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Juliet Schor is an economist and sociologist who specializes in the study of work. She is a professor of sociology at Boston College, having previously taught at Harvard for 17 years. Her previous books include the national bestseller The Overworked American. Juliet has received numerous awards for her research and writing and has had her work published in scores of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and People magazine. She has also made several appearances on popular newscasts. Whats the big idea? For a while, the concept of a four-day workweek seemed aspirationalutopian, even. However, it is now more realistic than ever. Research increasingly shows that switching from five to four days is a win for employees and their entire company. Well-being increases (and stays that way), retention issues are solved, and heightened productivity replaces fatigue and stress. The benefits are so impressive that governments are getting involved in legislating fewer working hours. Times are changing, and modern life and modern business are better off on a four-day work schedule. Below, Juliet shares five key insights from her new book, Four Days a Week: The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-Being, and Working Smarter. Listen to the audio versionread by Juliet herselfin the Next Big Idea App. 1. The four-day week is life-changing for employees Between dual-earner households, the faster pace and complexity of modern life, and intensifying job demands, weve heard over and over that two days is not enough to manage life admin, see family and friends, and recover from the workweek. Around the world, levels of stress, burnout, and disengagement remain historically high. Thats a big part of why we find that a third day off is transformational. Physical and mental health, sleep, fatigue, and anxiety all improve, according to survey and biometric data. Stress and burnout are reduced. People are happier and more engaged in their work. The obvious reason a four-day week is transformational is the ability to work less. In our statistical modeling, we found that the larger the working time reduction, the bigger the well-being impacts. People who manage to reduce their time by a full eight hours per week experience about twice the improvement in well-being. When we drill down to see what it is about working less that makes people so much better off, two factors emerge. About half the increase in well-being is due to behavioral changes outside of work, such as better sleep, more exercise, and less fatigue. The other half is that people register much higher levels of effectiveness and performance at work. 2. Working less boosts productivity We discovered that people are much more productive on a four-day week. They report being able to find more efficient ways to do things. People report that theyre no longer experiencing the Sunday Scaries, and they show up on Monday mornings feeling refreshed, rather than anxious. They feel more on top of their workloads and score higher on a work smart scale. They do a better job prioritizing whats important, spend less time spinning their wheels, and are more motivated to get through their to-do lists. These individual impacts collectively contribute to the organizations overall success. Companies tell us they are maintaining or increasing overall productivity when they switch to a four-day workweek. Thats counterintuitive if we assume that productivity mainly depends on how long we work. But there are several reasons for better performance. Staff are healthier, more energetic, and more loyal. Organizations become more intentional and invest in the upfront work that saves time in the long run. Customer-service-facing organizations in the tech world tell us they have finally gotten serious about documentation. Other companies report eliminating unnecessary forms or bottlenecks in approval processes. These are all examples of the forcing function of the four day week (4DW). It makes organizations do things they know will save time but have been too busy to accomplish. Organizations become more intentional and invest in the upfront work that saves time in the long run. The other major effect is that the four-day week stops resignations dead in their tracks. In one of our most successful cases, the manager explained that, on her team, turnover went from 30% a year to zero. That 30% turnover figure is common in her industry, and solving it avoided the wasted time of onboarding and training new people, which yielded a better product and higher sales. At a hospital we studied, the opportunity for overworked nurse managers to get a third day off led to many rescinded resignation letters. At a restaurant (another high-turnover industry) people also stopped quitting. A four-day-a-week job is much more valuable to people. About 15% of our sample says that no amount of money could induce them to return to a five-day schedule. Many more would require a significant pay increase to return. Thats why when people get a four-day week, they dont leave. 3. A whole organization transformation For years, companies have tried to address employee stress and burnout with individual solutions. Theyve tried flex time, scheduling accommodations, wellness classes, yoga, and mindfulness. The academic research shows that none of these works. Stress and disengagement have only gone up. Those on shorter schedules often suffer stigma or get paid less, but end up doing as much work as before. In contrast, reducing hours across the entire organization is a real solution. In the trials we studied, companies received two months of training on how to implement the 4DW before they began. How is making it work defined? Well, there is some variation across companies, but generally, its defined as doing five days work in four. Companies were coached on ways to get inefficient meeting cultures under control and to create focus time. They learned about new time-saving software or how to analyze their processes to eliminate wasted steps. They achieved success because it wasnt just on individuals, but everyone was pulling together to change the culture. That results in a true shift in work norms, shifting from the facetime/productivity theater model to one thats focused on results. 