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Speaker 1: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday,

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Speaker 1: the eighth of April. We have made it to the

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Speaker 1: end of another week. Hopefully by the next time we

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Speaker 1: chat to you we will know when the election is.

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Speaker 1: But alas Sam, there is other news making headlines. What

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Speaker 1: can you tell me?

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Speaker 2: We'll start off with some news from Melbourne, where the

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Speaker 2: eight remaining asylum seekers detained at the Park Hotel have

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Speaker 2: now been released. This comes after twelve asylum seekers were

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Speaker 2: released from detention on Thursday. According to the Refugee Action Coalition,

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Speaker 2: the individuals released from the Park Hotel are expected to

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Speaker 2: be granted temporary bridging visas.

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Speaker 1: In no surprise to anyone that lives here, Sydney has

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Speaker 1: recorded more rain so far this year than it usually

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Speaker 1: gets an entire year. In a normal year, the city

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Speaker 1: will receive up to one two hundred and thirteen millimeters

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Speaker 1: of rain. We've been blessed in twenty twenty two to

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Speaker 1: receive one two hundred and twenty three point eight millimeters

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Speaker 1: of rain and it is April.

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Speaker 2: A new review from researchers at the Australian National University

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Speaker 2: has found evidence of significant harms from vaping. This story

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Speaker 2: had a lot of comments on our Instagram yesterday. It

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Speaker 2: was interesting to see people truly understand the effects of vapes.

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Speaker 2: A study of the contents of the smoke from a

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Speaker 2: non nicotine vape found two hundred and forty three unique chemicals,

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Speaker 2: of which thirty eight were listed poisons.

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Speaker 1: To Some good news now, and for the first time

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Speaker 1: since the Energy Information Administration began gathering data, that's in

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Speaker 1: the US, wind power has become the second highest source

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Speaker 1: of electricity. Last year, wind was the fourth largest source,

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Speaker 1: behind natural gas, coal and nuclear, and now it's just

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Speaker 1: behind natural gas. Picture this you're getting ready for your

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Speaker 1: day off and not on your way to work. That's

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Speaker 1: the alternate work model that's currently being explored in the

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Speaker 1: UK as the largest ever trial for whether workers are

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Speaker 1: more productive in a day work week kicks off in

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Speaker 1: earnest and the trial is heading for Australia. It's all

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Speaker 1: about finding the answer to one of life's big questions,

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Speaker 1: how do we achieve a work life balance? Now, Sam,

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Speaker 1: before we dive into the research, tell me about this study.

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Speaker 2: So the four day work week is in the news

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Speaker 2: this week because more than three thousand workers at sixty

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Speaker 2: companies in the UK are going to start a trial

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Speaker 2: of a four day week. It's been called the biggest

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Speaker 2: pilot scheme of its kind anywhere in the world. The

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Speaker 2: trial is going to start in June and last for

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Speaker 2: six months. Employees are still going to be paid their

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Speaker 2: full time salary, but they're only going to be required

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Speaker 2: to work thirty two hours a week instead of the

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Speaker 2: usual forty. Throughout the six months, researchers will measure how

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Speaker 2: the change affects three key things productivity, staff satisfaction and

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Speaker 2: staff retention. How many staff remain at the company now

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Speaker 2: in terms of productivity, how much work actually gets done.

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Speaker 2: It does sound like there's kind of two key metrics.

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Speaker 2: The researchers have their eye on you. They're going to

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Speaker 2: be looking at if people can do the work they

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Speaker 2: would normally do in five days in four days, and

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Speaker 2: it's not necessarily about making those remaining four days longer days.

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Speaker 2: We'll get to one of the countries that have adopted

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Speaker 2: that model in a moment. The idea here in the

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Speaker 2: UK trial is not for everyone to finish work late

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Speaker 2: at night, but the hours remain consistent to how people

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Speaker 2: are working at the moment now. Secondly, and I think

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Speaker 2: this is where it gets really interesting. Researchers want to

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Speaker 2: know if we will actually do more work in a

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Speaker 2: four day week than we would do in a five

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Speaker 2: day week.

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Speaker 1: Okay, and I mean I have some views on this,

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Speaker 1: but I want to know what the working hypothesis that's

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Speaker 1: being tested actually is.

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Speaker 2: Four day work week researchers around the world are pretty

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Speaker 2: aligned with this. They believe that the act of putting

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Speaker 2: in a four day week requires workplaces to ask what

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Speaker 2: processes and procedures really work and which ones should be

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Speaker 2: totally thrown out the window. Experts think that as employers

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Speaker 2: and employees work out how to readjust their weekly schedules

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Speaker 2: to cram everything into four yas days, there will be

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Speaker 2: one part of our work life that falls away, the

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Speaker 2: dreaded meeting. Most companies who engage in a four day

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Speaker 2: work week encourage employees to reschedule meetings when they're unprepared.

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Speaker 2: Some organizations shorten default meeting lengths to about fifteen minutes,

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Speaker 2: and others actually require you to submit an agenda for

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Speaker 2: the meeting to go ahead. And unsurprisingly, when you cancel

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Speaker 2: unnecessary meetings, everybody has a lot more time.

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Speaker 1: This isn't the only trial we've seen every time we

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Speaker 1: post about another country adopting a trial, it seems to

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Speaker 1: be a banger. Where else have we seen trials undertaken?

