked to fit
Speaker 1: everything into four I'm assuming normal length work days.
Speaker 3: I definitely didn't increase the amount of time I was
Speaker 3: working on the other four days. If I kind of
Speaker 3: reflect back over that six months, I generally work kind
Speaker 3: of like eight till five, and that didn't change. But
Speaker 3: what I was thinking when I first when we first
Speaker 3: started this was how can I be sure that I
Speaker 3: can take that Friday off each week? I was worried
Speaker 3: about what if I get to the end of the
Speaker 3: six months and I haven't achieved my goals, and now
Speaker 3: the team doesn't achieve our company goals. And how do
Speaker 3: I actually know that I can take the Friday off
Speaker 3: and not feel guilty? How do I know that I'm
Speaker 3: doing enough work? And so what I did is I
Speaker 3: broke down my six monthly goals, so we use the
Speaker 3: okay our framework, and I broke that down into quarterly, monthly,
Speaker 3: and weekly activities. So I really wanted to be prescriptive
Speaker 3: of okay at this point, so by the end of July,
Speaker 3: I should have achieved this for this specific goal. Now,
Speaker 3: obviously they weren't hard rules, but it was allowing me
Speaker 3: to have that guidance of you know, if you've got
Speaker 3: this sales target for six months, here's what it should
Speaker 3: look like generally throughout that six months. And that really
Speaker 3: helped me to know that I was tracking well enough
Speaker 3: to take that Friday off. The other thing I did
Speaker 3: was at the end of each week, so on the
Speaker 3: Thursday afternoon, I would write down my deep work tasks
Speaker 3: for the following week. So deep work, maybe I'll get
Speaker 3: you to explain it, Amantha. I mean, I'm sure your
Speaker 3: listeners know what it is because you talk about it
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 1: I do. I do talk about it a lot on
Speaker 1: the podcast. So deep work, for those that are not familiar,
Speaker 1: term from Professor Callan Newport from Georgetown University, and deep
Speaker 1: work is work that really requires a great amount of
Speaker 1: focus and attention and a lack of interruption. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of like the heavy duty brain power work.
Speaker 3: So I would get to Thursday afternoon to reflect on Okay,
Speaker 3: can I take tomorrow off and then with that in
Speaker 3: mind in terms of where I need to be tracking
Speaker 3: for this six months, do I need to achieve next week?
Speaker 3: In that deep work chunk of time that I do
Speaker 3: every morning and throughout the six months. At one point
Speaker 3: when I was a little bit behind on my sales target,
Speaker 3: I also started working out, you know what I need
Speaker 3: to do in terms of business development next week. Beyond that,
Speaker 3: we'd already done a lot of training around productivity, but
Speaker 3: there were things that I just added in. And that's
Speaker 3: after we got you to run a little bit of
Speaker 3: additional training with the team in terms of his I
Speaker 3: think you gave people like twelve tips of things that
Speaker 3: you can change to help you to succeed in this
Speaker 3: four day week. So I started time boxing emails, so
Speaker 3: instead of just sitting with my inbox constantly open, I
Speaker 3: set three points throughout the day when I would check
Speaker 3: my emails. I wasn't as disciplined with that as I
Speaker 3: need to be, and so I've just started using inboxmen Ready,
Speaker 3: which is a software I plug in in Gmail which
Speaker 3: just locks you out of your inbox. To make me
Speaker 3: a little bit more disciplined about that, and just really
Speaker 3: using my calendar to make appointments with myself and really
Speaker 3: being disciplined about deep work. You know, bad habits creep
Speaker 3: in and you are obviously a very productive person, Amantha,
Speaker 3: But I feel like I'm still I'm not at that
Speaker 3: level of like being automated around not getting distracted. Like
Speaker 3: for example, right now, I am looking to buy a
Speaker 3: property and I feel like using those apps with the
Speaker 3: domain and real estate, it's now that is fighting from
Speaker 3: my attention and distracting me. So I constantly need to
Speaker 3: be coming back to what am I trying to achieve
Speaker 3: and removing those bad habits.