4. Almost all the companies who try it stick with it Our team wanted to know if the great results we saw would persist. So, we went back to the companies at one and two years in. We found that improvements in employee well-being were remarkably stable. Almost all the companies stayed on the four-day schedule. Perhaps more surprisingly, almost all the companies stayed on the four-day schedule. Some instituted a few tweaks to their programs, but only about 10% reverted to five days after a year. If we exclude those who never really gave it a try, its closer to 5%. Maintaining or raising productivity, improving product quality, reducing turnvers, and getting happier, more satisfied employees is a recipe for success. 5. The four-day week is coming It has been 85 years since the workweek was last reduced. Since the pandemic, pressure has been building, especially in the U.S., where working hours have been increasing. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Fridays are evolving away from a standard workday. Working from home is accelerating this process. But its not just an organic evolution to the four-day week that were seeing. Governments are beginning to encourage or even legislate worktime reduction. The Polish government has just announced a pilot program similar to the ones weve been studying. This follows similar pilots by the governments of Spain, Scotland, Belgium, Portugal, and the Dominican Republic. The government of Tokyo has recently implemented a four-day workweek for all its employees. Spain has just legislated a reduction in the workweek for the entire country to 37.5 hours per week. Recently, two bills to run pilots were filed in New York state, making it the 11th state considering legislation. And a growing number of local governments are shifting to a four-day week for their employees, with some saving money in the process. AI will accelerate the shift to four days. As companies incorporate AI at a rapid clip, society is faced with a stark choice: Are we going to lay off millions of people? Thats a possible outcome with a technology that can replace so much human labor. But its not our only option. We could follow the path we took with the first industrial revolution. We can use that labor-saving technology to reduce working hours and keep employment high. Thats the path we shouldand I think willtake. I started researching worktime reduction many years ago. At the time, it was seen as aspirational, even utopian. But that has flipped, and now the four-day week has become common sense. It is also the smart option if we want to protect our economy, democracy, and society. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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Pride Month is here, and theres no question weve come a long way since the first Pride events, which advocated for collective solidarity, individual identity, and resistance to discrimination and violence. Yet we still have much further to go. According to one recent report from the University of California at Los Angeles, nearly half of LGBTQ workers have experienced workplace discrimination or harassment at some point in their professional lives. Add in microaggressions, or the everyday slights that happen in plain sight in front of colleagues and managers, and the number is even higher. Heres where allies can make a differenceand there are plenty of them. One PRRI public opinion report indicates that three-quarters of Americans support policies that protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodation. But being an ally to any minority is hard, especially when its not always obvious when someone identifies as LBGTQIA+. So how can you be a better ally and bolster inclusion at work? Here are three ways (plus a bonus!) to be a more effective ally to the LGBTQIA+ community, from a business leader who also happens to be a lesbian. 1. Educate yourself Allyship isnt a passive thing that shows up without effort. Take it upon yourself to understand the struggles of your LGBTQIA+ colleagues and actively try to create change in your workplace. The LGBTQIA+ label is a huge catchall (and a long acronym by any measure). Learning about the everyday experiences of even part of this community is a great starting point to better understanding the struggles we face. In turn, you can take steps to become a more effective ally and drive informed change. At the very least, itll help you recognize when you have the opportunity to stand up for, or against, something on our behalf. Checking unconscious biases is also part of this narrative. Being self-aware to identify behaviors were not usually conscious of is the first step in learning how to avoid unintentionally acting on them. 2. Recognize your privilege and use it for good You dont have to apologize for it, you dont have to hide it, but you do need to understand your privilege and the power it bestows. Being a heterosexual person in the workplaceand in the worldgives you the chance to make a difference. It allows you to challenge bias, tackle unfairness, and effect change. And for a heteronormative individual, you can often do those things with far lesser risk. So be vocal. This doesnt have to be in a big, highly visible wayit can be as simple as respecting someones chosen name or pronouns, and encouraging or gently correcting other people if they defer to the traditional he/she binaries.You have the armor of privilege. Embrace it and then use it to open doors for those who dont have that same protection. Incidentally, having these conversations outside of the workplace with family and friends educates them on what being an effective ally can look like and what they can do to help. The more people we can bring to a place of understanding and support, the deeper the change. 