This article is based on the Allwork.Space Future of Work Podcast episode “Joe O’Connor on the Four-Day Workweek & AI.” Watch or listen to the full episode.
The AI productivity race could leave workers with more work, not less. Joe O’Connor, who recently joined the Allwork.Space Future of Work® Podcast, thinks companies have a better option: give people some of the time back.
He has spent years researching what happens when companies cut working time without sacrificing performance. The researcher, consultant and advocate for shorter workweeks has led major four-day workweek trials across the U.K., Ireland and North America.
His research has convinced him that the traditional five-day week is increasingly disconnected from how modern knowledge work actually happens. Now, as AI promises to automate more tasks and dramatically increase the speed at which work gets done, O’Connor sees a new question emerging: Who gets the benefit of that productivity?
AI Can Make Work Faster. That Doesn’t Mean People Should Work More
O’Connor’s central argument is that productivity has two dimensions: efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is about how quickly work gets done, how many tasks can be completed and how much output can be produced. Effectiveness is about judgment, creativity, decision-making, relationships, adaptability and the quality of the work. AI is increasingly capable of handling the first dimension.
“The idea that we’re going to race against the machine on efficiency is a complete dead end,” O’Connor said during our podcast conversation.
That creates a problem for companies that measure productivity primarily through volume. If AI allows employees to complete tasks faster, leaders could simply fill that newly available capacity with more tasks. O’Connor thinks that misses the bigger opportunity.
“The challenge I would have for leaders is: in this world where the speed and volume of processes and tasks and output is going to be driven by AI, does it help you to have your people overworked, or sleeping at the desk? Is it important to focus on the volume of their contribution, or is it important to focus on the value of their contribution?” He asked.
The more important question becomes whether employees are producing valuable work, rather than simply producing more of it. That distinction is at the heart of O’Connor’s argument for shorter workweeks.
The Five-Day Week Was Built for a Different Kind of Work
O’Connor’s interest in shorter schedules began with research in Ireland’s public service. He found employees, many of them working parents, who had voluntarily reduced their hours and pay. Some moved from five days to four while receiving 80% of their previous salary. Yet their responsibilities often remained largely unchanged.
In many cases, employees were still delivering roughly the same amount of work as before, despite having less time to complete it. That led O’Connor to Parkinson’s Law: the idea that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. It also made him question whether the five-day workweek still makes sense for knowledge workers.
The five-day model became widespread during the industrial era, when time spent physically working on a factory floor had a much more direct relationship with output. An hour at the factory generally meant another hour of production. Knowledge work works differently.
An hour spent in meetings, answering messages, switching between tasks or dealing with digital distractions does not necessarily create the same value as an hour spent making a good decision or solving a difficult problem.
O’Connor also points to another major difference. Work used to be much more contained within the workplace. Today, smartphones, remote access and digital communication have created an economy where work can spill into evenings and weekends.
At the same time, households have changed. With dual-income families now commonplace, the number of hours devoted to work across a household has increased even though the standard workweek has largely remained the same.
That creates a strange equation: people have more technology, more flexibility and more productive capacity than previous generations, yet many still feel squeezed for time.
The Four-Day Week Is Not Just a Workplace Benefit
The results from O’Connor’s coordinated trials are striking. After six-month pilots, 92% of participating U.K. companies, 95% of Irish companies and 100% of North American companies chose to make the shorter workweek permanent, according to O’Connor. He argues that one reason is the structure of the arrangement itself.
A four-day week is not necessarily presented as a company simply giving employees an extra day off. Instead, employees and employers agree to a trade: workers receive more time while the organization expects specific performance standards and objectives to continue being met. That creates a powerful incentive.
Employees know that wasted time, unnecessary meetings and inefficient processes are no longer harmless. The entire organization has a reason to identify them and eliminate them. O’Connor calls this a form of alignment between workers and employers.