Speaker 1: I must say my bad habit last year became checking
Speaker 1: the news, I think because I was based in Melbourne
Speaker 1: and the environment here was at some points of the
Speaker 1: year changing on a daily basis, and so that was
Speaker 1: definitely my bad habit that I needed to kick from
Speaker 1: last year.
Speaker 2: So I can understand that.
Speaker 1: How about for your client's Shah, because you are a
Speaker 1: consultant in what you do and your client facing what
Speaker 1: was the reaction from clients who knew that you were
Speaker 1: off every Friday?
Speaker 3: So we had this team auto Responder which you could
Speaker 3: put on your email every Friday, so that if people
Speaker 3: did email you, they knew not to expect a response.
Speaker 3: But with my clients that I have those longer term
Speaker 3: relationships with, I told them that I would be taking
Speaker 3: Fridays off and most of them were like, you know,
Speaker 3: they know what invent Him's like, and they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: good for you, and that's really cool and let us
Speaker 3: know how that goes. And for those clients that I
Speaker 3: was forming new relationships with, I might just not mention it.
Speaker 3: And I was happy to check my emails in the
Speaker 3: morning on Friday and let people know I'll get back
Speaker 3: to you on Monday. And I don't think I even
Speaker 3: remember anyone kicking up of us. I think it's about
Speaker 3: the relationship that you build with clients and building that
Speaker 3: trust and they know that we do always deliver and
Speaker 3: there's not an exception here just because it's where we're
Speaker 3: trying out a new thing and invent him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I found the same.
Speaker 1: I'm I think I'm less client facing than you because
Speaker 1: of some of the other things I'd do in my role,
Speaker 1: but I'd be speaking to clients every day, and I
Speaker 1: think for me.
Speaker 2: The response was a very positive one.
Speaker 1: Like I would quite frequently have conversations with clients or
Speaker 1: prospects who were like, oh, I love what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I sent your out of office email around to my
Speaker 1: team because it was so interesting this experiment. So I
Speaker 1: think I only heard a positive response. And in terms
Speaker 1: of urgent things, I mean, let's face it, we're not
Speaker 1: cardiac surgents, so we don't really have emergencies or urgent things,
Speaker 1: Like the most urgent thing that would happen in my
Speaker 1: life is a client or a speaker's bureau urgently in
Speaker 1: inverted commas, needing to know if I was available on
Speaker 1: a certain date for a keynote talk. And for me,
Speaker 1: while I was able to take a lot of Fridays off,
Speaker 1: I would typically do an hour or two worth of
Speaker 1: work in the morning, which was generally just playing a
Speaker 1: little bit of catch up on something. But also it
Speaker 1: meant that during the work week, during those four days,
Speaker 1: I was less stressed if I didn't quite get to
Speaker 1: finish a few things, if I had a few loose
Speaker 1: ends to tie up. But yeah, I found that having
Speaker 1: that buffer time of just an hour or two on
Speaker 1: Friday morning really useful, and certainly for the clients that
Speaker 1: I was liaising with. I don't think I had any
Speaker 1: negative feedback at all around the fact that we don't
Speaker 1: really work Fridays.
Speaker 3: And to be honest, I definitely didn't take it every week,
Speaker 3: and it just really followed already how I was working
Speaker 3: previously in terms of consulting, where you have busy weeks
Speaker 3: and then you have more quiet weeks, and so there
Speaker 3: would be months where I would work probably like five
Speaker 3: hours every Friday, but then there'd been a whole nother
Speaker 3: month where I could take every Friday off. So it
Speaker 3: changed your mindset in terms of, like you said, just
Speaker 3: having that spare day up your sleeve, so that if
Speaker 3: you don't get to those things you can get to
Speaker 3: on the Friday, and then the weeks that you can
Speaker 3: take it off, then that's great.
Speaker 1: So shout what you do with yourself on these Fridays.