3. Change the culture Consistency is a major win when it comes to good allyship. Its essential to building trust and driving lasting change, so model inclusive behaviors. How? Good allies share opportunities with others: they cut out (and call out) microaggressions thinly disguised as banter; they use inclusive language with intention and sincerity; they listen to a member of the community over coffee and welcome someone into their space. It can be as simple as being the voice against presumptions in the workplace. Ive seen this myself when colleagues default to gendered generalities. For example, theres using he/him pronouns when referring to generic or hypothetical humans (Whoever we bring onboard, he should be highly skilled). Or assuming someones gender on the basis of their name when you dont actually know the person or how they identify (I havent met Ryan, but I hope hes top-notch). By gently correcting (Whoever we bring onboard, they should be highly skilled or I havent met Ryan, but I hope theyre top-notch), you remind others that gender isnt always what it seemsand that not everyone fits neatly into a gender normative box. It can also be about consciously changing patterned social behaviors. For example, if a coworker mentions that theyre married, dont assume they have a husband or wife of a different gender. I cant count the number of times colleagues and clients have asked me What does your husband do? over the years. Ive had to come out again and again over the span of my career. Instead, consider asking about who they most enjoy spending time with outside of work or who the important people are in their life. Its an open question that, when asked in an authentic and respectful way, invites the other person to share within their own level of comfort. Continue to challenge the microaggressions. Culture change doesnt come solely from the top. It comes from repetition, from small corrections, and from people like you choosing to do the right thing consistently. The bonus: Dont beat yourself up The ever-evolving language of inclusion means we all trip up occasionally, even with the best of intentions. No one expects you to get it right every time. Dont sweat it. Even we trip up within our own community, be it over chosen names, pronouns, or how we support our loved ones who are transitioning. Give yourself some grace. If you make a mistake, apologize, learn, and keep going. Dont let a slip-up stop you from showing up. Allyship isnt about being perfect. Its rarely about big gestures. Its about showing up, paying attention, and doing what you can consistently. Sometimes it means speaking up. Sometimes it means stepping forward on someone elses behalf. And sometimes it just means being someone others know they can count on. The small, everyday actions add up. And when enough people do them, thats when real change happens.
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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. This years spring selling season didnt meet expectations, Toll Brothers CEO Douglas Yearley told a group of institutional investors gathered at Bank of Americas 2025 Housing Symposium earlier this month. The spring selling season, which is really a winter selling season, is when most new homes are sold in this country, Yearley said. This was not a good spring . . . it still was, overall, a soft spring season. Yearley said February marked the spring season low point, with some improvement in March and Aprilbut not enough to call it a rebound. Regionally, Yearley painted a picture of a highly bifurcated market. The best-performing areas for Toll Brothers include Boston and Northern Virginia, where land is scarce, resale inventory is tight, and competition from large public builders is limited. Through the COVID years, you know, the Northeast and Atlantic, all across and down through Northern Virginia, did not fare well, as everybody could go remote and leavethey were chasing the sunshine and chasing a lower cost of living. And so home price appreciation through COVID wasn’t as much in Boston and Northern Virginia because demand wasn’t as strong. Now that has completely flipped, and our strongest corridor is Boston, Yearley said. Yearley added: There’s less competition [in the Northeast]. The big public builders aren’t here. There’s very little land. So when you get the land, it’s gold, and the resale markets are much tighter. I live on the Main Line of Philadelphia, in the suburbs of Philly. There’s no inventory [here]. That’s not true in Texas and Florida and other places where you have a lot of big public builders and a lot of land. So there’s much more supply [in Texas and Florida]. But in the Boston and Northern Virginia corridor, it’s very supply-constrained, and we [Toll Brothers] are doing really well [in the Northeast]. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}(); On the flip side, Toll Brothersa publicly traded luxury homebuilder with an $11 billion market capitalizationis seeing the most softness in pandemic-era boomtowns across the Sun Belt, where unsold completed spec inventory has surged. Spec homesshort for speculative homesare built without a buyer lined up, with the builder betting the home will sell once finished. On the softer side, you know, Florida inventories are up . . . parts of Texas inventories are up. Phoenix is still adjusting a bit with high inventories. A lot of that inventory for existing homes is builder spec, because all those markets have a lot of big builders there who are committed to a spec strategy, Yearley said. Yearley doesnt think this spec overhang in boomtown areas in Arizona, Florida, and Texas will last forever. Hes already starting to see some homebuilders pull back. As many as a third of the overhang on the resale market right now is actually new unsold spec. That’ll clean up [over time] because the builders are starting fewer spec homes in the softer market, and I think that will naturally work its way out, Yearley said. Despite near-term softness, Yearley remains bullish on the long-term fundamentals driving housing demand. We have 4 to 6 million too few homes in this country. We havent built enough homes in the last 15 years to come close to satisfying demand,” he said. “The tailwinds for the industry are great, but short-term pressure is real.
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