It can also change how employees think about productivity. Someone who discovers a faster way to complete a task, for example, isn’t necessarily rewarded by being handed another task. Under the model O’Connor describes, the productivity gain can become part of the reason the employee gets time back.
That reverses what he calls “performance punishment,” where the most efficient employees often end up receiving even more work.
AI Could Make That Bargain More Important
AI is arriving at workplaces where employees are already overwhelmed by information, meetings, new software and constant communication. According to O’Connor, LinkedIn research found that 51% of workers feel keeping up with AI is like taking on a second job. Companies are asking employees to learn new tools, experiment with new workflows and adapt to rapidly changing technology while maintaining their existing workload.
O’Connor thinks that is a recipe for resistance. Instead, companies could create dedicated time for employees to learn and adapt to AI. He has worked with organizations that have built AI learning and upskilling time directly into the workweek. The broader idea is simple: if companies expect workers to redesign how work gets done, they need to create room for that redesign to happen.
That also changes the psychological relationship employees have with AI. Right now, many workers see AI as a potential threat to their jobs. O’Connor says that for every employee who is more excited than concerned about AI, five are more concerned than excited.
A shorter workweek can become part of a different bargain. If AI allows a company to accomplish more with the same number of people, employees can share in that gain through additional time. Instead of thinking, “I am helping train the technology that might replace me,” workers have a reason to think, “I am helping make my job better.”
The Four-Day Week Doesn’t Mean Four Days of Coverage
One of the most common objections O’Connor hears is that customers still need companies on Fridays. His response is that a four-day workweek does not necessarily mean the entire organization closes for one day. Companies can remain open five, six or seven days while employees work different schedules. Some organizations use four-and-a-half-day weeks, nine-day fortnights or dedicated focus days instead. The model has to fit the work.
A law firm where employees routinely work 60 hours a week requires a different starting point from a nonprofit trying to move from 40 hours to 32. O’Connor does not advocate one universal formula. Instead, he argues that companies should examine where time is being spent and determine how much of that time is actually creating value. That can mean reducing meetings, improving collaboration, cutting digital distractions or redesigning processes before simply cutting a day from the calendar.
The Real Test Is Whether Companies Can Keep Earning the Benefit
There is another challenge once the novelty wears off; employees may initially become highly motivated by the prospect of a shorter week, but O’Connor says companies need to avoid treating the arrangement as something that can simply be switched on and forgotten.
The model depends on accountability. Everyone has a stake in keeping the system sustainable, which means teams need to continue meeting their objectives and finding ways to work effectively. That makes the four-day week less of a perk and more of an operating model.
It also explains why O’Connor rejects the idea that shorter workweeks are simply for people who don’t want to work hard. Someone who wants to coast through the week may actually struggle under the model because the trade-off comes with greater accountability to managers and colleagues.
The goal is to make work more valuable, not simply make it shorter.
Work-Life Balance Is Becoming a Competitive Advantage
The argument also extends beyond productivity. O’Connor points to Randstad research showing that, for the first time in the 25 years the company has conducted its global workforce survey, work-life balance ranked ahead of pay among workers’ priorities. For companies that cannot compete with the largest employers on salary, work time can become another way to attract talent.
O’Connor has seen smaller companies use shorter schedules to compete for workers against much larger technology companies that could offer considerably higher compensation. That could become increasingly important as employees place more value on how work fits into their lives.
For O’Connor, the future of work is not necessarily about forcing everyone into one schedule. The four-day week may eventually become more common, but different organizations will use different models. The bigger idea is that companies need to stop treating time as the primary measure of contribution.
AI is making it increasingly difficult to argue that being busy is the same thing as being productive. If technology can handle more of the speed and volume of work, humans may have more value in the things that technology struggles to replicate: judgment, creativity, relationships, adaptability and good decisions.
The companies that recognize that distinction could use AI to give employees more work…or they could use it to give employees more time. O’Connor believes the second option may be where the real productivity opportunity lies.
