28. 5 Steps to a 4-Day Work Week for Employees

Just because you're an employee doesn't mean you have to be working long hours forever. Twenty plus years ago, when I tried to work less than a five day work week, the environment was not very ripe for that. Corporate environments were very clear. People had to work certain hours, you had to do things a certain way, and you had to be present. The answer was always, well, Wade, you know what? If we let you work less hours, we have to let everybody else work less hours. Thankfully, as the marketplace has become more and more results focused, many small business owners and some corporations are starting to understand more how important it is to have people be fresh, get results, and retain people over the long run. There's a saying in recruiting when you talk to small business owners or companies, and the saying is, I'd rather hire great people and ultimately lose them than hire poor people and keep them. And by poor people, not money poor people, but people who are poor performers. But the ultimate is to have good producers or good performers, good employees, good team members, and keep them for the long run.

And so rather than having people constantly looking for a new opportunity, employers, and this is if you're an employer, take this in as much as if you're an employee, employers can provide a situation where people don't have to jump jobs. I recently read something that said the average millennial will change job within the next three years, over 90 % of them, I think it was 91 %, will change jobs or plan to change jobs within three years. And very often that's because their first job doesn't seem appealing, and they don't see a way that they can enjoy a lifestyle while they're working. But that doesn't have to be the case. So the first step to create an opportunity where you could perhaps work as a four day worker for an employer, and you being an employee, is to get results that are worth more than you make. So that's the first key, any small business owner or corporation that knows their numbers will know what you're worth to them. Now, many of them don't. Maybe at least half, perhaps even more of small business owners or corporations don't really understand their numbers. They don't understand what an employee or a team member is worth.

But many do, and the best ones certainly do. And when you start getting super high results, the first thing that goes off in the mind of any really good business owner is, Oh, wow. I don't want to lose this person. Your way of letting them know that you're serious is to get results. Some people say, Wait, I'm going to tell them. I'm going to go in there and tell them I'm only working five days or four days or this. Say, Whoa, you can do that, but that's a little more confrontational than it needs to be. The first thing is you just get the results. If you get the results and you can make sure they can see the results, and again, some workplaces don't do this as well, and if they don't, you might eventually want to leave that workplace. Not telling you to leave now, but in the long run, you want to be in workplaces where they acknowledge results and you get results. So you get the results that are worth more than you make. Second, you get the same value of results in more or less hours. And what I mean by that, I said that wrong, get the same value of results or more in less hours.

So if you know your position is worth X dollars, get results that are worth one and a half times X or two times X, and start doing that, though, in less hours. So first you tell your boss, Hey, look, I'm doing this first thing. The average person gets X results in this position. I'm getting two times X. But more than that, now what I'm doing is I'm getting two times X and I'm getting that in four days a week. You make it very clear that you're getting results and that time is not an obstacle to you getting results. The third thing is to then get paid for your results by your current employer or ultimately a new employer. Now, depending on the type of position you're in, you might already have this. If you're in commission only sales, you're already in a results based position. If you're in a position that has a salary only, well, then you might not be compensated as much for results, or maybe you have a mix of the two. But bottom line, you want to have the conversation with the employer where you say, I'm ready to get paid based off of results.

I'm willing to be held accountable to that. Small business owners, corporations, they want accountable employees and team members. People who say, Look, I get where you are, Mr. O wner, Mrs. O wner. You've got to make a profit. I'm going to help you make sure we do that, and I'm willing to be compensated based off of results. And then eventually, you work less hours to make the same or more income. Now, initially, you might say, Well, wait, what if this person doesn't give me permission to do this? They don't allow me to do this. You might start with something as simple as saying, I'm going to take off my vacation time, and for the next 10 weeks, I'm going to take off every Friday. So I'm going to use my 10 vacation days, let's say I had 10, and I'm going to use every Friday off. I might even tell the boss ahead of time, or I might not. I might just wait till the results are gotten. At the end of those 10 weeks, if I've been able to demonstrate that I can get higher results in four days a week over an extended period of time, then I can open the conversation saying, Hey, is that something that could work with me?

Then once you can do that, again, your current employer might allow it. You might need to ultimately look somewhere else. But once you can get paid more for getting more results, then all you need to do now is keep your expenses the same until your total income starts increasing. Think of it this way. First, I'll use some numbers here. Let's say I need to make $40,000 a year. I'm going to use 40 because it's a nice round pretty number. I need to make $40,000 a year, and initially I figure out how to make $40,000 a year in five days a week. Then I get more productive and I learn how to make $50,000 a year in five days a week. Then I tell my employer, Hey, would you mind if I, instead of working five days to make 50, could I work four days to work 40? Never done that before. Four days to work 40,000, or could I make 60,000 and work the four days? And you keep the extra 10 or whatever it might be, or come up with a profit sharing agreement. You can figure out. There's a lot of different ways to do that.

But bottom line, once you get to your number and you can make your same 40,000, you needed your 40, and you can make that in four days now instead of five days. Now we want to make sure that you keep your expenses the same, that you're still living off of 40 until you start making at least 45 or 50 or so on. You want to make sure you set yourself up okay. There's a few variables going on. There's can you be worth it where the employer wants you to pay you more or at least the same to work less hours? Then can you afford it? If you go from step 1 to 5 here, get the results that are worth more than you're currently making, get those same results or more in less time, get paid for those results by your current employer, preferably if you like working there or somewhere else. Sometimes you can just tell people what you're thinking. You can say it politely. A lot of this is tone and how you approach it. Say, Hey, gosh, I had these goals. My kids are this age, I want to spend more time.

I'm thinking, if I can get more results than the average person gets in five days, would you care how many days it took me to get them? There's different ways you can set this up. Ultimately, you get your results based situation, you work your less hours and you make the same income, or hopefully, eventually also, you make more money, you keep your expenses the same. And then as your income increases, then you can still do whatever you need to do of savings, of making sure you have whatever plans you have taken care of, whether it be insurance or protection or long term retirement plans. And once you've done that, then you might decide you're going to increase your lifestyle expenses but first you make sure you lock in the additional income and the lifestyle without you increasing your expenses. I hope you find this helpful. It's really not that difficult to do this if you go step by step. If you want to start creating your plan to do this, one of the ways to do it is to have the big picture game plan of how you're going to work a four day work week.

The four day work week game plan is a tool and a series of training and coaching videos like this video that will help you understand how you can do that and map out your plan. It took me 22 years to do it. It shouldn't take you 22 years to do it if you focus on that. So go ahead if you want, register for that. If you have any questions, as always, let me know. I look forward to helping you make more money in less time. Do what you do best. Thank you.