Globally Grounded: Episode 14
🎧 TUNE IN on Apple + Spotify (or wherever you listen to podcasts).
In this episode of Globally Grounded, Kyra takes a look at the four-day workweek to explore what’s actually happened when organizations around the world have tried it. Drawing on large-scale trials from the UK, Iceland, Portugal, and Spain, she breaks down what the data really shows about productivity, burnout, well-being, gender equity, and retention. She also reflects on what these global experiments reveal about U.S. work culture, and how even organizations that aren’t ready for a four-day week can apply the lessons today.
Episode Takeaways
A four-day workweek isn’t about working less, it’s about working differently. The most successful trials didn’t compress five days into four. They redesigned work around focus, priorities, and outcomes…cutting performative busyness in favor of intentional work.
Productivity doesn’t drop when hours drop, it often improves. Across global trials, productivity stayed stable or increased because meetings were reduced, focus time expanded, and work was prioritized instead of padded. Less time created more clarity.
Well-being isn’t a perk, it’s a performance strategy. Stress, burnout, and sleep issues declined significantly in every major trial. When people have time to recover and live, they show up with more energy, creativity, and engagement at work.
Shorter workweeks quietly improve equity and access. Women, parents, and caregivers especially benefited, reporting greater ability to stay in the workforce, less pressure to downshift their careers, and reduced stress managing unpaid labor alongside paid work.
Retention improves when work becomes sustainable. In the UK trial, voluntary resignations dropped by over 50%. People don’t stay because they’re loyal, they stay because their lives work. Time is one of the strongest retention tools organizations have.
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