Speaker 3: Well, the first one, I went to visit my sister
Speaker 3: and my brother in law and my two nieces. So
Speaker 3: I drove on the Thursday night. My sister lives about
Speaker 3: five hours away from me, so just knowing that I
Speaker 3: had that long weekend with them. I remember the first
Speaker 3: morning we got up and we went out and we
Speaker 3: were moving the sheep from one paddock to another, and
Speaker 3: I'm sitting on the four wheel or with my three
Speaker 3: year old niece, and I was like, because of inmentium
Speaker 3: and the four day week, I can sit here and
Speaker 3: be part of this, which is important to me. Beyond that,
Speaker 3: I think I was about a month in and I
Speaker 3: was like, you know what, I don't want to waste
Speaker 3: this time. If something happens and we don't get to
Speaker 3: do this anymore, I need to know that I've used
Speaker 3: this time valuably. And so I decided to start training
Speaker 3: to become a bar instructor, which you know is just
Speaker 3: a bit different to what I do day to day,
Speaker 3: which I liked.
Speaker 2: So shout what is barr?
Speaker 1: Like like, I'm imagining that some listeners are thinking of alcohol,
Speaker 1: but that is not what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: So what is bar?
Speaker 3: I did tell a friend that I had started a
Speaker 3: bar instructor course and he thought that I meant working
Speaker 3: at a bar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it is.
Speaker 3: You might have heard Scott Morrison talk about it as barre,
Speaker 3: and it is a combination of ballet, yoga and pilates.
Speaker 2: So are you qualified now?
Speaker 3: Shah No, I'm still going. I've got a few more
Speaker 3: months and I'm doing all my teaching now I've done
Speaker 3: all of the learning, but I'm still working through it.
Speaker 3: So you get it takes like a six month process,
Speaker 3: so I'm like four months in I think, so yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm really enjoying it. I love that I get to
Speaker 3: use a different part of my brain and I've always
Speaker 3: been really passionate about the body and exercise and wellness
Speaker 3: and I'm really enjoying it. And it's just a new
Speaker 3: way to connect with a new community as well.
Speaker 2: That's so cool.
Speaker 1: I remember in Melbourne a few years ago I did
Speaker 1: bar class pretty religious, like three or four times a
Speaker 1: week for about a year.
Speaker 2: And it was so fun.
Speaker 1: So you're going to have to run like virtual by
Speaker 1: classes for the team show. I can't believe we haven't
Speaker 1: had this discussion yet.
Speaker 3: Yes, I will, I will. I will absolutely do that,
Speaker 3: and so yeah, outside from the bar and they're just great.
Speaker 3: Like spending time with family and doing a little bit
Speaker 3: of extra work sometimes on Fridays, I think what I
Speaker 3: really loved is also just having that headspace to read
Speaker 3: as well. So I read a lot of business books
Speaker 3: and psychology books and it's something I enjoy, but it
Speaker 3: is also for work, and so knowing that I have
Speaker 3: that time on Friday to read those sorts of books,
Speaker 3: and then on the weekend I can read my fictional
Speaker 3: fun books because I really love reading, but it's hard
Speaker 3: to find that time to read. So I really loved
Speaker 3: having that free space to do that on Fridays.
Speaker 1: And I know that because you're an organizational psychologist and
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of org psych friends, I know
Speaker 1: that you've had a few people question the idea of
Speaker 1: the four day week, and I'd love to get into that,
Speaker 1: like what are some of the critics saying to you
Speaker 1: or the skeptics saying to you, and maybe we can
Speaker 1: address some of those things.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I'm also interested in your viewpoint as well.
Speaker 3: So the critics that I've heard would say, well, you
Speaker 3: must just be working less, like you're literally just taking
Speaker 3: that extra day off and working less. And I think
Speaker 3: that really comes back to this idea that it is
Speaker 3: difficult when you are a knowledge worker to really see
Speaker 3: the output of your work in the day to day.
Speaker 3: It's not like we're in factories where you can just see, okay,
Speaker 3: I've made fifty widgets today or something like that. It's
Speaker 3: a little bit harder to see the outcomes of our
Speaker 3: performance in a short term kind of basis.
Speaker 2: I find that an interesting one.