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Speaker 2: So I'll list off a few of the other global

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Speaker 2: trials now and pay attention to the differences between them,

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Speaker 2: because there's some really interesting, nuanced differences. So we'll start

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Speaker 2: in Iceland. So last year, twenty five hundred employees in

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Speaker 2: Iceland trial the four day working week, and researchers found

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Speaker 2: that work a well being dramatically increased across a range

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Speaker 2: of indicators, from perceived stress and burnout to health and

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Speaker 2: work life balance. This Icelandic trial involved employees moving from

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Speaker 2: forty hours to thirty five to thirty six hours over

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Speaker 2: four days, but still receiving the same pace, so a

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Speaker 2: very similar model to that that's being rolled out in

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Speaker 2: the UK now. According to the Icelandic study, productivity among

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Speaker 2: most of the employees remained the same or improved. No

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Speaker 2: one really dropped in productivity, but they did notice some

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Speaker 2: subtle changes. They noticed meeting times getting shorter, schedules getting

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Speaker 2: more efficient, and people overall using their time during the

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Speaker 2: workday more wisely. Now, this trial in Iceland set a

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Speaker 2: trend in the country right now almost ninety percent of

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Speaker 2: companies in Iceland work on this four day week. But

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Speaker 2: interestingly it hasn't all been perfect. Microsoft famously tried a

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Speaker 2: four day work week in Japan in twenty nineteen and

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Speaker 2: they saw a drop in productivity. They saw a production

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Speaker 2: increase down by forty percent. While the country now is

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Speaker 2: still toying with the idea, there are certainly no concrete

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Speaker 2: plans to expand this practice because of that Microsoft example,

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Speaker 2: and it will not surprise you that Microsoft workers have

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Speaker 2: continued with a five day work week.

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Speaker 1: Something we were talking about in the office was whether

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Speaker 1: this was being privately mandated or government mandated, like how

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Speaker 1: it was actually happening. So are governments interacting with these

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Speaker 1: types of models.

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Speaker 2: It does seem to be the case that in countries

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Speaker 2: that have had quite expansive trials, governments do tend to

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Speaker 2: get behind the schemes by legislating certain employee rights and

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Speaker 2: mandating them in the workplace. So an example would be

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Speaker 2: in Belgium where people now have the right to work

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Speaker 2: a four day week without a decrease in salary. So

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Speaker 2: that's how the government's kind of injected themselves into that

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Speaker 2: is mandating that the salary must remain the same. But

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Speaker 2: it's worth noting that this means employees have the option

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Speaker 2: to work those longer hour Monday to thursdays to earn

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Speaker 2: Friday off, which is different to most of the four

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Speaker 2: day week models out there, including the one being tested

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Speaker 2: in the US. It is, though a very employee friendly law.

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Speaker 2: An employer can only turn down an employee's request to

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Speaker 2: work those four longer days with written justification. Now over

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Speaker 2: in Scotland, the Scottish government is currently working on its

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Speaker 2: own pilot scheme for a four day working week. It's

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Speaker 2: a different example of how governments involve themselves in the

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Speaker 2: process here. In this case, the government has pledged ten

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Speaker 2: million pounds for businesses to trial the shorter working schedule,

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Speaker 2: and they're doing that by subsidizing the pay for workers.

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Speaker 2: So the businesses are only paying four days and the

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Speaker 2: government chips in for the extra day. A government spokesperson

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Speaker 2: in Scotland said, the pilot will allow us to develop

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Speaker 2: a better understanding of the implications of a broader shift

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Speaker 2: to a shorter working week across the economy.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so when will we see trials like this in Australia?

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Speaker 1: You said at the top that it could be coming

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Speaker 1: here soon August.

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Speaker 2: There are plans for similar trials in Australia and in

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Speaker 2: New Zealand starting towards the end of winter, and the

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Speaker 2: program is going to be run by an organization aptly

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Speaker 2: called the Four Day Week Globe. The organization has partnered

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Speaker 2: with the Wellbeing Research Center at Oxford University and the

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Speaker 2: pilot is going to be run by researchers from Oxford,

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Speaker 2: Cambridge and Boston College. We're going to see these pilot

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Speaker 2: programs roll out across the country from August this year

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Speaker 2: to January next year, and if you're part of an

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Speaker 2: organization that wants to sign up, you actually can until May.

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Speaker 2: So this might be a good podcast to send your boss.

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Speaker 1: Okay, and can't finish this podcast without asking you, Sam,

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Speaker 1: would you want a four day work week?

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure it would work for us in the news, Zara.

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Speaker 2: The news is too fast for us to limit our

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Speaker 2: days by another twenty percent. But I can see how

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Speaker 2: in some organizations this actually would really help with productivity.

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Speaker 2: In my former career as a lawyer, I would have

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Speaker 2: loved a four day work week, So I can really

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Speaker 2: see this working in reality, and it coming into favor,

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Speaker 2: especially after emerging from a pandemic where a lot of

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Speaker 2: us have thought about what really matters to us.

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Speaker 1: I just keep thinking about all the life, Adaman. You

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Speaker 1: could get done with an extra day, but there you go.

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Speaker 1: The news never stops. And on that note, that's all

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Speaker 1: we have for this week. Thank you very much for

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Speaker 1: listening to The Daily Oz. If you've liked what you've

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Speaker 1: heard this week or any other week, please rate us

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Speaker 1: on Spotify or leave of you on Apple. It means

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Speaker 1: the world to us and it helps us to continue

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Speaker 1: to grow as an independent publisher. Have a great weekend.