WHEN I WAS GROWING UP in Roscommon, a community in rural Ireland, my family wasn't particularly well off. My mom had some health challenges, which meant my dad was often the sole earner. He spent crazy hours on the road in his main job at a local seafood company. To supplement that income, he also managed a couple of pubs on weekends. For many people of his generation, long hours simply came with the territory. My dad is no longer with us, but, to be honest, I think he'd probably turn over in his grave at the idea of a four-day workweek. Funnily enough, helping others to work less is now my full-time job.
After earning my master's in business strategy from Atlantic Technological University, I got a job as the director of campaigns for Fórsa, Ireland's largest public-sector labour union. Based on the success of similar initiatives coming out of Scandinavia and New Zealand, I launched Ireland's first-ever four-day workweek pilot during the pandemic. It was relatively small in scale-about 12 small and medium-sized businesses took part-but the trial showed such positive results that we later expanded it to hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of employees around the world. In 2022, I came to Canada to start my current company, Work Time Reduction, which helps organizations transition to shorter workweeks. This usually involves some combination of reducing distractions (and meetings), streamlining decision-making processes and, sometimes, upgrading technology. In the end, workers aren't simply doing the same number of tasks at a more intense pace; they're achieving better outcomes more efficiently in less time, in exchange for the same pay and, ideally, more balanced lives.
Bu hikaye Maclean's dergisinin October 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Maclean's dergisinin October 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
"I escaped Gaza and sent my family to Egypt. Now, my goal is to reunite with them in Canada."
Bombs destroyed my neighbourhood and killed my loved ones. I hope my family and I can find refuge in Quebec.
TIDAL WAVE
Susan Lapides chronicles her family's summers in a tiny New Brunswick fishing town
THE NORTHERN FRONT
In Ontario's hinterlands, a battle is brewing between First Nations, prospectors and the provincial government over a multi-billion-dollar motherlode of metals. Inside the fight for the Ring of Fire.
THE CULTURE WAR IN THE CLASSROOM
Several provincial governments now mandate parental consent for kids to change pronouns in Schools. Who gets to decide a child's gender?
THE JACKPOT GENERATION
Canada is in the midst of the greatest wealth transfer of all time, as some $1 trillion passes from boomers to their millennial kids. How an inheritance-based economy will transform the country.
My Child-Free Choice
For a long time, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to become a parent. The climate crisis clinched my decision.
The Main Event
Calgary's massive, modern, newly expanded BMO Centre is open for business
Embrace the Four-Day Workweek
Canada is facing a national productivity crisis. One counterintuitive solution? Give workers more time off.
Richard Ireland, mayor of Jasper, is ready to rebuild
IT'S TEMPTING TO LEAN on numbers when conveying the scale of the damage wrought by July's fire in Jasper, Albertathe worst in the national park's 117-year history. Water bombers were grounded in the face of 400-foot-high flames. More than 25,000 visitors and residents were evacuated as hundreds of firefighters flew in to assist. Damages exceeded $700 million. A third of the town's structures were consumed-historical buildings, tourist haunts and family homes. One of them belonged to Richard Ireland.
"The Taliban tried to kill me at 16.Eight years later, I am free in Canada."
I ATTENDED A PRIVATE ENGLISH SCHOOL in the Jaghori District of Ghazni province, Afghanistan.