Speaker 1: I think that for me, knowing that the week is
Speaker 1: four days and not five, my mindset is different. I
Speaker 1: feel like in a five day week, even though I
Speaker 1: feel like I a more productive than the average bear,
Speaker 1: I'm still not one hundred percent productive one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of the time. Absolutely not. But I felt like the
Speaker 1: move to the four day week just brought a new
Speaker 1: level of discipline to my work days where I would
Speaker 1: be much more conscious about how I use my time,
Speaker 1: and really with the reward being that I get to
Speaker 1: free myself up on Friday to do all sorts of
Speaker 1: things that I might not have previously had time to do.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's hard to quantify, but I think you
Speaker 1: have a sense of it. And also, ultimately, if you're
Speaker 1: meeting your own OKRs, then and I like how you
Speaker 1: talked about breaking yours down to quarterly and monthly and weekly,
Speaker 1: then you are on track and you are achieving that output.
Speaker 1: I just think that question comes from the assumption that
Speaker 1: people are productive one hundred percent of the time, and
Speaker 1: I just think that that's absolutely rubbish.
Speaker 3: And I think also the mistake is thinking that the
Speaker 3: four day week is just about dropping that fifth day,
Speaker 3: which it's not. It requires a change in your behavior
Speaker 3: to get what was done on that fifth day done
Speaker 3: in the other four days. And so this actually means
Speaker 3: becoming more productive. So really consciously think about removing unnecessary meetings,
Speaker 3: doing more of that deep focused work so you can
Speaker 3: actually have better outcomes, and putting some more discipline around
Speaker 3: not getting distracted by chat and social media and things
Speaker 3: like that. And so that's what facilitates the four day
Speaker 3: week being possible. And so this concern of well, you're
Speaker 3: just working less, I think that that's a view of Well,
Speaker 3: there's people that might just take the piss out of
Speaker 3: it and just literally work the four days, but then
Speaker 3: you would probably see a twenty percent reduction in their
Speaker 3: achievement of their goals, in which case, if you have
Speaker 3: some structures in place to manage people's goals and manage
Speaker 3: people's performance, then you would need to deal with that.
Speaker 3: But you know, once you make these changes, you become
Speaker 3: more productive so that you can take that fifth day off,
Speaker 3: and it drives this sense of motivation so that you're
Speaker 3: saying to yourself every day, all right, I could take
Speaker 3: an extra long lunch. Lunch break right now, or I
Speaker 3: could allow myself to get into a social media hole.
Speaker 3: But then you're saying yourself, well, if I do that,
Speaker 3: then I probably can't take Friday off. So I'm not
Speaker 3: going to let myself get distracted, and I am going
Speaker 3: to change how I work to enable me to have
Speaker 3: that gift of the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: Now, I know that another skeptic that you spoke to thought, well,
Speaker 1: how does that appear from a client's point of view?
Speaker 1: Because don't clients want to see that you're one hundred
Speaker 1: percent committed to work? And how can you possibly be
Speaker 1: one hundred percent committed to the job if you're taking
Speaker 1: Fridays off?
Speaker 2: What do you think about that?
Speaker 3: Well, lots of research shows that working around the clock
Speaker 3: leads to burn out. And when you're burnt out so stressed, tired,
Speaker 3: not feeling engaged, that doesn't lead to high quality work.
Speaker 3: And so what does lead to that high quality work
Speaker 3: is the reduction of distractions, having employees who are happier,
Speaker 3: less stressed, more engaged. And these are all the things
Speaker 3: that we measured. So if we look at that, then
Speaker 3: it's actually saying, well, our clients pay us because we're
Speaker 3: intelligent people who put together solutions to help them solve
Speaker 3: really challenging problems. Like you know, I'm one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty year old company, and I want to be more innovative.
Speaker 3: How do I get my workforce of a thousand people
Speaker 3: to question the status quo, come up with new ideas,
Speaker 3: and implement really game changing ideas. So these are really
Speaker 3: challenging problems, and so it requires us to think really
Speaker 3: deeply about things and be able to deliver this high
Speaker 3: quality of output, which is not something you can do
Speaker 3: when you are burnt out.
Speaker 1: Definitely, I feel like it's a really old school view
Speaker 1: to go, oh, well, clearly you're not as dedicated to
Speaker 1: the job if you're taking fridays off.
Speaker 2: I just think you want to.
Speaker 1: Work with people who are energized by what they do
Speaker 1: and passionate about what they do and not tired and stressed.
Speaker 1: And also you don't want to work with people that
Speaker 1: have nothing else in their life other than their work.
Speaker 1: I feel like you want to work with people, and
Speaker 1: I'm assuming our clients want to work with people who
Speaker 1: are well rounded, and I think that that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that makes all of us in the team
Speaker 1: really great At what we do. Because we do all
Speaker 1: have quite broad interests, we are exposed to all sorts
Speaker 1: of things in our lives, not just our work.
Speaker 2: And I think.
Speaker 1: Because of the various ways that we've tried flexibility and
Speaker 1: now with this four day week, if you're dealing with inventium,
Speaker 1: you're probably dealing with someone who's pretty happy and pretty
Speaker 1: energized by work and you know, also life in general.
Speaker 2: Is that fair to say? Do you think so?
Speaker 3: Yes? I think that's fair to say. And I think
Speaker 3: that this other criticism might be that being more productive
Speaker 3: actually goes along with more working more days. Like if
Speaker 3: you think about someone who works only three days a
Speaker 3: week versus someone that's fully immersed in their work maybe
Speaker 3: six or seven days a week, then they're going to
Speaker 3: be really really productive. But it's not necessarily about working
Speaker 3: more days. I think that getting really productive work done
Speaker 3: actually comes from being really immersed and fully focused on something,
Speaker 3: and that being the causal effect of productivity. So people
Speaker 3: might assume that if you're only working three days a week,
Speaker 3: you're not fully immersed and focused. It's not about the hours,
Speaker 3: it's about the habits that you have in that time
Speaker 3: that you're working to enable you to be more productive.
Speaker 3: So whilst you might be you know a lawyer that
Speaker 3: works really hard five days a week, it's really I
Speaker 3: think about not confound the time that they're putting in
Speaker 3: with actually the habits that they have that enable that
Speaker 3: really productive output.
Speaker 1: Couldn't agree more. Now, Shah, I want to say thank
Speaker 1: you for sharing your views on the four day week,
Speaker 1: and also thank you for really leading the process at Inventium.
Speaker 2: I think it's been.
Speaker 1: Such a good, solid process in terms of how we
Speaker 1: involve the team, how we measured things, how you kept
Speaker 1: us on track with everything, and now the ultimate outcome
Speaker 1: that we all get to enjoy a four day week
Speaker 1: for the foreseeable future. So thank you for your time, Sharon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for leading this initiative at Inventium.
Speaker 3: My pleasure and I hope that more people take it
Speaker 3: on and it's just an exciting thing to be part of.
Speaker 3: And I hope that someone listens to this and takes
Speaker 3: this to their boss and maybe they can get a
Speaker 3: little bit of an experiment going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be bloody awesome. So that is it
Speaker 1: for it today's episode. I hope you enjoyed my chat
Speaker 1: with Shah and maybe it's got you thinking about how
Speaker 1: could you implement a four day working week where you work,
Speaker 1: or maybe how could you suggest it to your boss
Speaker 1: or the powers that be in your organization. And if
Speaker 1: you're keen to know even more, I'll be interviewing Michelle
Speaker 1: la Poidevin, who is Inventium CEO next week on how
Speaker 1: I work to understand how from a leader's point of view,
Speaker 1: do you actually lead a four day week? How as
Speaker 1: the CEO does mish fit five days worth of work
Speaker 1: into four, and we both will be talking about how
Speaker 1: we have managed to increase our productivity, which I think
Speaker 1: was pretty high to begin with, and condense our week
Speaker 1: into just four normal days.
Speaker 2: So that's it for today.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying how I work, I would be deeply
Speaker 1: appreciative if you could take ten seconds out of your
Speaker 1: day to leave a review in Apple Podcasts. You might
Speaker 1: want to select a star rating, or you can even
Speaker 1: write some lovely words about what you.
Speaker 2: Think of the show.
Speaker 1: So that is it for today and I will see
Speaker 1: you next time.